Flavorful Low-sodium Family Meals

I have never been one for food with lots of sodium though sometimes I just to need to eat something salt like pretzels of chips. Now my mother-in-law uses a lot of salt, and I do mean a lot! When I started cooking for my husband it made things a bit interesting. I had to find ways to make food very flavorful but with less salt that way be were both happy and we were eating healthier. Now I rarely use salt when I cook. Of course I use it while baking as the salt is needed for structure. I don't avoid all salt I just use it very sparingly. When you don't use salt on a everything I cook. Once you use less salt you start to need less and less because your taste buds become more sensitive to it. My mom was not one to use much salt in her cooking either. When I make rice I don't add any salt instead I add Mrs Dash Lemon Pepper. Also when I saute veggies I never add any salt at all instead I usually saute garlic with the veggies and then I like to add Mrs. Dash Chicken Seasoning Blend. The thing I like best about Mrs Dash's Seasoning Blends are that they contain no MSG! I do not handle MSG well at all my tongue swells and stays that way for days, it is not pleasant at all. I also love to add Mrs Dash Original to hamburgers when we make them ourselves. I love using seasoning blends because the spices and herbs are already balanced. I don't have to worry about using to much of one kind and not enough of another. If you are not which blend is right for what you are making smell it. If it smells good with what you are making it will taste good. Since part of out sense of taste is based on scent if when you are smelling the seasonings and it sound good and smell good with the food you are preparing it will be delicious. Do you have tricks to reduce sodium in your diet? I have one last trick we do not have a salt shaker. I have salt but they are in the container from the store not in a shaker. My in laws are the only ones that notice that we don't own one. They actually bought us one for Christmas on year but it was really ugly and we don't need one so I donated it!

I wrote this blog post while participating in the Mrs. Dash and TwitterMoms blogging program for a chance to get a $50 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here.