i've been trying to put some flavor into brown rice for years. the best i could come up with was cooking in broth, herbs, and garlic. my family is not a fan of it. even mixed into curry,but they still don't like it.

so tonight i mixed brown rice with ground turkey. everyone liked it!

i cooked the rice first, in the usual broth and garlic cloves(and a small spoonful of pb). then when it was almost done i started browning the ground turkey.
i seasoned the meat with terriaki sauce and sesame oil. then mixed them together.

i did asian flavors along with veggies this time, but it could work with italian, mexican, lots of different flavors. great for putting in asian dumplings, meal loaf/balls, fried rice...i also cooked the rice/meat mixture with some scrambled eggs at the end, but i couldn't really taste them.

it is a boring brown color, so it's a good idea to have this with some bright veggies on top or add some chopped up in the pan. also, my family isn't used to ground turkey, we've only had it a few times. so they didn't notice the texture difference. it looked like it was all meat.

We do this with various meats and various rices. We call it a beef, turkey, whatever kind of meat we used bowl.

One great combo I have found is ground lamb and red jasmine rice. I use a french herb blend with this one and then put just a bit of mint sauce in after it's all cooked. It's so yummy!

Another easy way I've found to add flavor to brown rice is to add just a bit of wine and/or vinegar to the water while it's cooking. The type of wine or vinegar I use depends on what I'm serving the rice with (red for beef, white for chicken, balsamic with lamb, etc.). I found a garlic red wine vinegar at wal-mart that is awesome for this.

I used to make something like that with shrimp and sauteed baby spinach with balsamic vinegar. I'm allergic to shellfish now, so I do it with all veggies. The vinegar makes a big difference.

When cooking rice for 'under' a dish, I boil it with either cinnamon or cumin, depending on what it's cooking with. A little olive oil helps the flavor soak in, and across several servings the calories/fat don't add up to much.

I forgot to mention - I buy short grain brown rice out of the bulk bins when I can find it, and I think it has a much better flavor and texture than regular brown rice.