Tabasco sauce, herbs, spices. If you've got one of the multi-pack herb/spice boxes from Costco or the like, and it's more than a couple years old, toss it. The fresher the better.

garlic, onion, cumin, ginger, cayenne, turmeric, paprika, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, mint, vinegar, lemon juice/zest, orange juice/zest - experiment!

You don't HAVE to eat a lot of vegetables (nutritionists all over the world would be gasping in horror at that sentence, but I believe it's true.) Eat lots of fruit. Really, you can. A paleo diet doesn't have to be low-carb. Eating too much fruit is unlikely. They have fiber and water content (And the sheer bulk of the food) which makes over-eating them hard.

I share your preference of fruits over vegetables. I mean, I like raw carrots because they can be sweet like fruit but I don't much care for anything else.

Also, tubers like potatoes aren't really forbidden. It's not Neolithic, and it is part of many hunter-gatherer diets. I like potatoes too. I actually like them better than sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes don't go well with anything, but potatoes are very versatile and lend their texture well to a variety of condiments.

Try watching cooking shows or reading recipes for flavor combo inspiration and to learn techniques like deglazing and reducing for au jus, braising, how chefs season and roast or grill meat, etc. I'm not talking about begin a slave to recipes - I never follow them. No one has to be a chef or have a recipe to be able to cook, but I think we've lost a lot of knowledge of cooking technique in the past couple of generations that we can learn again from shows and cookbooks. I know I have and my taste buds are happy at last.

If you are opposed to using salt (i am not, i just use it sparingly now) you can use bacon and or bacon grease to flavor up just about any meat! You can brush it onto chicken before broiling or baking, it will give the skin a salty crispy texture. You can add a piece or two to a skillet, let it brown, remove it and pan fry a rib eye in there and will get the same salty crispy result. Same goes for most veggies! Just crumble the bacon back up and add it to your greens at the very end. I use bacon as my "oil" to season and cook all the time. I love the flavor it lends.

I would recommend Julia Child's cookbook. She has a lot of great sauces (hollandaise is a favorite). You can also learn a lot of cooking techniques for meat/eggs/veggies to make them taste good. I had to learn how to cook when I started paleo, and it took a lot of experimentation and a lot of bad meals. I literally could not boil water, but now I cook every day.

Try, coarse sea salt... the right amount of seasoning is key.

Add fat to everything: olive oil (when cold) or lard or coconut oil.

Also, try different veggies: parsnips, turnips, beets. Try making french fried root veggies. This will get you in the right direction. ;)

Curry and wasabi are two palate-awakeners for me. I love asparagus coated in salted butter and powdered wasabi (Japanese horseradish) and grilled or pan-sauteed at high heat until tender-crisp.

Curry is great for sprinkling on butter-glazed root veggies and tubers just before slow roasting, also when combined with coconut milk or coconut oil. Garam masala is a curry blend with chai-esque spices that is delicious on almost anything, but especially in the butter-glazed (or coconut oil glazed) veggie roasting just mentioned.

Also try a chimichurri sauce on your beef.

Non-calorie sweeteners don't have a lot of support in the paleo community, but I found them (and salt) to be extremely helpful especially when in the transition stage. The problem with pre-made sauces/mixes is that there's no happy medium. You either get the full on HFCS/salt stuff, or full on fake-sweet. But if you cook everything from scratch, you can regulate the amount of sweetener that you use and gradually reduce that.

I use a high quality liquid stevia or erythritol in some cooking, like in a thai curry, or a bbq pork, where a bit of sweetness really brings out the flavour. You can ratchet that amount down over time. I find thai takeout way too sweet now, for example, but I would definitely have gone "bleh" at sugar/sweetener-less foods at the beginning.

Now I'm at the point where 85-90% dark chocolate is just about right and a normal "dark chocolate" tastes like pure sugar to me.

Ditto with cranking down the salt a bit over time.

This is an example of something I made this morning using many of the suggestions above - bacon, spices and herbs.

Ingredients
2 large & thick slices bacon (OK to use more)
1 onion
1 lb ground buffalo
few cloves garlic, minced
chipotle powder
dried sage
fresh rosemary (dried OK too, but I have a rosemary bush outside)
salt
1 yam, roasted in oven

Cooked bacon in the oven, then used grease to brown the minced onion. Then added buffalo and browned that. When close to done, crumbled the bacon, added the garlic with a generous amount of chipotle powder, herbs and a little salt. Stirred it around and added a splash of water to distribute the chipotle powder. When meat fully cooked, sliced the roasted yam and added that to the meat.

Result was spicy, smoky (from chipotle and bacon), salty, plus the added flavor of herbs and browned onion; and sweet from the yam. Delicious! And not so hard to do.

Point is that just browned buffalo (or ground beef) might have been boring but with a few more simple ingredients and extra effort it can be really good.

Additional comments - definitely learn to brown then braise; and I really like chimichurri too.

You can roast just about any vegetable with salt, garlic and olive oil (or whatever fat you're using) and it'll come out with a really rich flavor. My husband grew up with canned or boiled veggies, so usually thought eating vegetables as a bland, soft chore. I turned him around once we started roasting.

Crank up your oven to 450 and let it roast till brown. Depending on the vegetable and how large you cut them up, it could be 10 - 30 minutes. For example, asparagus probably takes about 10 minutes while cauliflower (with curry powder!) takes closer to 20.

If you ever have steaks (whether beef, lamb or pork) or chicken parts, try broiling them. It's faster and it imparts a delicious flavor that I find lacking in roasting or frying.

The foundations of flavor are salt, pepper and vinegar. Tabasco sauce has all three and a little does go a long way. I didn't see that you were using any salt. We use Himalayan salt. You might also try smashing garlic cloves and inserting them (poke a slit with a small knife) into your roast next time you make it.

Also, if you're into roasting a whole chicken, or turkey, brining it for a few hours before hand makes for the tastiest, juiciest bird ever. Add aromatic herbs to be brine, whichever ones you enjoy... I even add orange peel.

Fat, besides adding some flavor, brings out the flavor of the ingredients! Especially the sweet flavor.

Also, tastebuds, or better, the central nervous system, really seems to adapt. Things that were once to bitter or sour, now are just sweet enough for me.

youre welcome! ;)

amazing rare spice blends. buy whole and grind at home

Sigil: my suggestion is to find what you like and give yourself some room to try things and see how it goes!

For example, do you like tomato sauce (like what is used for spaghetti?)? Chances are, you do (maybe not though?). Tomato sauce is a great way to sneak in a ton of veggies (zucchini, squash, etc.) without much of a veggie taste. Just be sure to use fresh garlic in the sauce, and get a good can of tomatoes. Once you have your tomato sauce recipe established how you like it, use it in a ton of different ways! Saute' up broccoli and cover it in tomato sauce, serve it with your chicken.

If you are still trying to lean out, I'd say really limit the fruit. Very difficult to lean out with lots of fruit.

Make sauces your friend for all kinds of stuff. It's easy to OD or just become really bored with salads - especially if you don't like veggies. Opt for more flavorful options - a stir fry with loads of ginger and garlic (and tamari as your soy sauce), I know people whose lives have been transformed with veggies once they tried oven roasting them with garlic and olive oil (cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts).

Find what you like - experiment to find new things you might like - maybe even take a cooking class to learn a particular style of cooking that you like (Italian, Chinese, Thai, Mexican) and then adapt it in your paleo way. For me, sauces have been my bff in going paleo (my chimichurri or adobo or "peanut-less" sauces go on just about everything! - feel free to hit me up for recipes!)

I have a friend who is a very picky eater, and had to eat ketchup on everything just to get into paleo. It wasn't perfect paleo, but it was a start!

I'm no chef but it sounds like you need to experiment with sauces on your own. You can make some delicious gravies and sauces using the drippings from meat or the leftover grease when cooking. This is something even my non-paleo mom does. Granted, she adds corn starch but I'm sure there's a paleo-friendly substitute for corn starch...maybe bone meal? Experiment and think outside the box and remember that in a paleo diet the flavor is in the fat. So pile it on. Make sauces, gravies and creams out of fat and use lots of herbs and spices. I'm sure you will be able to come up with something rich, tasty and nutritious! Maybe you can post your recipe sometime!

One tip for seasoning with salt and pepper. Make sure that you season often during the whole cooking process. I used to always just season early and late in the process, but now that I'm seasoning just a bit every time I add an ingredient to a stew, or every time I check on the doneness of my roast, the taste is much more subtle and rich.

Don't forget the pepper, the king of spices. Pepper has a very recognizable taste if you just add lots at the end, but it really enhances flavours if you use it as I describe above.

Flavour enhancers that I use a lot, these are mostly non-paleo, but are used in small amounts except for the tomatoes:

• Tomatoes are a great natural flavour enhancer, so if you are eating nightshades, use lots of tomatoes, added as early as is feasible.
• A bit of wine goes a long way. I freeze leftover wine in ice cube bags.
• Make stock from everything you can think of, freeze it and use it instead of water.
• A teaspoon of honey or maple syrup does wonders.
• Star anise is magic for pot roast and a miracle for pork marinades. It can be overpowering, so be careful. I often just use a single arm for a stew.
• A tiny bit of Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce or HP sauce, some nice fermented sauce.
• Fish sauce! I don't just use it in Thai food any more. I use it in my marinara and Bolognese.
• Cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves. These spice make everything more meaty, and by varying the amounts of each you can go more Indian, more medieval England, more Arabian. Use in moderation as with the star anise.
• Citrus fruit and/or zest.

Also, you should try ethnic food. Vietnamese and Thai food is really good, even without the traditional starches and sugar. Do a great taco with pulled pork, wrapped in lettuce. Ghanaian stews are amazing, palm oil makes everything awesome. I often make Indian curries with lambs hearts, they are great as well. Kebab, without the pita, with some nice harissa and yoghurt sauce.