Spicy Soak

• Marinading chicken before cooking it not only encourages a juicer burrito filling when you're grilling or broiling the chicken, but adds flavor no matter what the cooking method. After you've combined olive or vegetable oil with an acid such as vinegar or lime juice, whisk in a few cloves of chopped garlic, a bit of salt and pepper, and a few spoonfuls, total, of such complementary Mexican spices as cumin, oregano and cayenne pepper. This is also a good time to impart the taste of cilantro or epazote, two important Mexican herbs. The chicken need only rest in this spicy brew for about 30 minutes before you cook it.

Redolant Rub

• Add a little "Tex" to your "Mex" with a dry spice rub. For burritos, spice rubs are patted into whole chickens, separated bone-in chicken or boneless chicken breasts. Leave them for at least an hour in the fridge to absorb the flavors, and then grill, roast or broil the chicken as you normally would. A typical rub blend has about four parts red chili powder, three parts each cumin and paprika, two parts each onion and garlic, and a bit of cayenne pepper.

Special Sauce

• When you're using store-cooked or leftover chicken, cooking the shredded chicken in a Mexican-style sauce is the best way to infuse the burrito filling with flavor. Cooking Light's rotisserie-based chicken burrito filling, for example, calls for boiling together about a ladle's worth of water, juice from a lime, and generous dashes of spices such as cumin, black pepper and ground red pepper. Of course, you can adjust the proportions to suit your preferences. Once the mixture boils, the chicken can be added to the sauce pot to heat and combine the protein with the sauce.

Culinary Caution

• If you are using a product labeled "chili powder," double-check to see which type you have. One product known as chili powder consists only of crushed red chili peppers. Another product sold as chili powder -- because it's especially popular to make the stew called chili -- combines the base of crushed chili peppers with spices such as cumin, oregano and garlic powder. If you're using the chili powder blend, be careful not to overuse additional spices that might already be in the chili powder blend.