For Anna’s birthday dinner last December we went to Benihana. The kids absolutely loved it and are always asking to go back (they have expensive taste!). One of our favorite food items that night was, surprisingly, the fried rice. It was a simple dish but so tasty and watching the chef cook it up inspired me to go home and try making it myself.
I’ve tried making fried rice a few times now and I think I have it down, although I’m sure it will continue to evolve! The trick is you need to be willing to cook everything in batches – the rice “fries” much better this way. I’ve also discovered that fried rice is a great “everything but the kitchen sink” recipe – whatever meats and veggies you have lying around can totally work!
I don’t know why I haven’t tried making fried rice earlier in my life, it’s such a great dinner idea. I know some of you are fried rice aficionados, so please feel free to share your own tips and/or recipes in the comments!
- 6 cups cooked rice (leftover rice is best, but you can cook the day of as well)
- Soy sauce
- Sesame oil
- Canola oil
- Ground ginger
- 1 onion, sliced thinly
- Veggies - chopped small (I use frozen corn, frozen peas chopped green onions, chopped carrots (small or in matchsticks) - you can use whatever veggies you like or happen to have lying around)
- Cooked and chopped chicken or pork (I like to use grilled chicken)
- 4 eggs, lightly beaten
- Salt and Pepper
- In a large, deep frying pan or wok, heat a tablespoon or so of canola oil over medium heat. Add sliced onions and cook until soft and translucent. Transfer to a very large mixing bowl.
- Place pan back on heat and turn it up to medium-high. Add about 2 tablespoons of canola oil, 1 tablespoon soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil to the pan and heat.
- Add about a third of the rice to the pan, stirring well to coat evenly in the oils and soy sauce. Sprinkle evenly with ground ginger, a bit of salt and some pepper. Cook until rice starts to brown and, if you like, gets a little fried in parts. Transfer to the large mixing bowl with the onions.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 and until all the rice has been cooked.
- Once rice is all cooked, add a bit of canola oil and soy sauce to the pan and then cook the meat and veggies until heated through. Add to the large mixing bowl.
- Pour lightly-beaten eggs into the hot frying pan. Let the eggs spread out in the pan and start to cook, then sort of flip the egg, and then chop with your spatula, so it's more "chopped" scrambled egg rather than "scrambled" scrambled egg (am I making sense?). As soon as the eggs are cooked through (not too long!), dump into large mixing bowl.
- Stir everything together well. Taste and add any salt and pepper if needed.
Hi! My name is Jane Maynard and you've landed yourself on my blog, This Week for Dinner™. Every Sunday I share a weekly menu...and count on you to share yours! You'll also find other deliciousness that I hope you'll enjoy!
Adding this to my menu soon! I think it would be terrific with my leftover Easter ham 🙂
this WOULD be a great recipe for easter leftovers! 🙂
I usually add a pinch of sugar to mine as well. I also season the scrambled eggs with a bit of soy and sesame oil before cooking. Mirin is also a good addition if you have it on hand. I like to top it of with a few fried wonton strips for crunch. It’s my favorite leftover lunch.
great tips, thank you so much, francie! will try for sure!!
You might want to think twice before eating fried or leftover rice, health experts say.
That’s because some types of dry food, including rice and pasta, contain a bacterium called Bacillus cereus that produces a toxin when heated and left out too long, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That toxin can make you very sick.
“Fried rice is definitely one of most common food vehicles for B. cereus,” said Dr. Sam Crowe, an epidemiologist at the CDC.
Fried rice is often associated with outbreaks of B. cereus because of the way it’s prepared, Crowe said. If a large quantity of rice made at a restaurant or home is left out to cool for several hours, the bacteria (which looks like spores) can germinate. The then-cooled contaminated rice is later fried in a pan with other ingredients, usually at a temperature that’s not sufficiently hot enough to destroy the toxin.
Once eaten, either the germinated spores or the toxin it produced can cause vomiting or diarrhea.
The key to preventing these illnesses is to keep the bacteria from multiplying after the food has been cooked. To rapidly cool leftover rice, Crowe recommends storing it in small, shallow containers.