A recipe for homemade fried rice with peas, carrots, scrambled egg, and your choice of protein, cooked in a cast-iron skillet. Fabulous fresh, but just as lovely leftover.

If you’re having this and only this for dinner, you’ve got two generous servings. If you’re having it as a side, four to six. Fried rice reheats perfectly, so consider any leftovers to be a boon.

Intro

Do you love fried rice so much that it’s the second thing you look at on an Asian menu? Right after you’ve looked at the egg rolls? Do you imagine that you could never make fried rice at home, because it would require equipment and ingredients that you don’t have? Well, the answers to those questions are, “Me too,” “Me too,” and “Untrue.”

Fried rice is a good way to use up leftover rice. It’s also a good way to clear out your vegetable bin. You can make it in a cast-iron skillet, and it’s actually pretty easy to do. There are a few optional ingredients that might be hard to come by, but the core ingredients you may already have on-hand.

Social Learning

Tips and Tricks

Some people say that you can make fried rice only with certain types of rice. Jasmine is my favorite go-to, everyday rice, so that’s what I tend to have, and so that’s what I use for fried rice. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect for it. Most people also say that the rice you use for fried rice needs to be leftover, although there are some seemingly credible sources who say that isn’t so. I’ve only ever used leftover rice.

I usually exercise all the ingredient options in this recipe, except for the red pepper and ginger. I’ll add those things if I have them on-hand, but I wouldn’t rush out to the store to get them. Don’t fear the fish sauce option. Although this dish is perfectly good without it, the fish sauce really makes the rice taste like you got it from a restaurant.

If you use bacon fat, its flavor will be apparent in the final dish. So, make sure that the rest of the dish’s ingredients harmonize with it. I often use olive oil for this dish, because it’s what I’ve got in the pantry. Even though its relative low smoking point isn’t ideal for this purpose, it works well enough.

Before you turn on the stove, put all your ingredients in order of addition, and memorize the timings and heat settings. Once things get going, you won’t have a lot of time to refer to the recipe. The amount of rice that I’ve called for might not seem like enough when you’re prepping. Trust me, though, once you have the dish fully assembled, it’s a perfect amount.

When I turn the heat to its lowest setting just before scrambling the egg, it’s not that I want to scramble the egg over low heat. The cast-iron’s residual pan heat will still be quite high. I just want to have more control at this point. It’s important that you allow ample room for scrambling the egg. I use a 10-inch cast-iron skillet, and when I push the veg to one side, I have plenty of room for the egg. The egg has to be completely cooked before you mix it into the veg. Otherwise, it will coat the other ingredients, which is not at all what you want.

If when you’re done, you think it needs salt, I’d recommend not more than a pinch. Use your fingers and hold them high above the pan. This will give you a better initial distribution, which will result in a better final distribution once you stir. If you think it still needs more salt, what it probably needs is more rice vinegar and/or soy sauce.

My cast-iron skillet is well seasoned, but I do get sticking here and there when making fried rice. A bit of the rice might stick, and/or a bit of the egg might stick. It’s usually minor, although I’ve had a few bad days. Anything that does stick ultimately unsticks at some point, without requiring a lot of muscle … certainly by the time you’re done. If you manage to still have stuck-on stuff when you’re done, leave the finished dish in the skillet for a few minutes once it’s done, off heat, (which is perfectly fine, because the residual pan heat will keep the rice quite warm) and any remnant of sticking will complete resolve itself.

Ideas

Since you’re using frozen peas, it makes a lot of sense to consider using a package of frozen peas and carrots instead – as David at Spiced does – and skip the peeling, dicing, and cooking of a fresh carrot.

David also suggests rotisserie chicken as the protein, which I think is a great idea. (At my favorite grocery, they sell rotisserie chicken meat, stripped off the bone, by the pound.) Consider chopping the chicken, rather than dicing or shredding it. But also consider bacon, as Mimi at Chef Mimi Blog does in a recipe by David Chang. Between four and eight slices, pre-cooked and chopped, should do it. Taking more inspiration from Mimi’s post, you might consider adding a squeeze of lime.

Dried split peas will work as a substitute for frozen! Soak them for eight hours, strain them. Give them three minutes in the pan, with oil, prior to the onion and carrot, then add the onion and carrot to them, with more oil, proceeding as written.

I love cabbage in fried rice, as a nice addition to the rest of the dish’s ingredients. Four ounces is just about right, but I wouldn’t complain about six. Make it easy on yourself and buy a package of pre-shredded cole slaw mix. Add it along with the scallions. You’ll probably need to double the sauces, only because you’ll now have a lot more veg in the pan.

The Backstory

I like rice. I cook a lot of it, regularly – all the more since I discovered how good the Instant Pot is at cooking it. As a result, I often have leftover rice around. I like to eat it for breakfast, treating it similarly to oatmeal: warming it up with milk, cinnamon, brown sugar, raisins, plus a dash of salt and a pat of butter. As a mid-day snack, I’ll reheat leftover rice with butter, salt, and pepper. But lately, I’ve been wanting to eat more protein, so I’ve pointed my leftover rice in the “fried rice” direction.

I experimented with things like this before (in college, but I never inhaled. Oh wait … that’s a different topic entirely), but it was a pretty particular gochujang-style fried rice that I was experimenting with. This recipe is more mainstream.

I have a new-ish stove, and it has an ultra-high burner. I mainly use it for boiling large pots of water (for pasta, for instance), but it’s also fabulous for anything that needs a really hot flame, like searing meat … or making fried rice. On any other burner, I think I’d probably crank the heat up a few notches.

Outro

It’s as good leftover as it is fresh. I’ll eat it at room temperature. I’ll also eat it cold, even though it’s not ideal that way. It’s a great way to use up leftover ingredients that may be parked in your fridge. Once you’re familiar with the recipe, it’s quick and easy. All of this makes fried rice quite useful for meals at both home and packed in a lunchbucket.

Fried Rice

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise credited. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. References: Epicurious, NYT, Real Simple, Serious Eats. Thank you, Kesor. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #15 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs.

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