Our best fried rice recipe is the best thing to make with all your leftover rice—and whatever else you want to put in it!
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 What's going on everyone?
00:00 It's Justin in the Delish Test Kitchen.
00:03 Fried rice is like maybe the ultimate leftover meal.
00:06 Truly, I think it's like one of the only leftovers
00:08 that is better than the thing that you're cooking with
00:11 from the day before.
00:12 First thing we need to talk about is rice.
00:14 Most traditionally and honestly, most effectively,
00:17 if you're making fried rice,
00:18 you're gonna wanna use leftover rice.
00:19 Especially if you can take some rice
00:21 from either like a takeout place
00:22 or rice that you made the night before
00:24 and spread it out on a sheet tray
00:26 and put it in your fridge.
00:27 Spreading it out's gonna allow it to dry out
00:29 because a dried rice makes for better fried rice.
00:31 You're gonna get those individual rice grains
00:33 when you fry them.
00:33 It's gonna soak in the fat a little bit easier.
00:35 It's gonna be delicious.
00:36 But if you want to be making fried rice
00:39 and you have nothing in your fridge,
00:40 I have the perfect cooking method for fried rice.
00:44 It's not my method.
00:44 I'm stealing it from someplace else,
00:46 but truly I've done this like almost 15 times at this point
00:49 and it's made the best fried rice I've ever made personally.
00:52 It's like truly foolproof.
00:53 We're gonna be using jasmine rice.
00:55 Any long grain white rice is gonna be great here.
00:57 And the first thing I do whenever I'm cooking rice
00:59 is I'm gonna rinse it.
01:01 I do it in a fine mesh strainer.
01:03 I know a lot of people will do it in the pot
01:04 that they're cooking it in
01:05 'cause they don't wanna messy up another thing,
01:07 but we're actually gonna use this later.
01:09 So I'll just go right in and rinse it,
01:12 constantly moving it around.
01:13 And it's gonna take like 30 seconds to a minute.
01:16 We wanna make sure that the water that's coming out here
01:18 eventually comes out basically clean.
01:21 At first it's gonna look like rather milky
01:23 and you wanna make sure that you're moving around the grains
01:25 so that everything gets rinsed off really well.
01:27 This fried rice hack comes from my absolute favorite
01:31 cooking YouTube channel.
01:32 It's called Chinese Cooking Demystified.
01:34 Could not recommend more.
01:35 The tools that you'll need is the mesh strainer from before
01:38 and then a pot of water that kind of fits perfectly
01:41 or as perfectly as possible,
01:43 like flush to the edge of that strainer,
01:45 a lid for that pot and some tinfoil.
01:48 The hack that they gave us is a two-step cooking process.
01:51 The first thing we're gonna do
01:52 is we are going to parboil our rice for about three minutes.
01:55 This is gonna like jumpstart our cooking
01:57 and get us like breaking down the outsides
01:59 of these grains of rice
02:00 and get us a little bit further along than you usually would
02:03 'cause we're gonna be adding it to already boiling water.
02:05 We're gonna strain the rice
02:06 and then we're gonna create a steamer.
02:08 We're not gonna use the water that we strained off before.
02:10 We're gonna use fresh water
02:11 because it's too much starch content
02:13 in that parboiled rice water.
02:15 So go ahead and get like an inch and a half of water
02:18 into that bottom of that pot.
02:20 We're gonna build a little impromptu steamer
02:22 using our fine mesh strainer.
02:23 So I'm gonna move that over our pot
02:26 and I'm gonna go in,
02:26 you could use like the back of a spoon or a fork.
02:29 I'm gonna use a chopstick to just make some holes
02:31 in the rice so that steam can come up
02:33 and circulate within our steamer.
02:35 So I'm just gonna go ahead and do that.
02:38 Then I'm gonna take a piece of tinfoil.
02:43 I'm gonna cover it.
02:44 Doesn't have to be like totally snug,
02:45 but we wanna like have it very well-tented.
02:48 Then we're gonna cover it with the lid of the pot
02:50 and we're gonna get this steaming over like medium high heat
02:53 and it's gonna go for 15 minutes.
02:55 The reason why we're steaming is because as I said before,
02:57 we wanna keep our grains pretty dry in the final product.
03:01 That's gonna make for better fried rice.
03:03 So steaming is a little bit of a gentler process for cooking
03:05 and there's a lot less moisture going into the rice
03:08 instead of like pounding in boiling water
03:10 into these little grains.
03:11 We're still gonna be like cooking them
03:13 in a little baby rice steam bath.
03:15 It's gonna be delicious.
03:16 While our rice gets cooked off,
03:17 we can slice up our veg.
03:19 We're gonna thinly slice four scallions.
03:21 You wanna separate the whites from the greens.
03:23 Greens we're gonna garnish with later
03:25 and white is what we're gonna cook with.
03:26 That's like kind of mimicking like a regular onion,
03:28 that alliumy flavor.
03:30 Then we're gonna go in with, count 'em, five garlic cloves.
03:33 I like my fried rice super garlicky.
03:34 You can take it back if you want,
03:35 but honestly you shouldn't 'cause it's really good
03:37 and delicious.
03:38 Then you're gonna add about an inch of ginger,
03:41 peeled and minced really small.
03:43 It's been about 15 minutes,
03:44 so I'm gonna check on our rice.
03:46 (upbeat music)
03:48 That's exactly where I want it.
03:50 I kind of want like, it should almost taste al dente.
03:53 It's not going to be.
03:54 It should be fully cooked through,
03:55 but it should be drier than what you're used to
03:57 and that's perfect.
03:58 I'm gonna remove this rice to a sheet tray
04:00 and spread it into one thin layer.
04:02 There's a little bit of overkill.
04:03 You shouldn't need to do this,
04:04 but it just helps to cool the rice down quicker.
04:06 Fried rice is one of those things
04:07 that come together really, really quickly,
04:08 so it helps you to have all of your mes next to you
04:11 from the start.
04:12 You don't necessarily need a wok to make fried rice.
04:14 I've made incredible fried rice
04:16 in like a big cast iron skillet.
04:17 You want something that retains a lot of heat, of course,
04:20 but I do like using a wok.
04:21 You're not gonna get that like jet fuel burner
04:24 like you'll get in a Chinese restaurant
04:26 and you're not gonna get the wok hei,
04:27 which is that like smoky taste you'll get
04:29 from flipping the food over
04:31 that really, really high intense heat,
04:33 but I will say the centralized heat
04:35 at the bottom of the wok
04:36 and the amount of movement you're able to get
04:38 within something like this
04:40 is actually very helpful in fried rice
04:42 and is also gonna be a decent amount of food
04:44 and this is a large vessel.
04:45 I really like it.
04:46 The first thing we're gonna cook is our eggs.
04:47 It's gonna be three eggs.
04:49 I like to just barely beat these together.
04:51 I like to see little bits of white in my fried rice egg,
04:54 so I'm gonna give this a little bit of like a rough beat.
04:56 Then I'm gonna get a tablespoon of oil
04:58 over like medium high heat,
04:59 get that nice and hot, a little shimmery,
05:02 and get our eggs in.
05:04 You're gonna wanna move them around pretty quickly
05:06 and you almost wanna like press in with your spatula
05:08 to make like that perfect little fried rice egg squiggle
05:11 and then you're gonna wanna take them out.
05:13 We wanna precook our eggs here
05:14 because if they sit in the fried rice for a long time,
05:17 it's gonna be overcooked.
05:18 It should just kind of just look oily
05:19 and you should be good to go
05:21 after a little bit of a wipe out of your wok.
05:23 Last piece of prep I wanna do before we go in
05:25 and cook this rice
05:26 'cause it's really gonna come together
05:27 in like between two and four minutes
05:29 depending on how good your burner is
05:32 is I wanna toss together all of our seasoning.
05:34 The base of this is salt and sugar in equal parts
05:38 and I know you're thinking like,
05:39 why are you putting sugar in fried rice?
05:42 Because I believe that all savory dishes
05:44 should be finished off with a little bit of sugar
05:45 if there's not like a natural source of sweetness in it.
05:47 It really helps to like round things out
05:49 and I honestly think that like Eastern kitchens
05:52 like in Korea, Japan, and China,
05:53 or way in like Thailand also like really good
05:56 at like making wholesome, really well-rounded flavors
05:59 in dishes incorporating all the different types of flavors
06:01 and in America and like the West,
06:03 we can kind of be like one note.
06:05 So sugar is gonna be very, very helpful here.
06:07 We're also gonna be adding white pepper.
06:09 I love white pepper.
06:10 It's kind of underutilized outside of like nicer kitchens
06:14 but it's kind of, it's very different from black pepper.
06:16 It's not as spicy,
06:18 although we don't necessarily think of black pepper as spicy
06:20 it's earthy, it's a little musty.
06:23 And the last little bit is gonna be MSG.
06:25 We're gonna go into our wok with two tablespoons
06:27 of peanut or vegetable oil.
06:29 You wanna use a lot of oil here.
06:30 That might seem like overkill
06:32 but this is fried rice after all.
06:34 It's not sauteed rice, it's not like dry cooked rice,
06:37 it's fried rice.
06:38 We want all of the grains to be slick and coated
06:40 and soaked in with that fat.
06:42 It's gonna be delicious.
06:43 It's not any worse for you, we're not deep frying it.
06:45 We do wanna like add a little bit more.
06:47 It's gonna go a long way.
06:48 So that's what we're gonna start with.
06:49 Once that's nice and shimmery,
06:50 we're gonna go in with our garlic and ginger.
06:52 That's only gonna go about 30 seconds.
06:54 We're cooking over high heat.
06:55 So you gotta move it a lot.
06:57 You gotta make sure we're not burning anything.
06:59 Starting with our aromatics
07:00 isn't just gonna cook down that veg a little bit
07:02 but it's also gonna flavor our oil.
07:04 Once that's nice and fragrant,
07:05 we're gonna go in with our white and pale green parts
07:07 of our scallions, toss that in there,
07:09 get them a little softened for only about a minute.
07:12 When you're stir frying in a wok,
07:14 you want there to be a lot of movement.
07:15 So not only should you be moving your spoon
07:18 or your spatula around a lot,
07:19 you wanna be moving the actual pan itself
07:21 and you can actually do some flipping
07:23 to make sure that everything is well incorporated
07:26 and that can kind of mimic if your burner is hard,
07:29 high enough and strong enough
07:30 to get a little bit of that like wok-y flavor,
07:32 that like smoky, fiery flavor.
07:35 But truthfully, that might be hard to get
07:36 without having like a butane burner.
07:39 Then we're gonna add all of our rice.
07:41 Continue to toss that up pretty consistently,
07:43 moving that spatula around.
07:44 We're looking to have all of the grains
07:46 kind of be individual.
07:47 That's the telltale sign of a really well fried rice.
07:50 Once the rice goes in,
07:51 that's where the brunt of the cooking of the rice
07:53 is gonna get done.
07:54 We're gonna wanna go for like two to three minutes.
07:57 If this was like an actual restaurant burner,
08:00 we could maybe do it in like 45 seconds to a minute
08:03 but two minutes is about what we're looking for
08:05 until we hear like the nice popping of the rice grains.
08:08 It should smell like toasted cereal-y notes
08:12 and you should see that the rice is separating
08:14 into those individual grains.
08:16 Then we're gonna go in with our seasoning,
08:18 that mixture that we made, and soy sauce.
08:21 I like low-sodium soy sauce
08:22 so I can control how much salt is going into this.
08:25 We're gonna lend with our cooked eggs,
08:26 the greens of our scallions, and frozen peas.
08:30 It's okay if they're frozen.
08:31 They're not gonna emit a ton of moisture.
08:33 They're gonna immediately get softened
08:34 and beautifully tender in that beautiful,
08:36 sweet, poppy one out of a pea.
08:38 I love peas in fried rice.
08:40 I think they're very common in Chinese-American fried rice
08:43 and so I wanted to add them in here.
08:45 Last thing we're gonna add is butter.
08:46 This is kind of controversial.
08:48 I'm only adding a tablespoon.
08:49 I kind of feel like I'm incorporating
08:52 a little bit of Western technique into this fried rice.
08:54 Butter finishing is something you see
08:55 used in sauces all of the time.
08:57 It adds a glossy finish and a richness
08:59 and the same can apply here.
09:01 I want that butter and that unctuousness
09:03 to be coating all over the rice
09:06 and the different ingredients that go in there.
09:07 It's like a little bit that goes a long way.
09:10 If you don't wanna use it, that's fine,
09:11 but I promise you it's really delicious.
09:13 It's just so good.
09:17 I mean, I'm biased.
09:18 I worked on this recipe for a long time.
09:20 I went through six iterations.
09:23 My favorite part about it is that white pepper.
09:25 I will honestly, when I make this at home,
09:27 I'll add even more than I have in the recipe.
09:29 From here, you can start thinking
09:31 about what you wanna add to it, right?
09:32 You can take this baseline.
09:34 You could remove the peas and some of the scallion.
09:36 You could do a kimchi bacon fried rice.
09:39 You could do, if you have roast chicken
09:41 and veggies left over, you could do
09:43 a chicken dinner fried rice.
09:45 I have made a Christmas dinner fried rice.
09:47 I did ham and green bean casserole and all that
09:50 and dried cranberries.
09:51 It is so important that you teach yourself skills
09:54 for how to use leftovers well.
09:56 So for more tips, tricks, and leftover recipes,
09:59 stick around here on Delish.com.
10:01 (upbeat music)
10:03 (upbeat music)