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By Anadi Misra · Updated · originally published
By Anadi Misra · Updated · originally published
By Anadi Misra · Updated · originally published
About this recipe
Quick, easy egg fried rice made restaurant-style at home. A simple vegetarian recipe perfect for lunch or dinner, ready in minutes with everyday ingredients you already have.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy
Watch the recipe
Hungry for dinner but not sure what to eat? Were you planning on ordering Chinese food?
Perhaps this Authentic Fried Rice recipe can help you change your mind! Got leftover rice in your fridge? As I discuss in my top 5 tips to explore your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!, having an awareness of what’s in your fridge can guide you in what to cook when you’re in a pinch. If you’ve got some old rice sitting around, then this is THE recipe to use it in! Our six ingredient Chinese Egg Fried Rice recipe is super quick and easy to make and it’s totally family-friendly! I guarantee this will be a new go-to! In fact, I’m going to eat some for dinner tonight because I need something speedy as I finish up editing this video recipe, actually!
If making the perfect scrambled eggs is a pesky protein for you, then use this recipe as an opportunity to master them as part of your Live to Cook one month challenge! You can get the motivation and challenge to get started on your cooking journey for free by signing up to my newsletter, plus you’ll get all new recipes delivered right to your inbox!
Check out the video just to see how seamlessly our Egg Fried Rice comes together! If you haven’t already, I’d love it if you subscribe to my YouTube channel, and be sure to hit the bell button to get notified when my video recipes go live! I find having the videos to go alongside the written recipes will give you a tangible view of what’s going on so you know exactly what to do! Let’s get cooking!
Egg Fried Rice is a Chinese recipe that you pretty much need to order every time to you’re at a Chinese restaurant! It’s an essential rice dish that is made up of white rice, eggs, soy sauce, oil, and green onions. There are plenty of variations of Egg Fried Rice that are made with added veggies and/or proteins. Fundamentally, the basis of a fried rice comes from this simple recipe, and then other fried rice variations build on it. I’ll give ideas on how to build upon this simple egg fried rice later on in this post, so stay tuned! However, I do recommend you do try out this simple egg fried rice recipe on its own to appreciate the deliciousness of the eggs and all the other flavors going on! Plus, it’s amazing for a quick meal not only in terms of cook time but in terms of cleaning time!
In my opinion, the key to a perfect restaurant-quality fried rice comes from the texture of your rice. At minimum, you must make your rice a day prior in order to allow the rice enough time to dry up. If you’re really in a pinch of time, then try to make your rice the morning of cooking your fried rice.
The next secret to an amazing Chinese fried rice is the assortment of veggies. In this recipe, we won’t have too many veggies in order to let the eggs shine and to keep the recipe easy and quick for weeknights.
Lastly, if you want to achieve an incredible Chinese egg fried rice that’s better than takeout, a wok plays a crucial role here. We’ll be cooking at high heat to really fry things up well!
Medium grain white rice is ideal for Egg Fried Rice, and you want to make sure you’re using old rice. The old rice allows the flavors to really glue onto the rice and allows the flavors to reach their full potential!
The authentic choice for an egg fried rice jasmine rice, but I find arborio rice is also a great choice. Other medium grain rice options for egg fried rice include Spanish rice such as valencia bomba or carnaroli. These rices are sturdy and will be able to withstand you mixing it around vigorously.
However, I actually used basmati rice in this recipe and it turned out just fine! If you don’t have any medium grain rice, then feel free to go with basmati. Here I would really recommend that your rice is stale though!
This recipe will be using dark soy sauce, as you’ll soon learn that it’s a staple for restaurant-style fried rice!
I’ll first dive into explaining what soy sauce is. It’s a thin dark sauce that is made with wheat, fermented soy beans, salt and fungi. It’s most popular in Chinese cooking but other Asian cuisines such as Japanese, Thai, Korean and Indonesian (including Indo-Chinese/Hakka!), now use soy sauce in their cooking. Often, “light soy sauce” refers to lower-sodium soy sauce because “regular” soy sauce contains a hefty amount of salt due to the preservatives!
On the other hand, when you compare your traditional soy sauce to dark soy sauce, “regular” soy sauce is actually called “light soy sauce.” Soy sauce here, whether it is higher in sodium content or not. There is a significant difference between dark soy sauce Dark soy sauce is visibly different because it is thicker and - as the name suggests - darker than regular soy sauce. The dark color of dark soy sauce comes from the fermentation process. Dark soy sauce consists of soybeans fermenting for a longer period of time than regular soy sauce.
Furthermore, the dark soy sauce actually tastes stronger than regular soy sauce because of the fermentation process. Dark soy sauce also contains palm sugar molasses and dark brown sugar which are not present in typical soy sauce. As a result, the dark soy sauce is more on the sweet side than the regular salty soy sauce.
A key difference between dark soy sauce and light soy sauce is their use cases. Dark soy sauce is ideal for braising, for marinating protein, and for adding color to a dish. In contrast, while we use regular soy sauce for cooking, it’s an excellent dipping sauce because it is thin.
Due to their differences, recipes tend to use the two soy sauces together to achieve the bold dark color of the dish while also adding some flavor. At first, I couldn’t find dark soy sauce, and I found a way to get a dark color without it and by simply using regular soy sauce. However, the tables have turned and in this recipe I’m relying just on dark soy sauce to get an amazing color and flavor here!
I’ll be using vegetable oil for our Restaurant-Style Egg Fried Rice. This is the perfect oil to use because the flavor is neutral and it’s budget-friendly. Many fried rice recipes use regular sesame oil in order to achieve a nutty flavor, but I wanted to keep the flavors pretty simple here, as the name of the recipe suggests! Another excellent option for this recipe is peanut oil.
A high quality wok can withstand high temperatures. Furthermore, its non-stick coating permits you to use less oil when cooking. Additionally, a wok’s tall ends and its overall deep round shape allows you to effectively toss your food to ensure even cooking. For restaurant-quality stir fries, this is the tool to do that job!
However, if you don’t have a wok, then please don’t let that stop you from making this dish! However, if frying is your end goal, then nothing will beat the tool that’s designed to do the job exactly. In fact, I actually would recommend a Chinese wok for best results, which I don’t have!
The FULL PRINTABLE recipe card with individual ingredient quantities and the recipe instructions can be found at the bottom of this post, or by pressing the “Jump to Recipe” button. Additionally, you can save the recipe for later and scale the recipe based on how many portions you want to make, and the individual ingredient measurements will adjust automatically! No need for ratios and calculations!
You may notice that there’s no salt in this recipe. The dark soy sauce is much saltier than light soy sauce, so we don’t need to add any! You can if you really feel the need to, but I was able to omit it.
Combine the chopped white parts of the scallions/green onions with the ginger and the green parts with the green chilies.
Recommended: Create a wok hei effect for this stir fry by heating your wok without oil until smoking hot and only then adding the vegetable oil.
Add the whisked eggs to the hot oil and start stirring to scramble them.
Once creamy and scrambled, add the green onion and ginger mix. Mix well and cook for 30 seconds.
Add the rice using a spoon and toss well with the egg. Break any lumps of rice and check if the wok is too dry. Add oil and ensure the stir fry is still sizzling. Add soy sauce, by drizzling it around the edges of the wok and toss well.
Add white pepper and MSG if using.
Add the green onion and chilies mix and toss again.
Serve hot right away.
I think that Egg Fried Rice is best served fresh, but if you have prepared a large batch for a later meal or if you have leftovers, store the contents into an airtight container and place in the refrigerator. Due to the eggs in the recipe, this fried rice will stay fresh in the fridge for about 3 to 4 days. Reheating is super easy - just place in the microwave and heat for about 2 to 3 minutes, or until entirely warmed through.
Why would you want to do that? You have piping hot fried rice and you’ll essentially destroy it since freezing the fried rice will dry it out too much! While you could reheat the fried rice with a bit of water to “freshen” it up, will it really have the tender but fried flavor?
With that being said, yes, it is possible to freeze your fried rice, but I would strongly urge you not to do it. Simply plan the day you want to eat it and have it hot and fresh! The recipe card will give you the perfect quantities based on how many portions you’re looking to make, so there shouldn’t be leftovers.
Let me know what you think of this recipe in the comments! If you’ve tried this recipe, be sure to post it on social media and tag it with #cookingwithanadi and mention me @cooking.with.anadi. Thank you!
Recipe by Anadi Misra
Quick, easy egg fried rice made restaurant-style at home. A simple vegetarian recipe perfect for lunch or dinner, ready in minutes with everyday ingredients you already have.
Stovetop
4.0 · 1 rating
15 min
Prep
10 min
Cook
25 min
Total
2
bowls
easy
Level
Tap any quantity to scale
Combine the chopped white parts of the scallions/green onions with the ginger and the green parts with the green chilies.
Combine the chopped white parts of the scallions/green onions with the ginger and the green parts with the green chilies.
Recommended: Create a wok hei effect for this stir fry by heating your wok without oil until smoking hot and only then adding the vegetable oil.
Recommended: Create a wok hei effect for this stir fry by heating your wok without oil until smoking hot and only then adding the vegetable oil.
Add the whisked eggs to the hot oil and start stirring to scramble them. Once creamy and scrambled, add the green onion and ginger mix. Mix well and cook for 30 seconds.
Add the whisked eggs to the hot oil and start stirring to scramble them. Once creamy and scrambled, add the green onion and ginger mix. Mix well and cook for 30 seconds.
Add the rice using a spoon and toss well with the egg. Break any lumps of rice and check if the wok is too dry. Add oil and ensure the stir fry is still sizzling. Add soy sauce, by drizzling it around the edges of the wok and toss well.
Add the rice using a spoon and toss well with the egg. Break any lumps of rice and check if the wok is too dry. Add oil and ensure the stir fry is still sizzling. Add soy sauce, by drizzling it around the edges of the wok and toss well.
Add white pepper and MSG if using.
Add white pepper and MSG if using.
Add the green onion and chilies mix and toss again. Serve hot right away.
Add the green onion and chilies mix and toss again. Serve hot right away.
1249
Calories
33g
Protein
215g
Carbs
26g
Fat
7g
Fiber
10g
Sugar
591mg
Sodium
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Tested & written in Anadi’s kitchen
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