15 min Egg Fried Rice Recipe

Egg fried rice is an almost-effortless Asian classic that surely has the potential to become your new best friend in the kitchen.

Homemade fried rice with scrambled egg is the dinner you deserve after a long day of work.

What is even better is that this recipe helps you reuse any leftover rice that you don’t know what to do with. When making egg-fried rice, make sure to either use leftover rice that has hardened a bit in the refrigerator or go for slightly undercooked rice.

This helps maintain texture and avoids the rice from getting too soft or mushy.

Inspired by the classic Chinese fried rice, this dish is quick, easy, and can almost certainly be made from everything that is already sitting in your refrigerator.

All it takes is 15 minutes and a zero-waste, sustainable meal is ready to fill you up! And did I mention, delicious?

Ingredients

To cook:

• oil — such as canola, sunflower, or regular vegetable oil.
• eggs — normal eggs. Try it with quail eggs for extra nutritious elements!
• onion — white or purple.
• ginger — freshly grated or finely chopped.
• garlic — freshly chopped.
• cabbage — chopped. You can use regular or Chinese (napa) cabbage.
• carrot — cut into matchsticks.
• green bell pepper — thinly sliced. Optionally yellow, orange, or red bell pepper.
• green peas
• cooked rice — use al dente (to the bite) cooked rice or use leftover cooked plain rice that was kept in the fridge. The fridge environment is dry and turns the rice kernels nice and crispy. That way, your fried rice won't turn out mushy.

Mushrooms, spinach or leek, etc. can also be added depending on what’s available!

For the stir-fry sauce:

• sugar — white or brown
• vinegar — rice vinegar is my favorite, but you can use regular white distilled vinegar too
• dark soy sauce — Kikkoman style
• chili sauce or skip and use ketchup for no heat

This recipe does not contain any MSG. You can also skip the extra spice and hold the chili sauce. This egg-fried rice recipe works great even with ketchup!

I added some Tabasco sauce to it too in the video. (see Indian variation below for info)

How to make it?

Here’s how to make egg fried rice quickly in one pot (or pan) from scratch to add color to your weeknight:

Step 1

Stir cook cut onion and add ginger + garlic (or use ginger garlic paste as I did)

Step 2

Stir-fry the chopped onion, ginger, and garlic, and add your veggies. Prepare the stir-fry sauce separately.

Step 3

Break the eggs into the pan and slowly incorporate them into the veggies.

Step 4

Add the rice to the pan, pour the sauce over it and mix well.

Variations

This egg fried rice is inspired by the Chinese traditional version, but it's definitely not authentic. It's more like a quick and easy dinner version, and it does resemble the Indian egg fried rice version.

Chinese style — add sesame oil or peanut oil. For the Sichuan style fried rice, add doubanjiang to the stir-fry and green onions with purple onions. Or add fried pork to make a Young Chow Fried Rice.

Thai style — Add pineapple, as in Thai pineapple fried rice. You can also add some shrimp paste during the stir-frying process. Skip the onion and use green onions only.

Japanese style — Like hibachi fried rice. Use only rice vinegar in your stir-fry sauce with soy sauce and sugar. Sprinkle some Ra-yu chili oil sauce over the rice as a garnish.

Korean style — Add some kimchi to the stir-fry.

Indian style — Use ketchup in the stir-fry sauce with Tabasco sauce. Use ginger and garlic paste instead of fresh ginger and garlic. You can add a pinch of chili pepper flakes or powder. OR you can add a pinch of asafoetida spice to your stir-fry.

American style — add bacon pieces, but it won't be vegetarian meatless anymore.

Serving

The best way to serve this dish is freshly made, in a bowl or shallow plate with chopped fresh green onion stalks as a garnish.

You can add cooked meats or veggies to enrich your meal. For example. I like Japanese-style Teriyaki chicken or Katsu Chicken with my egg fried rice. Also, pan-fried Sichuan flavored green beans work well with this dish.

Storing & Leftovers

You can store leftovers in an airtight container. These should last 2–3 days in a refrigerator and can be easily reheated in a pan or microwave.

I like to use glass containers so that I can see my leftovers in the refrigerator and at the same time the food can be reheated directly in the glass container. No container transfer is my preference.

Freezing this dish is not recommended as the rice may get mushy. 

This dish is also extremely meal-prep friendly and can be used as lunch on any weekdays after some quick weekend preparation.

FAQs