7 Incredible Chinese Fried Rice Recipes You’ll Wish You Discovered Sooner

Chinese fried rice recipes are not only the best ways to use up your leftover, but also great ways to save money for take-out and let your cooking creativity running wild. Here are 7 of them to get you started. Remember, there is no limitation but the sky.

If you have been following my recipes, you know that leftover means new dinner ideas to me. Traditional Chinese fried rice dishes use leftover white rice. According to the Chinese standard, using freshly cooked rice is a BIG no no because the texture is too sticky. Fried rice's texture is supposed to be able to feel and taste each grain of rice.

Aside from that, Chinese tends to consume all foods. It is deeply rooted to its history. First of all, rice is one of the plantations that it is very difficult and time consuming to plant and harvest. Chinese has a children song about rice. The lyrics say, "Every grain means hardwork, blood and sweat." 粒粒皆辛苦 Besides, throughout more than 2,000 years of Chinese history, there were plenty of natural disasters that people suffered from famine. With everything added together, no food goes to waste.

When we were kids, fried rice was like a "luxury" to us. Mom didn't make fried rice very often even she cooked at least 5 days a week. When she made it, even just eggs and rice, it felt like we went to heaven and came back to earth and devoured it. Believe it or not, every time when we had homemade fried rice, it always felt like there was not enough. My siblings and I couldn't stop. And if we dined out and ordered fried rice, you would be amazed to see how much more we could eat. That's how much we love fried rice.

Fried rice can pair with anything, but the kitchen sink. OK, that statement may sound too exaggerated. But anything comes in handy, you can pair it with fried rice. There are dishes in Hong Kong, my hometown, charging slightly more if you choose to pair it with fried rice.

CHEF NOTES

Speed Up the Process to Get Your Chinese Food Fix

As mentioned earlier that fried rice must use leftover rice. That means rice is completely cooked and cool down in room temperature overnight. Typically, depending on your room temperature, it takes about 4-6 hours for 4-6 cups of freshly cooked rice to reach that temperature. The reason of this process is to allow more moisture to evaporate so you can see and taste the rice grain one by one. Well, what if you only have freshly cooked rice and don't have that extra 4-6 hours? This was the exact experience I had once a few years ago. Well, you don't need to wait for that long though. You can make it happen in about 30 minutes. How? Let's check it out.

1. Cook steamed rice first which is always the base of any Chinese fried rice recipes (refer to Perfectly Steamed Rice recipe).
2. Once rice is fully cooked, transfer rice into a big non-stick skillet. Make sure you use a COLD skillet and NO heat is on the stove top. And NO oil in that skillet either. The bigger the diameter of that skillet, the better because it allows you plenty of room to spread out the hot rice to cool down.
3. Just like how you stir and sautee food, but without any heat, keep stirring the hot rice in that COLD skillet.
4. During this process, the rice will cool down and extra moisture will evaporate as well. As soon as the steam dies down completely, touch the rice regularly to see if it reaches room temperature. Make sure it's not lukewarm, but cool to room temperature. Just like the temperature if you had left it on the stove top overnight. Otherwise, continue as step 3 until rice reaches its expected temperature.
5. Once it reaches that temperature, here is how you start making the fried rice recipe. The rice stays in the same non-stick skillet you have been using to cool down the rice.
6. Add the amount of oil according to your selected fried rice recipe. Turn on the heat of the stove top.
7. When the oil gets hot and you start to hear the sizzling sound, start stirring the rice to coat every grain with oil. Follow the rest of the recipe to complete the dish.

It's a lot of muscle work. Depending on the room temperature, it will take about 30 minutes or so for the rice cooling down to room temperature and ready for making fried rice. If there is less amount of rice, the time for stirring it around to cool it down will be shorter. Anyway, just treat this as your exercise for the day and get some workout.

If you are thinking of transferring the hot rice into the fridge or freezer, just STOP right there. We learned our lesson in a hard way. Your fridge will be ruined and it is going to take a lot to maintain it.

(Side Story: When my son started to eat solid food, we had been transferring hot food into the freezer and thought that it would quicken the cooling process. Although we heard many times about not doing so, we went ahead and did it. Little did we know that the heat caused the air moisture liquidated and started to form crystals inside the freezer. One day, we heard the fridge make some loud noises. We ended up taking all the food out of the fridge and freezer entirely and let the inside of the whole machine cool down to room temperature. My husband took everything apart so that we could wipe down the extra moisture between the panels before putting the fridge back together again. Hope this story make you aware of the risk and frustration it could cause you.)

Hope you enjoy all these interesting facts about Chinese fried rice recipes. Now let's get cooking, shall we?

Chinese Fried Rice Recipes Roll Call

Ground Beef Egg White Fried Rice

The big color contrast of this fried rice recipe makes it super beautiful. That's why it was an instant popular dish when it first rolled out in Hong Kong restaurants many years ago. (Get Recipe)

Ham Fried Rice

Is there ham in Chinese cuisine? Yes there is. The process is more similar to the Italian one than the American one. It's a delicacy and only served in special occasions. Instead of using Chinese ham, we take the advantage of the convenience of regular deli ham to make this dish. (Get Recipe)

Hawaiian Fried Rice

Is it Chinese or Hawaiian Fried Rice? Spam always makes people think of Hawaii. In fact, we have something very similar to Spam in China that we called it "lunch meat" which comes in a big round can. (Get Recipe)

Mixed Vegetable Fried Rice

It's a wonder of a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. That's how easy this fried rice recipe is. I bet you are going to stock up plenty of frozen mixed vegetables from now on. (Get Recipe)

Roast Pork Fried Rice

"Yeung Chau Chow Fan" is a very well-known Chinese fried rice dish with Chinese roasted pork. You can easily order it anywhere. But if you live in the West, you may only know this dish as "Roasted Pork Fried Rice" instead. (Get Recipe)

Traditional Cauliflower Fried Rice

If you are super health conscious, this is the fried rice recipe for you. Since I started Keto diet in 2018 and continue to stay low-carb now most of the time, I still can't get over how awesome this fried rice recipe is. Believe it or not, it gives you the exact texture and taste just like regular fried rice. No one will ever know that it is cauliflower. (Get Recipe)

Turkey Pot Pie Fried Rice

Little did many people know that this is a very traditional way to serve Chinese fried rice. That means fried rice on a separate plate as the base. Then, another dish with other ingredients with plenty of sauce. This recipe was inspired by that serving method. What if you don't have turkey? No worry. You can easily replace it with chicken. (Get Recipe)

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