New Recipe: Chicken Fried Rice

As part of my New Year's Resolution, I cooked a new recipe for dinner last night: Chicken fried rice. I would rate it a 4 out of 5. It was pretty good. If you like Chinese food, that is. I modified the recipe a bit from a magazine recipe, including adding the chicken. I mean, who wants just rice and veggies?

Start with chicken. I had to thaw mine.


You'll need rice. I used brown rice for this recipe, but you could use white rice, too. The recipe calls for 5 cups of cooked rice. I thought that sounded like A LOT, so I put in two cups. Plus we're trying to watch how many carbs we eat right now.

The rice needs to be cooked before you can start, so you'll want to do that.

I used my fancy-pants rice cooker, which I got from my in-laws for my birthday a while back. Thanks, guys! :)

I only did one cup raw rice, but I got a TON of it once it was cooked. Way more than I needed. Lesson learned.

Once my chicken had thawed, I cubed it up into bite-sized pieces. The recipe calls for sesame oil, which I didn't have. I did, however, have sesame seeds. I started by toasting them in a pan...

...then I added some olive oil and my chicken.

While that was cooking I mixed 3 tbs soy sauce and 1 tsp sugar in a bowl. Next time I make this I would add more soy sauce, because I thought the recipe could use a bit more flavor. I also added garlic powder and ginger powder here. But, if you are prepared ahead of time (unlike me) and have actual garlic and ginger, don't add it yet. Next time I would use real garlic and ginger, instead of powder, because I think it would improve the flavors. I have no idea how much powder I added. The recipe calls for 3 cloves garlic and 2 tsp fresh ginger. So use your own judgement.

I like my chicken to actually get browned when I pan-fry it, so I keep it over the heat for a while. This will cause it to dry out some, but I figured it would be okay with the rice and everything else. White chicken just grosses me out a bit, but if you're okay with it, go for it to keep some of that moisture.

In a clean pan or wok, heat some olive oil until hot and add 3 slightly-beaten eggs (next time I'll try five; I liked the eggs in it). Also, I probably won't put in oil since my pan is teflon. I didn't even think it through the first time around; just did what the recipe said.

Here's my eggs. :)

Don't overcook them at this point, because they're going to go back over the heat at the end, and you don't want them to be nasty. :)

Remove the eggs from your pan and add more oil. (This is where you would saute the garlic and ginger for a while, if you had it fresh.)

Once hot, add your rice. Stir-fry until it starts to crisp, 3-4 minutes.

I added my chicken at this point, too, because I wanted to make sure it was warm enough.

Once the rice has cooked, add your soy sauce mixture. Mix it all up and add some onions. The recipe calls for scallions. I had red onions, which I think are about as far away as you can get from scallions, but hey, it worked.

Add a bag of frozen stir-fry blend veggies.

Stir-fry for about 10 minutes, or until the veggies are cooked.

Add your eggs at the end and mix them it. Drizzle with sesame oil (if you have it) and serve. YUM.