Soy sauce fried rice is simple yet indulgent. It is a classic Chinese dish that uses minimal ingredients to create maximum flavor. Only takes ten minutes to prepare, and it’s robust enough to serve as a main or to satisfy your midnight salty snack craving.
Soy sauce fried rice is a classic. It is not just another fried rice. It’s a signature of Chinese cooking, as it uses pretty minimal ingredients to create a wonderful flavor. It uses simple ingredients such as butter, soy sauce, tons of green onions, and eggs to turn your leftover stale rice into a feast.
Reading: how to use soy sauce in rice
Traditional soy sauce fried rice uses animal fat (lard or chicken fat) instead of oil to create the best taste. However those animal fats are less commonly used in the US. That’s why I altered the recipe to use butter while maintaining the best taste.
Ingredients
It only takes a few ingredients to make a great soy sauce fried rice. But here are some important notes.
Overnight (leftover) rice
Overnight rice is not the most precise description. The best rice is 2 to 3 days old.
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Freshly cooked rice contains a lot of moisture and its texture is sticky. It tastes great served as-is, but it won’t create the best result for fried rice.
When the rice is a few days old, it will start to get quite dry. You can easily separate the grains using your fingers without it feeling sticky. It is the best rice for frying, to get that crunchy crispy texture. Sometimes I freeze the rice and then thaw it, to achieve the desired texture for fried rice.
Dark soy sauce
It’s a dark-colored soy sauce that has a thicker texture and lightly sweet taste. It’s the key to the beautiful caramelized color of soy sauce fried rice.
Butter
It adds tons of flavor to the rice and it’s important. The next best choice is premium peanut oil with some sesame oil, but I still prefer the taste of butter.
If you want to get a super authentic taste, consider using chicken fat, duck fat, or lard. Epic and Fatworks both produce premium high-quality fats. You can find both on Amazon (Chicken Fat by Fatworks & Duck Fat by Epic).
Prep
Before turning on your stove, your kitchen counter should look like this.
Cooking process
- Lightly scramble the eggs until the bottom is cooked but the top is still runny, so some of the eggs will coat the rice.
- Add the rice and cook.
- Drizzle in the soy sauce mixture.
- Add the green onions and mix well.
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NOTE: It’s important to heat up your pan really well and cook the rice thoroughly, so the moisture evaporates and the surface of the rice crisps up. If you’re using very stale rice, you will achieve a great texture more quickly. If you’re using fresher rice, it might take longer to fry the rice to achieve the desired texture.
How to DIY your soy sauce fried rice
Sometimes you might want to throw in some protein or veggies to make your fried rice into a full meal. Here are some great options:
- Leftover ham, rotisserie chicken, roast beef, cooked shrimp
- Diced peppers, onions
- Frozen veggies such as green peas, corn, and carrots
You can add these ingredients right before you drizzle in the soy sauce mixture (Between step 3 and 4 in the recipe).
NOTE: Making good fried rice is like choosing pizza toppings – less is more. You don’t want to add too many things that dilute the taste and texture of the fried rice. I would say only add a small handful of other ingredients (no more than 1 cup if combining everything you add). You’d be surprised how large the final volume will be.
Afterthought
I serve soy sauce fried rice on rare occasions at home. But not because I don’t like it that much. Quite the opposite, I LOVE it so much that I’d eat the whole pan myself! Yep. It’s THAT good. It’s not the healthiest thing to do, but I enjoy every moment when devouring every bit of the fried rice directly from the frying pan.
More restaurant-style Chinese recipes
- Chicken and Broccoli (Chinese Takeout Style)
- Real-Deal Szechuan Beef Stir Fry
- Easy Singapore Noodles
- Wonton Soup
- Cashew Chicken
- General Tso Tofu (Crispy Tofu without Deep Frying)
If you give this recipe a try, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it (once you’ve tried it), and take a picture and tag it @omnivorescookbook on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with.
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