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Super Yummy Chinese Fried Rice
No list of Chinese rice recipes would be complete without Chinese Fried Rice. This is the most popular and common of all rice recipe favorites. You can get this dish in any Asian restaurant without too much trouble. Even though this is such a common dish, it is never exactly the same no matter where you get it!
Every chef has their own unique spin on this age-old classic. This recipe is (in our humble opinion) the best recipe for classic Chinese fried rice.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- ¾ cup finely chopped onion
- 2 ½ tablespoons oil
- 2 cups bean sprouts
- 1 egg beaten
- 4 cups cold cooked rice
- 3 drops soy sauce
- 3 drops sesame oil
- ½ cup carrot chopped fine
- 8 ounces cooked pork or chicken chopped
- ½ cup frozen peas (thawed)
Cooking Instructions
- Stir fry the chopped onions in a wok with 1 tablespoon oil for about 8 or 10 minutes. Remove from wok.
- Let wok cool for a little while.
- Mix 3 drops of soy sauce and eggs along with 3 drops of sesame oil and set off to the side.
- Add in ½ tablespoon of oil to the wok coating the entire surface, add the egg mix swirling until it sets. When the egg gets puffy flip and cook the other side quickly. Remove from wok and chop.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of oil add meat (pork or chicken) with carrots and peas and onions, stir fry for about 2 minutes
- Add in rice, green onions, and bean sprouts, stir fry for about 3 more minutes
- Add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and chopped egg to the mix and fold in, stir fry for one more minute. Serve!
See how easy that is? It can be modified with any other protein you wish and additional spices can be added to the mix to make this traditional tasty dish your own. The best part about this is how inexpensive it is to get all the ingredients. If you have a wok and a free 30 minutes or so, you can whip up this amazing Chinese classic and feed the family!
Yangchow Fried Rice
This is a unique fried dish. What makes this different from the first recipe is that the grains of rice in this dish are cooked in the actual egg and soy or oyster sauce. It is a small change but makes a huge difference in how the finished dish looks and tastes! This small change will make your fried rice extraordinary and special, but still extremely easy to make.
Ingredients
- 4 ounces medium shrimp
- 3 big eggs
- 6 ounces roast pork or ham
- Salt
- Ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon cornstarch
- 4 cups cooked rice
- 5 tablespoons oil
- ½ cup peas
- 1 medium diced yellow onion
Cooking Instructions
- In a small bowl, beat the eggs and set off to the side
- Dice the roasted pork or ham into small squares
- Rinse off the shrimp under warm water to thaw them out. Devein and remove the shells and chop them into fine pieces. Toss the shrimp and your seasonings along with cornstarch.
- Heat up a wok and add a tablespoon of cooking oil. Once the oil is nice and hot you can add the shrimp and fry until a nice pink color.
- Move the shrimp to one side of the wok and add the roast pork or ham on the other side. Quickly stir fry the pork and then remove shrimp and pork from the wok.
- Add 2 tablespoons of oil to the hot wok once the oil is hot toss the onion until it begins to get soft.
- Add the peas to the onions and mix until the peas are cooked and bright green in color.
- Heat 2 tablespoons of oil. Add in the cooked rice making sure the individual grains are all separated and do not form clumps. Make sure the rice does not start to turn brown.
- Add the egg to the rice in the wok stirring so the egg covers all the rice.
- Now add in the roast pork or ham, shrimp, vegetables, and onion. Stir everything together. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Serve this dish hot!
Tasty Chinese Rice Porridge (Congee)
This is a well-known classic breakfast dish. We had to include something for breakfast in this list of tasty Chinese rice recipes, right? Congee is basically a rice porridge created with boiling rice in water until it breaks down to a pudding-like texture.
When congee is made with water it can be sort of boring or bland. However, there are lots of ways to add spicy or sweet flavors to your dish. You can switch to beef stock, or chicken of vegetable stock instead of water for the base you cook the rice in.
This is a common breakfast for kids and is frequently fed to sick family members as it is a very nutritious dish that is also extremely easy to digest.
Ingredients
- 8 cups water or vegetable, chicken, or beef stock
- ¾ cups long grain rice
- 1 teaspoon salt (if using method 1)
- 1 teaspoon sunflower, peanut, olive, or vegetable oil (for method 2)
- Suggested but optional: minced garlic, minced ginger, lotus root, ginkgo nuts, pork, chicken, crushed peanuts, soft boiled egg
Congee Cooking Method 1
- Gather up all the different ingredients
- Clean and soak rice in water for 30 minutes and drain
- In a Dutch oven or large pot, boil the rice and water (or stock) mix
- Once the rice is boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and place the lid on the pot. Leave a slit to allow steam to escape.
- Cook on medium-low heat, stirring here and there until the rice has a creamy thick consistency of a porridge. Usually, this can take up to 1 ½ hours or a little longer.
- Add in the salt and any additional optional seasonings and eat!
Congee Cooking Method 2
- Wash and rinse rice and soak for about 30 minutes in the water and drain
- Add in 1 teaspoon of oil to your rice and mix it evenly. When you add oil, it can sometimes help the rice cook faster and make the porridge smoother and a little softer.
- In a big pot or Dutch oven boil the water and rice mix
- Reduce the heat to medium and stir often for 5 minutes
- Reduce to medium-low and put on the lid, tilting the lid to leave a slit which allows steam to escape. Let the rice cook for 45 minutes. Season how you wish and enjoy!
Amazing Chinese Jasmine Rice
This dish is native to Thailand but has been adopted all over Asia. It is an amazingly simple dish but cannot be counted out! The fragrant jasmine adds a special depth to this simple dish that is hard to resist!
Special Tip- The key to making the perfect jasmine rice is getting the water to rice ratio absolutely perfect. This makes the consistency of the rice exactly as it should be.
What You Will Need
- Medium-sized pot with a lid that is nice and deep
- Stovetop or stand-alone hot plate or burner
- Jasmine rice
- Measuring cup
- Salt
- Water
Cooking Instructions
- Make sure you get high-quality Thai jasmine rice. You need 2 cups of uncooked jasmine rice to feed four or five people. Measure out the rice and pour it into your medium pot.
- Rinse the rice as many times as it takes until the water pours out totally clear. This will help remove any excess starch or powder that may be present on the rice.
- Add Salt and Water- Add 2 ½ cups of water and 1/8 tablespoon of salt to the pot where the cleaned and drained rice is.
- Boil the contents of the pot. You will see foamy bubbles starting to form on the surface.
- Once boiling, reduce the heat to low and cover the pot with the lid. Let the pot simmer for about 12 or 15 minutes.
- After about 10 minutes or so remove the lid and check on the rice. If the majority of the water has been absorbed, make a hole in the middle of the rice so you can see to the bottom of the pot. If the water is gone at the bottom move to the next step.
- If there is still some water in the bottom let it simmer for another 3 minutes or so.
- When all the water has been absorbed put the lid back on and turn off the burner. Let the pot sit for 10 or 15 minutes. The heat still inside the pot will steam the rice making it nice and sticky. Leave the lid on until you are ready to eat.
- Remove the lid and gently fluff up the rice with a fork and move it to a serving bowl.
Delicious Super Shanghai Vegetable Rice
This is a flavorful and complex tasting dish made of simple ingredients anyone can find. This is essentially vegetable fried rice but with a special twist. This is one of our favorite Chinese rice dishes of all the ones we featured here!
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups long grain rice
- 2 heads baby bok choy about 5 ounces each
- 2 ¼ cups water
- 2 slices ginger
- 2 or 3 Chinese black dried mushrooms softened
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 ½ or 2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil as needed for frying
- 4 drops sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons water
- ½ teaspoon sugar
Cooking Instructions
- Rinse the rice enough times until the water runs off it clear.
- Boil the rice with no cover on medium heat
- While the rice is heating up and you are waiting for it to boil, prepare the veggies.
- First, clean the leaves and stalks from the bok choy. Cut the bok choy in a diagonal direction.
- Squeeze the mushrooms to get out any extra water and cut into very thin slices.
- Heat up a wok and add 3 teaspoons of oil (as needed). Coat all surfaces of the wok evenly with oil. When the oil is hot, add the ginger and quickly stir fry for about 30 seconds until it smells good. Add the mushrooms and fry for about 2 minutes.
- Push mushrooms to one side of the wok and heat 3 teaspoons of oil in the center of the wok.
- Add in the bok choy.
- Stir in the sugar, salt, and soy sauce and stir fry on high for 1 minute.
- Add the water, cover the wok with the lid, and simmer for about 2 minutes. Remove heat and stir in the sesame oil.
- When the rice is boiling turn heat to medium-low. Put the lid on leaving it tilted to allow steam to come out.
- When you start to see holes on the rice, add in the veggies on top. Put the lid on and turn heat to low and let simmer for 15 minutes.
- Stir the vegetables into the rice and fluff up.
Chinese Rice is Amazing and Versatile
This is only a tiny fraction of the Chinese rice dishes that you can make in only a short amount of time with a handful of ingredients. As you may have gathered by now, Asian countries have perfected the art of making a simple ingredient like rice into a masterful dish with complex flavors.
We have always enjoyed cooking rice in many different ways. It is inexpensive, easy to get, and can be customized to match almost any taste. Whether it’s for breakfast like the Congee or lunch or dinner like the Chinese fried rice, you can be certain if you are hungry, rice can be the basis for an entire meal which will fill you up and keep your tummy happy!
