In 10 minutes, you can have this easy Plain Fried Rice with Minute Rice customized to your needs and tastes to make the perfect side dish for your Chinese dinner.
No need to plan for leftover rice; use Minute Rice (instant rice) instead. It uses pantry ingredients you probably already have on hand. Add the vegetables, meats, and other ingredients you love to make it your own.
🍚Ingredients
Minute Rice
Chicken broth
Egg
Butter
Soy sauce
Peas and carrots—frozen and recommended
Optional vegetables—precooked bell pepper, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, snow peas, cabbage, or bell pepper
Optional meat—Shrimp, ham, fried pork, or chicken
Optional ingredients—toasted sesame oil or oyster sauce if used as a seafood side dish
Jump To (scroll for more)
Featured Comment from Jerri:
"5 stars—This dish has made it into our regular meal rotation. My husband loves it!"
A tasty, freshly-made Chinese side dish at home. This is a basic plain fried rice recipe without vegetables, but adding the meats or vegetables you love to make it your own is easy.
👨🍳How to Make Plain Fried Rice
Simple everyday ingredients. Optional ingredients in the recipe card.
In a saucepan, bring the chicken broth to a boil. If using frozen veggies, add them now and get them back to boil. Add the Minute Rice™, remove from heat, and cover for 5 minutes.
Chop a small onion while heating 1 tablespoon of butter over medium-high heat in a large nonstick pan. Add the egg, break it up to scramble it, and add the onion. Cook until the egg is done and the onion is clearing—about 3 minutes.
Add the rice to the egg/onion along with soy sauce.
Add any optional ingredients and "Fry" for 3-4 minutes over medium-high heat. The optional additions need to be fully cooked and added hot.
Done in 10 minutes.
For more details, keep reading. See the Recipe Card below for complete instructions and to print.
✔️Tips and Options to make it perfect for you every time
- Chicken broth is used instead of water to add some chicken flavor to the rice. Add precooked chicken and a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil for a reasonable chicken fried rice.
- Typically, with Minute Rice, the water to rice ratio is 1:1. This recipe uses 3:4 to make dryer rice, which was just what we needed here.
- Peas and carrots are almost mandatory, and the frozen ones cook rapidly in boiling broth. If raw, they should be precooked.
- Additional vegetables and meats can be added but must be cooked and hot before adding since there is no time for them to cook.
- If using with seafood, add oyster sauce.
When to serve fried rice
This makes a great side dish for General Tso Chicken, Chicken Stir Fry, or Cashew Chicken. And if you want plain cooked rice, try How to Cook Rice in the Oven.
How to store fried rice?
Good stored airtight in the refrigerator for about 3-4 days. You may freeze for 2 months, but there may be a texture deterioration.
How to store fried rice?
Good stored airtight in the refrigerator for about 3-4 days. You may freeze for 2 months, but there may be a texture deterioration.
❓FAQs
Minute Rice™ is a brand of instant rice that has been precooked and dehydrated to cook more rapidly.
Typically, with instant rice, the ratio of water to rice is 1:1. The model recipe was 3:4, making dryer rice, which was just what we needed here.
One of the main ingredients, soy sauce, is made with soy and crushed wheat. So, it is loaded with gluten.
Japanese tamari is a perfect substitute for soy sauce. It is usually made with only fermented soy, but some traditional versions may have a small amount of wheat, so check the label.
This recipe is listed in these categories. See them for more similar recipes.
Have you tried this recipe, or have a question? Join the community discussion in the comments.
📖 Recipe
Plain Fried Rice in 10 Minutes—Customize to Your Taste
Save this recipe to your inbox for later!
Get the recipe link via email to comeback later.
You may recieve the email without subscribing if you wish, but the subscription is convienent and has an easy one-ckick unsubscribe.
Ingredients
- 1 ⅓ cup Minute Rice™
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 onion - small diced
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 cup frozen peas and carrots - recommended
Optional additions
- precooked bell pepper, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, snow peas, cabbage, or bell pepper - hot
- Shrimp, ham, fried pork, or chicken - hot
- toasted sesame oil
- oyster sauce - if used as a seafood side dish
Instructions
- In a saucepan, bring the chicken broth to a boil. If using frozen veggies, add now and get back to boil. Add the Minute Rice™, remove from heat, and cover for 5 minutes.
- Chop a small onion while heating 1 tablespoon of butter over medium-high heat in a large nonstick pan. Add the egg, break it up to scramble it, and add the onion. Cook until the egg is done and the onion is clearing—about 3 minutes.
- Add the rice to the egg/onion along with soy sauce.
- Add any optional ingredients and "Fry" for 3-4 minutes over medium-high heat. The optional additions need to be fully cooked and added hot.
Recipe Notes
- Optional vegetables—precooked bell pepper, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, snow peas, cabbage, or bell pepper
- Optional meat—Shrimp, ham, fried pork, or chicken
- All optional vegetables and meat must be fully cooked and hot.
- Optional ingredients—toasted sesame oil or oyster sauce if used as a seafood side dish.
Pro Tips
- If your veggies are frozen, add to the broth when boiling, then bring it back to a boil and add the rice.
- One of the main ingredients, soy sauce, is made with soy and crushed wheat. So it is loaded with gluten. Japanese tamari is a perfect substitute for soy sauce. It is usually made with only fermented soy, but some traditional versions may have a small amount of wheat, so check the label.
- All additions need to be fully cooked and added hot. A microwave can be used.
- Good refrigerated for 3-4 days and can be frozen in an airtight container for several months. If frozen, there will be some decrease in the texture of the rice.
- A microwave is my usual reheating method. A splash of water and a short time covered to prevent drying in the microwave. Or add to a pan and "fry" to reheat.
Your Own Private Notes
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
© 101 Cooking for Two, LLC. All content and photographs are copyright protected by us or our vendors. While we appreciate your sharing our recipes, please realize copying, pasting, or duplicating full recipes to any social media, website, or electronic/printed media is strictly prohibited and a violation of our copyrights.
Inspired by Food.com Quick Chinese Fried Rice. I simplified it to make a basic recipe, added an expanded explanation, and added many optional ingredients.
Editor's Note: Originally Published May 14, 2012. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
Ann M. says
Hi,
.
Just came across your recipe for fried rice.
It sounded like a dish my family would enjoy, however, my husband is on a very restricted sodium diet so 3tbs. of soy sauce is out of the question.
I know soy sauce is part of fried rice, but what can I use as a substitute. Probably nothing that would taste like real fried rice, I know. Thanks..
DrDan says
Hi Ann,
Welcome to the blog.
Suggestions to decrease the sodium
1) Use salt free chicken broth
2) unsalted butter
3) low sodium soy sauce and decrease the amount to 2 tablespoons.
Those changes will decrease the sodium by over half and not much change in taste.
Dan
Rachel says
This was super easy and quick. I’ve never seen your site before tonight but will definitely be utilizing it in the future. Hubby is allergic to onions, ( I love onions) so I opted for diced up sweet peppers and minced garlic. I love how tweakable this recipe is, gonna try adding diced up bacon next time! Thanks so much for the starter ideas. Love throwing stuff together from whatever is left in my cupboards!
DrDan says
Hi Rachel,
As you have seen, the core of the recipe is the minute rice, chicken broth and soy sauce. The rest is mix and match what you want.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
Kellie Jo Gillett says
I've made this a few times and even my son that HATES rice, loves this. I've changed it up each time to make it my own. Beef with carrots is delicious and so is chicken with sugar snap Peas! Yummy.
DrDan says
Hi Kellie Jo,
Sorry for the late reply. I love adding some flavor to the rice. Plain white rice is just too boring.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
Jim says
I added a bit of garlic powder (about 1/2 teaspoon per serving) for a more Japanese flavor. Great recipe though.
Theresa Muhvich-Bertuleit says
I made this tonight and it was amazing with the pork roast
Gretchen says
Amazing quick and easy base recipe for a 1st timer making Fried Rice. Loved that I was able to change the serving size. Since I opted for the frozen peas and carrots, prior to adding the eggs I sauteed the onion with an 8 oz. bag of frozen peas and carrots and added a teaspoon of fresh minced garlic. Then added diced ham to the veggies before scrambling the eggs in. Got double thumbs up by the family. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
DrDan says
Hi Gretchen,
It is an easy recipe and it cries for modifications like you noted. A recipe is always "just guidelines" to start creating what you want out of it. I hope you inspire others.
Thanks so much for your note.
Dan
Lauren says
Great recipe! I used leftover brown rice and added some frozen peas and carrots. Kids loved it. Thanks!
Gina says
Yummy. I added leftover diced pork and a handful of frozen peas to the melting butter. Very good, quick, I ate both helpings.
Brad says
Substitute the soy sauce with oyster sauce for a less salty and sweeter flavor. Or use half soy and half oyster to add a sweet flavor kick to the soy sauce.
DrDan says
Thanks for the suggestions.
Dan
Beth says
This is easy and tastes good. I added some shredded carrot and peas in with the onion and sautéed three minutes, made a well then added the egg and scrambled. Once the egg was cooked a bit, I stirred all together. Voila!
Alonah says
It tastes really good!
Autum Clevenger says
I'm pregnant and I was craving fried rice.. I'm not disappointed!! This is really good and simple, which is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for this recipe! I added peas and corn for a little bit of extra veggies and started the onion while the chicken broth was still boiling, since I like mine cooked a little more.. it's great and I have leftovers for tomorrow :)
Eric says
I googled "quick fried rice" needing to get a dinner together in a hurry and knew I was in luck when something from this site popped up. I made a couple changes, garlic for onion since I didn't have onion and I threw in some frozen peas. I also fried some chicken in peanut oil with some tumeric to move it from 'side' to 'dinner.' The recipie worked great, pretty much as good as fried rice from regularly cooked (and refridgerated overnight) rice and it doesn't require leftovers. Will definitely be playing with this for a little while.
DrDan says
All recipes are just guidelines. This is a great one to play with.
Thanks for the note
Dan
DrDan says
Thanks for the note. I think it is very tasty for an easy side
DrDan
Alicia Clinton says
Thank you so much, this has been a wonderful addition to our monthly rotation to sausage, asian vegetables and instant brown rice. We, of course, must nearly double the recipe to feed a family, but it's great. Try the reduced sodium soy sauce plus we sort of fry our onions too. Thanks again!
Melissa McKinney says
This is a great and easy recipe and turned out great! I also added chicken and cooked frozen veggies