Simple and Easy Chicken Fried Rice

Name: Simple and Easy Chicken Fried Rice
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 1 pound chicken (about 2-3 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (I recommend the slow cooker recipe below this one)); 3 cups cooked rice (if possible (use day old rice)); 2 Tbsp sesame oil; 1 small white onion (diced); 1 cup frozen peas and carrots (thawed); 1 cup snap peas; 2-3 Tbsp soy sauce (to taste); 2 eggs (lightly beaten); 2 Tbsp chopped green onions (optional but recommended)

posted April 6, 2015 by The Chunky Chef // 48 Comments »

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Chicken fried rice… such a classic Asian dish. It’s a lot simpler to make than you may think! Plus you get to customize what vegetables, oils, flavors and protein go into your rice. Don’t reach for that takeout menu… make your own that tastes wayyyyy better!

For some reason, I’d never made chicken fried rice before! C’mon Amanda… you love chicken fried rice, why not make it at home?

You know how I love customizeable meals… and this one is totally ready for you to make it your own! I chose slow cooker teriyaki chicken, eggs, onion, peas, carrots, with scallions and snap peas to garnish. But feel free to add some veggies, subtract some, switch up the protein… whatever you’d like 🙂

I chose to cook my chicken in the slow cooker, in a delicious homemade teriyaki sauce. I love doing it this way because the chicken just literally falls apart and shreds beautifully. It would also work well with poached or sauteed chicken, leftoves, or even a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Orrrrrr you can decide that you don’t want chicken at all and go with pork, beef, shrimp… whatever you want!

So you’ll want to start your chicken earlier in the day, as it cooks for about 5 hours or so (for the slow cooker version). Just add your chicken to the bottom of your slow cooker, whisk the sauce together and pour it over the top. Pop the lid on and cook on low for 5 hours.

Once your chicken is tender and cooked through, take it out and place it into a bowl so you can shred it. Just two forks will do the trick, it’s that tender you guys! Pour the sauce liquid from the slow cooker into a saucepan and heat it to a low boil. Mix together your cornstarch and water to make a slurry (okay, isn’t that just fun to say?!), and whisk it into your sauce. It will thicken in a few minutes.

Sidebar: A slurry is just a way of thickening a sauce, done with cold or room temperature liquids.

Now just drizzle the sauce over your chicken, toss to combine, and either serve with the rice right away, or refrigerate it until dinner time. You can add as much sauce as you’d like. I went with about half the sauce, and added a little more at a time until it was a saucy as I wanted it 🙂

It’s out of focus (i think I was too excited about eating to calm down and take a picture lol), but you can see how rich the sauce looks on the chicken

Alright, let’s talk about rice for a minute here. You can use whatever you have on hand for this. I had some jasmine rice left over, so I used that. To make my rice more flavorful, I cook it as directed, except instead of using water, I use that same amount of chicken stock or broth (I’ve done vegetable as well). Usually for fried rice, it’s suggested to use day old rice. Mine isn’t usually day old (planning ahead that far can be a challenge for me lol), but I typically make the rice in the morning, and then refrigerate it until dinner. However, if you forget, and are making your rice right before dinner, it will still taste delicious, don’t worry 🙂

Weird looking skillet there right? Lol. The actual stir fry of the rice doesn’t take very long at all. Just add your sesame oil and saute your onion, peas, and carrots until tender. Push your veggies over to one half of the skillet and add your eggs to the other side. Scramble them until cooked, then stir it all together.

Add in your rice, shredded chicken and soy sauce. “Fry” it, by just stirring it around until it’s heated through 🙂 All done!

This is delicious the night you make it, and just as delicious the next day!

While this rice is pretty filling… why not make some Crab Rangoons to go alongside? Psssst, you can make them ahead of time and freeze them!

Or, skip the chicken, and just make the fried rice part of this and serve it alongside some Baked Asian Chicken Wings or Asian Chicken Nuggets!

However you serve it, I just know you’ll love it!

Come party with us at Fiesta Friday with the wonderful Angie of course, and Juliana @ Foodie on Board, and Hilda @ Along the Grapevine !! It’s always such a fun time! 😀

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Recipe adapted from The Recipe Critic