Easy Chicken Fried Rice is a delicious, savory dish and a terrific way to use your leftover rice!
This budget-friendly recipe brings classic Chinese-American chicken and rice takeout to your table in less time than delivery.
Unlike some recipes with A LOT of ingredients, this version is made simple with basic ingredients like tender chicken breast, rice, and onions.
Plus, this dish is naturally dairy-free, pork-free (so it’s kosher!), and made without red meat!
Chicken and rice dinner!
Easy Chicken Fried Rice is simple and quick to make at home—it’s usually on your table in less time than takeout delivery!
So, why bother with takeout when you can make it yourself?
Not only does this recipe use leftover rice (although you can use cold, fresh rice if needed), but if you have moist leftover chicken, you can use that too!
This recipe is incredibly flexible, so if you don’t have frozen peas and carrots, you can use canned instead.
You can even leave out the peas and carrots entirely if you just want the rice, onions, and savory flavor! (That’s what I do!)
Also, the ingredients (carrots, peas, chicken, rice, eggs, and chicken) all have health benefits!
What do you need to make this chicken fried rice recipe?
I hardly ever meal plan, so I like to keep a cupboard full of seasonings, spices, veggies, and canned goods in my kitchen to use whenever I want to.
This is certainly true for Chinese-American homemade takeout recipes where a lot of the ingredients overlap.
These are all you need to have on hand to make this recipe even last minute!
cooked rice (i.e. leftover rice)
skinless, boneless chicken breast
frozen peas and/or diced carrots
medium onion
egg
soy sauce
vegetarian chicken consommé powder (bullion powder)
Oil for frying
A little about Chinese-American Food
Chinese-American cuisine is a style of Chinese cuisine that was developed by Chinese immigrants.
These dishes significantly differ from traditional Chinese dishes because Chinese-American dishes were adapted to suit American tastes.
Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in large numbers in the mid-19th century in order to escape the economic difficulties in China, hoping to find work during the California Gold Rush and on the Central Pacific Railroad.
They mostly settled together in ghettos, individually known as Chinatown, and—since there were laws preventing them from owning their own land—they opened their own businesses, such as laundry services and restaurants.
Initially, the family-owned businesses catered to miners and railroad workers, and restaurants were set up in places where Chinese food was unknown. Food was based on the requests of the customers, and recipes were created to suit American tastes using whatever ingredients were available.
One major difference between traditional Chinese cuisine and Chinese-American cuisine is in the use of vegetables. Chinese-American recipes will use raw or uncooked ingredients and those not native to China. Traditional Chinese cuisine, on the other hand, rarely contains raw or uncooked ingredients and often uses Asian leaf vegetables.
While the new dishes were not traditional Chinese, these restaurants were responsible for the development of the ever-popular Chinese-American cuisine.
The little history of kosher Chinese-American Food
It is well known that Jews (especially those with ties to New York) love Chinese food.
There is a popular joke, which has been passed around for many years, that describes the Jewish dependency on Chinese food: “According to the Jewish calendar, the year is 5749. According to the Chinese calendar, the year is 4687. That means for 1,062 years, the Jews went without Chinese food.” That was back in 1989, and who knows when the joke even started?
Jews as a group were probably first introduced to Chinese food in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where immigrants of various cultures settled in their own neighborhoods in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
By the early 1900s, there were approximately one million Jews from Eastern Europe on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and only approximately 7,000 Cantonese Chinese, most of whom had moved from California after the gold rush.
Due to anti-Chinese laws and acts in America, which prevented them from competing with whites, many Chinese opened restaurants to support themselves and their families. They started by serving the miners and took their businesses with them as they moved across the country.
The majority of Jewish immigrants at that time were observant in their religion and ate only kosher food when they arrived in New York. But, over time, many assimilated and, even if they still kept kosher at home, they would often eat out on Sundays, and Chinese restaurants were open on that day.
But the Jews who continued to keep kosher both in and out of the house had to wait until a Jewish, kosher deli owner, Sol Bernstein, found a solution.
Using Cantonese Chinese recipes and substituting kosher veal, beef, and chicken livers for pork, he began selling the first kosher Chinese food.
Sol continued to sell deli while he incorporated Chinese foods into the menu and did very well. The restaurant continued to prosper until he died in 1992, when it was sold.
Make Chinese-American takeout at home!
While there are Chinese-American restaurants and takeout places all over, they are harder to find and often quite expensive if you keep kosher or otherwise don’t eat pork or shellfish.
However, the solution to that is to make them at home! So, try these homemade takeout recipes:
- Mongolian Chicken
- Corned Beef & Cabbage Egg Rolls
- Chicken Chop Suey
- Chicken Lo Mein
- General Tso’s Chicken
- Chicken Chow Mein
- Vegetarian Egg Drop Soup
- Chicken and Broccoli
- Honey Garlic Chicken and Broccoli
Easy Chicken Fried Rice (Budget-Friendly and Quick)
Delicious and savory, fried rice with chicken and vegetables. Naturally with no pork or dairy.
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked rice (i.e. leftover rice)*
- 1/2 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast (or more, if desired), diced into approximstely 1/2-inch pieces
- 3/4 cup frozen peas and diced carrots (you can leave one or the other or both out if you wish to)**
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon vegetarian chicken consommé powder (bullion powder)
- Oil for frying
Instructions
- Lightly coat a suitable size pan or pot with oil.
- On medium heat, scramble the egg into small pieces.
- Add the onions and diced chicken breast and cook together, stirring continuously, until the onions have become soft and somewhat transparent and the chicken pieces are cooked through.
- Mix in peas and carrots (unless you're leaving them out).
- Add cooked rice to pan.
- Stir together until the rice is hot, breaking up any clumps.
- Add in soy sauce.
- Continue heating for another couple of minutes, stirring occasionally for the soy sauce to mix in.
Notes
*You can use freshly cooked rice, but chilled is better for frying.
**You can use any quantity of peas vs carrots as you prefer or you can leave one or the other out. If you want to use drained canned peas and carrots, you can do that too but since they are much softer than the frozen, you should wait until the end and fold them in so they heat with the mixture.
If you don't like peas and/or carrots just leave them out.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 317Total Fat: 3gSaturated Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 48mgSodium: 472mgCarbohydrates: 46gFiber: 3gSugar: 4gProtein: 25g