This is the pork fried rice that finally delivers the flavor and texture I love when I get it at a restaurant: grains that stay separate and get a little crisp instead of turning mushy, with the savory depth homemade versions usually miss.
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It took me years of chasing the right combination of ingredients and technique, plus more than a few dinner fails, to land on it. It wasn’t that I was missing a secret ingredient. It was that I was using rice that was too fresh and a pan that wasn’t hot enough.
The fix is day-old rice, a screaming hot pan, and more soy sauce than feels reasonable. I deliberately keep the rest of the seasoning to a minimum: just a little fresh garlic and ginger, a dash of sesame oil, or a spoonful of chile paste or chile crisp, and that’s about it. I like to let the soy sauce and the sear do most of the work. Everything else is just distraction.
Char siu is my first choice for the pork, since its sweetness plays well against all that soy. Ground pork or sliced pork loin work fine, too, and so does whatever you have leftover in the fridge, roast pork from a restaurant, even last night’s kung pao chicken, ma po tofu, or steamed broccoli. Egg, carrots, and peas go in every time. Beyond that, use up whatever you’ve got.
Ingredient Notes
Char Siu (Chinese BBQ Pork): This is the pork I reach for first. You can buy it already cooked at a Chinese barbecue counter or Asian market, or make your own Char Siu at home. Starting from raw pork instead, sliced pork loin or ground pork both work; just cook it through before it goes back into the rice.
Rice: Use rice that’s at least a day old and has spent that time uncovered in the fridge. Freshly cooked rice is still coated in surface moisture and loose starch, so when it hits the pan it steams and clumps instead of frying. A day in the fridge dries the outside of the grains and firms up that starch, which is what lets each grain separate and pick up some char instead of turning gummy. If you don’t have leftovers, spread hot rice on a sheet pan and refrigerate it for an hour or two before you start cooking; it won’t be as good as a full day, but it gets you most of the way there.
Soy Sauce: I use more than most recipes call for, three to five tablespoons for four servings. It’s doing the job that a longer ingredient list does in other versions, so don’t be shy with it.
Chile Paste or Chile Crisp: Optional, but it’s the one extra flavor I’ll add beyond soy and sesame oil. A spoonful stirred in at the end gives the rice some heat without turning it into a different dish.
The keys to making a great fried rice are adding just the right amount of sesame oil and soy sauce (the right amount is probably more than you think). I also think fried rice has to have scrambled egg, diced carrots, and peas.
How To Make Pork Fried Rice
Start by scrambling the eggs in a hot, well-oiled skillet or wok, breaking them into small curds. Remove them from the pan, add a bit more oil, and then sauté the carrots, garlic, and ginger, just until the carrots lose their raw crunch. Remove them from the pan, too.
Next, use the same pan to sear the pork on its own, giving it real contact with the hot pan rather than crowding it in with everything else. If you’re using already-cooked char siu or leftovers, this step is mostly about warming it through and getting some color; raw pork needs the full few minutes to cook through. Remove the meat from the pan.
The rice goes in last, and this is where the technique really matters. Make sure the pan is very hot and well oiled. Add the rice, breaking it up with your hands (wetting your hands keeps the rice from sticking to your skin) and then leave it alone for a stretch before tossing, so the bottom layer has a chance to crisp and pick up a little char.
High heat is doing a specific job here: it flashes off the surface moisture fast enough that the rice sears and browns instead of steaming in its own liquid, which is the difference between fried rice that tastes fried and fried rice that just tastes like mushy, reheated rice. Once it’s heated through, return the eggs, vegetables, and pork to the pan, pour in the soy sauce, and toss everything together over high heat until it’s evenly coated and a little browned at the edges.
More Fried Rice to Try
This same rice technique carries over to other proteins. My Mongolian Chicken and Crispy Beef both take well to it if you want to swap the pork out entirely, and this chicken and shrimp fried rice from Yellow Thyme goes a different direction with a mix of both. If you want to change the whole flavor profile instead of just the protein, my Hawaiian Pineapple Fried Rice and Thai-Style Fried Rice take the same rice technique somewhere completely different.
For other directions entirely: Couscous Fried Rice and Quinoa Veggie Fried Rice swap out the rice for a different grain, Blackstone Fried Rice moves the whole thing to a griddle, and Keto Pork Fried Rice, Keto Shrimp Fried Rice, and Keto Chicken Fried Rice go the cauliflower-rice route if you want it low-carb.
What To Serve With It
Pork fried rice is a full meal on its own, but it’s also a good landing spot if you’re cooking more than one Chinese takeout-style dish. Kung Pao Chicken or Szechuan Shrimp both hold their own next to it without competing for the same flavors.
For something fresh and crunchy alongside all that soy and char, a cold Spicy Cucumber Salad or Japanese Cucumber Salad cuts through the richness. Cucumber Kimchi does the same job with more heat, if that’s what you’re after.
Pork Fried Rice
Robin Donovan
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons cooking oil divided
- 3 teaspoons toasted sesame oil divided
- 4 large eggs beaten
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
- 2 carrots diced
- 1 pound chopped Char Siu or substitute uncooked sliced pork loin or ground pork
- 2 cups cold cooked rice preferably a day old
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 3 to 5 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 to 2 teaspoons chile paste or chile crisp optional
Instructions
- Heat 1 tablespoon of the cooking oil and 1 teaspoon of the sesame oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the eggs and cook, stirring with a spatula, until set. Transfer the eggs from the pan to a large bowl and chop up into small pieces.
- Add 1 tablespoon of the cooking oil and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil to the pan and then add the garlic, ginger, and carrots. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer the carrots to the bowl with the eggs.
- Add the meat to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until nicely seared. If you are using precooked char siu or other cooked meat, this step will take just 2 or 3 minutes. You can also cook raw pork (ground or sliced) during this step. Remove the meat from the pan, transferring it to the bowl with the eggs and carrots.
- Return the eggs, carrots, and porkto the pan and add the peas. Add the soy sauce and toss everything together over high heat until well combined and heated through.
- Stir in the chile paste or chili crisp, if using, and serve hot.
I hate throwing out the extra white rice we get from ordering takeout. This was so easy and DELICIOUS!! Will definitely be making again and again.
Love homemade takeout. Yum.
Loved this recipe, was so delicious! Thank you 🙂
Looks Great!
This taste just like takeout. I always wondered what they used to make it taste that way, and now I know. Thank you so much for the secret behind that takeout taste.
Just add a 1/2 tsp MSG, 1/2 tsp white or brown sugar and 1 TBSP shoaxing (Chinese cooking wine) wine to this recipe and it literally tastes like take-out.
Yes to the MSG but people get upset when you suggest it–it just can’t seem to shake the bad press. I have never thought to add shaoxing wine to fried rice, but I always have it in my pantry, so I’ll try it next time! Thanks for the suggestions.