Say YES to Leftover Rice: Spilled Milk #201

This fried rice comes together in about 15 minutes — and you probably have everything you need to make it on hand.

✈️ LET’S TAKE THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME TOGETHER!  

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I got really crazy a few weeks ago when my friend Chef JJ Johnson told me about the online debate about using leftover rice. It’s something so wrong that he and I made a funny video pushing back on the idea that you shouldn’t use leftover rice and posted it on our IG grids.

Let me just say without being repetitive, because the video says it all, that not using leftover plain rice is wasteful and wantonly ignorant of its value. I use old rice ALL the time. I purposely make more plain rice than I need for any dish and keep the leftovers in a covered pot at room temp for easy access for 36-48 hours. At the 48-hour mark I have to toss it, but it rarely sits that long.

It’s perfect dusted in cornstarch and fried for crispy rice for salads or other recipes, used in soups, reheated as a side, sautéed in any manner of ways (try it with shrimp, olive oil, garlic, parsley and lemon). It refreshes beautifully in a broth. I could go on and on. Where I use it most is in fried rice.

The drier the rice (without going “stale,” hence the covered pot on the stove), the better it is for fried rice. Using fresh rice results in a mushy final product and less absorption of other flavors. It also doesn’t scorch as well in the wok. I take the rice out of the pot if I am making fried rice, spread it on a plate and let it sit at room temp for a few hours if I have the time. It’s even better that way!

On to the rest of the rice dish:

If you love to cook, you probably already have many of the ingredients on hand. A good dark soy, an egg, the rice, sesame oil … just that can be enough to make a simple fried rice, but I like to keep a well-stocked pantry for dishes my family LOVES. Ginger, chiles, peas in the freezer, garlic, scallions, lap cheong sausage, which is salty, sweet and sometimes seasoned with chiles too — those last forever in my fridge, by the way.

Google “lap cheong” and up will pop a hundred places to buy online, but I get mine from the Asian market 10 minutes from my house, and I live out in the country in the upper Midwest! Bean sprouts are the wild card because they spoil quickly, but I had some on hand after a trip to the market. I get my dark soy (stronger/darker) for wok cooking, and my toasted canola oil from the Ma La Market.

For the wok, I have several. The one in the video is from Eating Tools. The handmade blue steel is a stunner, but a carbon steel Chinese wok from the local market will work superbly as well if it is seasoned. I have both types and use them equally.

About the wok tool … it’s a new prototype that I am designing with a cool company out of North Carolina, and I love how it’s performing. I can’t wait to show it off some more.

Get all your prep done and get all your ingredients ready to go, because I made this batch in four minutes or so. It moves quick — normally I do it in about three minutes but had to make sure I was shooting this efficiently for the video.

An egg tip: beat the egg lightly for this so you have concentrated ribbons of yellow and white. I use chopsticks for that.

Seasoning tip: I keep a salt cellar in my kitchen with 2:1 salt to MSG, and I use it for many dishes since it delivers better flavor and I have less sodium in my diet.

And there is nothing wrong with MSG!

Recipe: Fried Rice