What is the secret ingredient to restaurant fried rice?

Cooking bits of chopped vegetables, seasoning, soy sauce, and oil, seems easy enough. However, when making fried rice at home, there's one ingredient you may be overlooking: Sugar.

What makes fried rice taste better?

To give your dish that signature fried rice taste, you'll need to drizzle in sesame oil and soy sauce , but feel free to use as much or as little as you wish. You can even mix in things like garlic powder, ginger root, or Sriracha sauce and chili pepper for a bit of a kick.

How do you make fried rice taste like restaurant?

To get restaurant-quality fried rice at home, it's essential to use aromatics , a group of vegetables and herbs that are so named because they lend your dish a distinct aroma. Common aromatics that are used to flavor fried rice are onion, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, and red peppers.

Why does Chinese restaurant fried rice taste better?

The answer: high heat, expert tosses, and something known as 'wok hei. ' As J. Kenji López-Alt writes for Serious Eats, expert cooking with a wok (and the gas range it requires) is one of the main reasons that fried rice from a Chinese restaurant tastes so much better than what you can make at home.

Why is my fried rice not good?

A fresh batch of warm (or even lukewarm) rice will not fry well when it hits the hot pan, and will result in soggy and sticky clumps — no good. So leftover refrigerated rice is ideal!

Why do you put sugar in fried rice?

This is because the sugar caramelizes the rice, which gives it that light hue you often find on fried rice made in restaurants . Sugar will also offer a nice contrast to the saltiness in your homemade fried rice, which helps replicate the flavor of takeout.

Why doesn t homemade fried rice taste like restaurant?

You don't use flavorful sauces Key amongst these is soy sauce. By adding soy sauce during cooking chefs are adding both salt and umami to the fried rice which, unsurprisingly, greatly improves the dish's overall flavor. Other chefs opt to include fish sauce for similar reasons.

Why do Mexicans fry their rice before cooking?

The method used to make Mexican rice involves lightly frying the uncooked rice in oil which helps it absorb more flavor from the seasoning and cook to a perfect consistency . In addition, a traditional blend of spices and diced vegetables and potatoes create unique flavor.

Do Chinese restaurants use butter in fried rice?

That's one of the major differences between how Chinese and Japanese restaurants prepare fried rice. Whereas the former only uses oil, the latter cooks leftover grains with butter (plus soy sauce).

Do they put soy sauce in fried rice?

It's a signature of Chinese cooking, as it uses pretty minimal ingredients to create a wonderful flavor. It uses simple ingredients such as butter, soy sauce , tons of green onions, and eggs to turn your leftover stale rice into a feast.

How do Chinese restaurants make fried rice yellow?

Actually, the yellow colour of the fried rice came from the beaten eggs . The beaten eggs is the one that gives the yellow colour to the Fried Rice. This type of Fried Rice is called “Golden Egg Fried Rice.”

How do you make fried rice not taste bland?

There are a few different seasonings that make fried rice taste just right. The most important sauces to add are soy sauce, oyster sauce, and fish sauce in fried rice . All three add unique flavors to rice, but it can be easy to go overboard. Make sure you add small amounts of each and regularly taste the rice.

Mexican Fried Rice Recipe (2024)

April 16, 2023 by Alea Milham 17 Comments

Combine the flavors of Mexican rice and the cooking style of Asian rice to create a unique Mexican fried rice recipe to serve for dinner on your next Taco Tuesday.

Jump to Recipe

This Mexican Fried RiceRecipe is a delicious twist on the traditional Mexican rice thatis cooked in a saucy liquid. Traditional Mexican riceis delicious, but we love the texture that cooking it fried rice style gives it.

This Mexican fried rice recipe is also a great way to quickly make a side dish using precooked rice from a batch cooking session or leftover rice. The key to making great fried rice is using cooked, cold rice. When I make any type of fried rice recipe, I like to batch cook rice the day before and refrigerate it overnight so it gets nice and cold. Cooked rice also freezes well if you wanted to make a larger batch and freeze it in the amounts you need for this and other rice recipes.

Here is how to easily cook rice in the oven and here is how to cook white basmati rice in an Instant Pot. You can find more tips for batch cooking recipes as well as lots of delicious recipes in my cookbook, Prep-Ahead Meals from Scratch.

When you add the rice to the pan, be sure to stir it frequently, almost constantly, to blend all of the ingredients and prevent it from sticking. Once the spices and seasonings are well incorporated into the rice, you can let it sit a little longer without stirring. This will give you those little bits of crunchy rice thatareso delicious in fried rice.

Ilove adding a healthy amount of sliced green onions at the end for a pop of flavor and color. You could also add black beans, jalapeño peppers, or cilantro. Use the recipe below on how to make Mexican Fried Rice to create this tasty dish.

Mexican Fried Rice Recipe

Ingredients:

3 cups cooked white rice
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 small onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup frozen corn, thawed
1 4-ounce can green chiles, drained
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 green onions, sliced (save a few slices to garnishif you wish.)

Directions:

Add two tablespoons of the olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat.
When the oil is hot, add the onion, and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes or until soft.
Add the tomatoes, corn, and green chiles, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until the liquid has cooked out.
Add the seasonings and garlic, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until the garlic begins to brown.
Turn the heat down to medium, add the remaining olive oil and the cooked rice.
Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently to blend the rice and seasonings.
Stir in the green onions, and remove the pan from the heat.
Top with the remaining green onions.

Printable Recipe for Mexican Fried Rice

5 from 1 vote

Mexican Fried Rice

Mexican Fried Rice Recipe

Course Side Dish

Cuisine Mexican

Keyword Fried Rice, Mexican Fried Rice, Southwest Fried Rice

Ingredients

▢ 3 cups cooked white rice
▢ 4 tablespoons olive oil divided
▢ 1 small onion finely diced
▢ 2 garlic cloves minced
▢ 1 cup frozen corn thawed
▢ 1 4- ounce can green chiles drained
▢ 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
▢ 1 teaspoon cumin
▢ 2 teaspoons chili powder
▢ 1 teaspoon paprika
▢ 1/2 teaspoon salt
▢ 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
▢ 2 green onions sliced (save a few slices to garnish if you wish.)

Instructions

Add two tablespoons of the olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat.
When the oil is hot, add the onion, and sauté for 3 to 4 minutes or until soft.
Add the tomatoes, corn, and green chiles, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until the liquid has cooked out.
Add the seasonings and garlic, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes or until the garlic begins to brown.
Turn the heat down to medium, add the remaining olive oil and the cooked rice.
Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently to blend the rice and seasonings.
Stir in the green onions, and remove the pan from the heat.
Top with the remaining green onions.

Nutrition

More Rice Recipes:

Vegetable Rice Cups

Summer Vegetables Shrimp Fried Rice

Chicken and Root Vegetables Over Rice

Orange Rice Recipe with Cranberries

Wild Rice, Chorizo and Gluten-Free Bread Stuffing

Mexican Fried Rice Recipe (2024)

Mexican Fried Rice Recipe

Ingredients:

Directions:

Printable Recipe for Mexican Fried Rice

Mexican Fried Rice

Ingredients

Instructions

Nutrition

More Rice Recipes:

FAQs

What is the secret ingredient to restaurant fried rice? ›

How do Chinese restaurants make fried rice yellow? ›