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This chicken fried rice has moist and tender chicken with flavorful peas and carrots and long rice cooked together. Make this unique and your own with this favorite Chinese rice!
So many varieties of fried rice can be made. These better than takeout fried rice recipes are a collage of all my favorites!
Chicken Fried Rice
I mean really. Who doesn’t like fried rice? Ok maybe my six year old doesn’t because of the veggies inside, but I am pretty sure he is the only one out there. 🙂 For my birthday dinner with my family I chose to go to our favorite little chinese restaurant. And it was the bomb. But their fried rice was excellent. But I kept thinking, I can make this just as good at home and I have been craving it ever since!
Since I learned a few awesome tricks on how to get the perfect fried rice in my recipe here, I wanted to make a big old batch for myself for lunch. The baby was craving it that day. But I thought, why don’t I add in some protein and make a meal out of it. You guys. The chicken gave it such amazing flavor! I really couldn’t believe how good it turned out. I promise that you can stay at home and have this better than take out chicken fried rice. You will really be impressed with yourself.
Get Ready to Make Some Rice:
- Vegetable Oil: This helps with cooking the chicken and adding flavoring at the same time.
- Soy Sauce: Chinese favorite sauce that is authentic and brings rich flavoring.
- Chicken: Cut into small pieces and add into the skillet or wok.
- Cooked Rice: It is best to have already cooked rice that has been cooled in a refrigerator.
- Sesame Oil: Brings in a subtle and rich flavoring.
- Onion: Small white onion chopped up.
- Peas and Carrots: Frozen vegetables work best then leave them overnight to be thawed.
- Soy Sauce: More of this delicious sauce!
- Eggs: Lightly beaten and added in the wok.
- Green Onions: Chopped and sprinkle in for added texture, color and flavoring!
Cooking Fried Rice:
- Cook in a skillet: In a large skillet or wok, add vegetable oil and soy sauce. Add in the chicken and cook until lightly brown and cooked throughout. Remove and set aside.
- Add oil and vegetables: Pour sesame oil in the bottom. Add white onion and peas and carrots and fry until tender.
- Pour egg mixture: Slide the onion, peas and carrots to the side, and pour the beaten eggs onto the other side. Using a spatula, scramble the eggs. Once cooked, mix the eggs with the vegetable mix.
- Stir in remaining ingredients: Add the rice and chicken to the veggie and egg mixture. Pour the soy sauce on top. Stir and fry the rice and veggie mixture until heated through and combined. Add chopped green onions if desired.
The Recipe Critic Pro Tip:
I cooked my chicken in this teriyaki sauce recipe here. It added amazing flavor to the chicken and it just shredded apart. Other wise, you can boil your chicken, or even cook it in a medium skillet until no longer pink.
Tips for Making the Best Fried Rice:
Enjoy making the this fried rice using these tips to help accomplish the authentic Chinese taste. It is simple to make and comes together quickly and easily. Once you make it you will be making it over and over again!
- Cold Rice: To make the best rice you have to plan a little bit ahead of time. Chilled cooked rice is the best way to use up left over rice as well as fried rice. Rice that is cooked and still warm does not cook well when making fried rice. It tends to turn out mushy and very sticky.
- Make Cold Rice: If you are on a time crunch and craving fried rice simply place the warm rice on a sheet pan and stick it in the refrigerator for 30 to 45 minutes or until cold. For an even quicker remedy, place the rice in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes long. Just enough for it to chill but not be frozen.
- High Heat: It is best to cook on high heat to help fry and brown the rice and veggies throughly. Try not to have the rice steam in the pan or stick together too much. Stir frequently.
- Soy Sauce: Add in extra soy sauce towards the end as you are trying the fried rice as you are cooking it. A light soy sauce is what I prefer for flavor.
Variations:
Try new things and mix it up with all these new and fun variations when making the best fried rice recipe. The best part is using up the leftover rice. Find more left overs that can be added into this chicken fried rice recipe to make it easier. Mix and match ingredients and create more delicious flavors of rice.
- Protein: Mix up your protein with ham, shrimp, bacon or enjoy it with vegetables.
- Oil: Instead of adding in all the oils, butter is just as great! Add in butter to create a rich, flavorful taste.
- Rice: It is best to have cold or chilled rice for this recipe. Quinoa or long grain rice are great ways to enjoy a variety.
- Vegetables: Create a combination of a few to several of your favorite vegetables to enhance this recipe. Broccoli, cauliflower, snap peas or water chestnuts are great vegetables to add in.
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Equipment
- Large Skillet or Wok
- Spatula
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 pound chicken cut into small pieces
- 3 cups cooked rice *
- 2 Tablespoons sesame oil
- 1 small white onion chopped
- 1 cup frozen peas and carrots thawed
- 2-3 Tablespoons soy sauce more or less to taste
- 2 large eggs lightly beaten
- 2 Tablespoons chopped green onions optional
Instructions
- In a large skillet or wok, add vegetable oil and soy sauce. Add in the chicken and cook until lightly brown and cooked throughout. Remove and set aside.
- Pour sesame oil in the bottom. Add white onion and peas and carrots and fry until tender.
- Slide the onion, peas and carrots to the side, and pour the beaten eggs onto the other side. Using a spatula, scramble the eggs. Once cooked, mix the eggs with the vegetable mix.
- Add the rice and chicken to the veggie and egg mixture. Pour the soy sauce on top. Stir and fry the rice and veggie mixture until heated through and combined. Add chopped green onions if desired.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
That chicken fried rice looked so delicious i ended up nearly eating my laptop.
I think I can wait until tomorrow though for the real thing.
I love this recipe and make it all the time! I tend to use a lot more soy sauce because I LOVE soy sauce. I precook my chicken in large batches and even have it cut it up into small cubes before I freeze it. So all I have do is defrost the chicken and throw it in. This is a really easy recipe to double/triple and it’s great as leftovers.
My 12 yo and I loved it! I didn’t have peas. I used a small green pepper instead. My daughter doesn’t like peas anyways and she didn’t pick out the peppers. She normally prefers peppers raw. I diced them small. I used shredded rotisserie chicken that I had left over. It was super quick. I’ll be making this again!!!
Great recipe! found broccoli to be a great addition to it!!0
I added some peanut oil to the sesame oil and then a touch of vinegar at the end. It’s delicious! It truly is better than takeout!
I already had cooked rice, a baked chicken breast…so fried 1/2 an onion,added peas, chopped celery, chopped red bell pepper, some slivered carrots and almonds to your recipe. I actually cleaned out the refrig. crisper and it was delicious. I stir-fried in the sesame oil as the recipe called for, and Soy Sauce at the end. So tasty.
🙂 This is how I make my fried rice too!! Only difference is I use any leftover meat I have in fridge, especially my bbq meats, like ribs and chicken!!! Delish!!!!
I have made this twice and it’s very good. I was wondering if you used garlic in this recipe? I noticed there was garlic in the picture of the ingredients but I didn’t see any garlic in the recipe. Thanks!
I have made this several times. One time I had a left over pork tenderloin and cooked it in the slow cooker instead of chicken. Equally as good. I save the sauce from cooking the chicken/pork and then don’t use extra soy.
We make this often and its so good, but i cheat a little I stop by my Fujis japanese steakhouse and get what they call sexi sauce (ie: shrimp sauce) i get a huge container for about 5 dollars and serve it on the chicken fried rice and my fmaily gobbles it up it is so good. just thought id share its wonderful!
OH my gosh! Have you heard of Yum Yum sauce? I wonder if it is the same!! I put it all over my fried rice!
i actually made this right now and it truned out to be wonderful, i am amazed at how well it turned out because this is the first time ive ever made fried rice
This is so simple, thanks for sharing this recipe with pictures which make it easy to know.
I have never made Fried Rice before because I thought nothing can beat a good take out Fried Rice at the local fish and Chip shop but this is amazing and it definitely is better than any takeout, plus you know whats going into it!! I will 100% be making this again, so easy and so delicious. thank you so much.
This is going to sound really silly but how do you measure your cooked cups of rice? I don’t seem to trust the idea of just packing it into a measuring cup and I don’t know how to measure it without initially knowing how much I put in my rice cooker. I’m using some leftover rice (and I don’t recall how much rice I cooked in the first place) but I don’t really know how to measure it on my food scale other than with grams/oz and something tells me that 8oz of cooked rice does not equal a cup. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks!
I just scoop it up in a measuring cup and level it out as much as possible.
I love fried rice and I lost my original recipe so I used yours as a brief reminder. I didn’t have the frozen veggies so I used yellow and orange peppers. I also used evoo instead of sesame oil. I cooked the chicken up in a pan instead of a crockpot and used garlic powder and my secret spices. And I added bacon. It was good. I bet if I did the whole thing your way it would’ve turned out great too.
I made this tonight with your teryiaki chicken. It was such a huge hit! My husband had THREE plates full, and even our normally picky little girls ate it up. 🙂 I normally don’t like takeout Chinese food because I am super picky about my chicken, so this was perfect! I didn’t use the slow cooker; I just cooked the chicken and let it simmer in the teryiaki sauce while I made the rice. I found this recipe around 4:30 and had everything on the table ready to eat by 6pm. Thank you again, SO good!!