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Brown Fried Rice is a delicious, easy way to put your leftover brown rice to work. It only has 6 ingredients and takes less than 10 minutes from start to finish.
Table of Contents
Recipe ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
Ingredient notes
- Peas and carrots: ½ cup peeled, finely chopped fresh carrots and ½ cup frozen peas may be substituted for the frozen mix.
- Onions: Or substitute fresh chopped onions or frozen pearl onions.
- Brown rice: Cook your favorite brown rice (jasmine, basmati, short grain) up to 3 days in advance. For extra flavor, cook the rice in chicken broth. Cooked white rice works just as well, too.
Step-by-step instructions
- In a large skillet or wok, heat the oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add peas, carrots, and onions and cook until softened, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes.
- Stir in the rice. Clear a space in the middle of the pan by moving the rice and vegetables to the edges. Crack the egg into the space and scramble until hardened, about 1 minute. Stir into rice and vegetables.
- Pour 1 tablespoon soy sauce evenly over the top of the rice and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon garlic powder; toss to combine until heated through.
- Taste and adjust seasonings with additional soy sauce and garlic powder as desired. Serve immediately.
Why I love my rice cooker
I find that rice cookers help make the fluffiest rice and when we rounded up the best rice cookers, our top pick was my personal favorite: The Aroma Housewares Rice Cooker. It’s compact, super simple, and does exactly what it’s supposed to do without fail. My sisters, Erin and Meredith, each have the same one, and we all love it. Not to mention, it has over 6,100 positive reviews. That’s a whole lot of rice!
You can buy my favorite rice cooker for $42 at Target, or you can get the smaller 4-cup version for about $30 on Amazon.
You can make your brown rice in the rice cooker the night before so it’s ready to go. Rice cookers can cook polenta beautifully, also, without stirring it for a million hours. It’s not just a one-job appliance.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe makes about 4 cups brown fried rice.
- Storage: Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- Make ahead: This recipe requires leftover brown rice which can (and should) be cooked up to 3 days in advance.
- Freezer: Because the egg is scrambled in this recipe, it’s okay to freeze the fried rice. Cool completely, divide in to freezer-safe containers, label, date, and freeze for up to 1 month. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
- Spicy: For extra heat, add ¼ teaspoon (or more) of Sriracha to the skillet with the vegetables in Step 1. Or, stir in Sriracha to taste with the soy sauce in Step 3.
- More mix-ins: Customize your fried rice with leftover chicken, blanched broccoli, or pulled pork and barbecue sauce. Or, add leftover ham and chopped pineapple for an easy version of Hawaiian Fried Rice.
Baked Rice
Making Baked Rice in the oven is fast, foolproof, and fluffy. This easy 3-ingredient recipe is great for meal prep and freezer friendly, too. Say goodbye to sticky, burned pot bottoms, or al dente grains…
View Recipe
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Brown Fried Rice
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 cup frozen peas and carrots mix (see note 1)
- 1/2 cup frozen chopped onions (see note 2)
- 2 cups cooked brown rice (see note 3)
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce plus more to taste
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder plus more to taste
Instructions
- In a large skillet or wok, heat the oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add peas, carrots, and onions and cook until softened, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes.
- Stir in the rice. Clear a space in the middle of the pan by moving the rice and vegetables to the edges. Crack the egg into the space and scramble until hardened, about 1 minute. Stir into rice and vegetables.
- Pour 1 tablespoon soy sauce evenly over the top of the rice and sprinkle with 1 teaspoon garlic powder; toss to combine until heated through. Taste and adjust seasonings with additional soy sauce and garlic powder as desired. Serve immediately.
Notes
- Peas and carrots: ½ cup peeled, finely chopped fresh carrots and ½ cup frozen peas may be substituted for the frozen mix.
- Onions: Or substitute fresh chopped onions or frozen pearl onions.
- Brown rice: Cook your favorite brown rice (jasmine, basmati, short grain) up to 3 days in advance. For extra flavor, cook the rice in chicken broth. Cooked white rice works just as well, too.
- Yield: This recipe makes about 4 cups brown fried rice.
- Storage: Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- Make ahead: This recipe requires leftover brown rice which can (and should) be cooked up to 3 days in advance.
- Freezer: Because the egg is scrambled in this recipe, it’s okay to freeze the fried rice. Cool completely, divide in to freezer-safe containers, label, date, and freeze for up to 1 month. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
- Spicy: For extra heat, add ¼ teaspoon (or more) of Sriracha to the skillet with the vegetables in Step 1. Or, stir in Sriracha to taste with the soy sauce in Step 3.
- More mix-ins: Customize your fried rice with leftover chicken, blanched broccoli, or pulled pork and barbecue sauce. Or, add leftover ham and chopped pineapple for an easy version of Hawaiian Fried Rice.
Nutrition
Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.
What a great recipe! We just used the veges we had on hand (carrots and green beans). It was delicious. This is the only time we have ever enjoyed left over rice. We used long grain brown rice left over from.the day before.
Sounds delicious, Keith! Thank you so much for your comment! Take care! – Meggan
Made this yesterday and just used the fresh veggies i had on hand – broccoli, zucchini, onion and carrots all diced small. Was extremely yummy!! Using leftover brown rice instead of white rice was a nice surprise. I actually liked it more than regular fried rice. Thanks for the recipe! I’ll definitely make this again.
Thank you, Liz! I feel like the recipe is somewhat unremarkable when you look at it, but it’s super tasty. My favorite thing to do, if you can find it, is to use the short-grain brown rice. I don’t know why but it feels like an extra treat. Super chewy, my kids love it. Thanks again for the lovely comment! I appreciate you. -Meggan
Is it one cup of rice or 1/2 a cup of rice
You can substitute the soy sauce with Braggs liquid amino for more health benefits. This sounds good. I’ve made something similar, I also add water chestnuts.
First – water chestnuts! My favorite. My husband inexplicably doesn’t like them, I have no idea why. They are so good. Second, I haven’t tried liquid aminos yet but I’ve heard such good things about it. All my friends use it. I must try it!
Thank you so much for this recipe! It is nutritious, inexpensive, and most of all delicious. (Not to mention that this is extremely easy.)
I will definitely be making this again!
How is this a 10 minute recipe? you still have to cook the rice `40 min
The idea of the recipe is that you would be using leftover rice that you already have on hand. In my own experience, I would never set out to make fried rice and start off by making rice. That’s just way too much work! There is something really great that happens to rice when it sits in the refrigerator overnight and then you make fried rice with it the next day. I think it is less sticky, maybe. In any case, I will fix up my blog post so there is no misleading text, and I’ll change the recipe to say “leftover cooked rice” and I hope this is helpful. Thank you for your feedback and sorry about the confusion.