Today, I give you the easy, classic chicken fried rice recipe that you can make for a quick dinner any day of the week. Take-out restaurants generally don’t do justice to this dish, as the chicken bits are usually small, or they used dry, stringy precooked chicken. This is the reason why chicken fried rice is generally not the most favored choice when I’m given a choice between beef, chicken, pork or shrimp!
Our already popular Classic Pork Fried Rice is really hard to beat if you use fresh Chinese roast pork (char siu) but for those of you who don’t eat pork or want to stay on the healthier side, chicken fried rice––when prepared properly––is a great choice. This chicken fried rice recipe uses large chunks of chicken to make this dish a meal.
Remember, this is only a template recipe for classic chicken fried rice with onions, eggs, bean sprouts, and scallions. You can customize to your heart’s content and add mushrooms, peas, or carrots. You can cut your chicken into smaller pieces if you like, omit the onions, use black pepper instead of white pepper… I think you get the point.
One word of advice: If you have never made chicken fried rice before, then follow these directions as written just once. Then next time, you can make adjustments according to your own tastes and experiment with variations.
Happy Cooking!
Chicken Fried Rice Recipe Instructions
Combine the chicken and marinade ingredients (soy sauce, cornstarch, sesame oil, and oil), and set aside while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. For more information and preparing chicken for stir fries, see Bill’s post on Chicken velveting 101.
Next, combine the hot water, sugar, regular or light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, salt and white pepper in a small bowl. This is the sauce that you’ll be adding to the rice, and it’s much easier to have it combined and ready to go before you start cooking. If you have questions about light and dark soy sauce, be sure to check out our Chinese sauces, vinegar, and oils ingredient page.
Take your cooked rice and fluff it with a fork or with your hands (you can rinse your hands in cold water if the rice starts sticking to them). If you are using cold leftover rice, try to break up the clumps as best as possible.
Heat the wok over medium high heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil. Add the eggs and scramble them until just done. You can even start scooping them up when they look like they are almost done and set aside. They will continue to cook in the bowl and you will cook them again in the rice. I’m only harping on this because you don’t want dried egg bits in your chicken fried rice!
Heat the wok until just smoking and spread another tablespoon oil around your wok. Sear the marinated chicken in one layer for 20 seconds.
Stir-fry the chicken until about 80% done. Remove the chicken to your marinade bowl and set aside.
With the wok over medium high heat, add another tablespoon of oil and sauté the onions until translucent.
Add the rice, and use your metal spatula to flatten out and break up any large clumps. If the rice is cold from the refrigerator, continue stir-frying until the rice is warmed up, which will take about 5 minutes.
Sprinkling just a little water on large clumps of rice will help break them up more easily. If the rice was made fresh, cooking time will be faster. Just make sure that the rice isn’t too wet––which will make frying it difficult.
When it comes to fried rice, leftovers are the best, but how exactly did you make the rice in the first place? If you have not purchased a rice cooker yet, then you really should consider it. They’re a kitchen lifesaver, and we recommend a really simple one without too many bells and whistles. Check out our Chinese Cooking Tools page for more information and some useful links to products.
Once the rice is warmed (very important or the sauce will not mix as well and the color of the rice will not be as uniform), add the sauce mixture and mix with a scooping motion until the rice is evenly coated with sauce. You will have to break up any remaining clumps of rice with the spatula as best as possible, but no need to be obsessive. The rice should be hot by this time.
Now add the chicken and any juices from the bowl you set aside earlier and stir fry for another minute.
Add the eggs, bean sprouts, and scallions, and continue stir-frying the rice for another 30 seconds.
Then gather all of the rice into the middle of the wok to let the sides of the wok heat up. After about 20 seconds, spread the Shaoxing wine around the perimeter of the wok and stir-fry for another 20 seconds.
This step gives you a little of that extra “wok hay” that you taste when you get fried rice from a good Chinese restaurant.
Serve with some homemade red chili oil.
Chicken Fried Rice
Ingredients
For the chicken and marinade:
- One large chicken breast (diced into ½-inch cubes)
- 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon oil
You'll also need:
- 1 tablespoon hot water
- ¼ teaspoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce (or to taste)
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
- white pepper (to taste)
- 3 tablespoons canola oil (divided)
- 2 eggs (beaten)
- 1 medium onion (diced)
- 5 cups cooked rice
- 1 cup fresh mung bean sprouts
- 1 scallion (chopped)
- 1 tablespoon shaoxing wine
Instructions
- Combine the chicken and marinade ingredients and set aside while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
- Next, combine the hot water, sugar, soy sauces and white pepper in a small bowl. This is the sauce that you’ll be adding to the rice, and it’s much easier to have it combined and ready to go before you start cooking. If you have questions about light and dark soy sauce, be sure to check out our Chinese sauces, vinegar, and oils ingredient page.
- Take your cooked rice and fluff it with a fork or with your hands (you can rinse your hands in cold water if the rice starts sticking to them). If you are using cold leftover rice, try to break up the clumps as best as possible.
- Heat the wok over medium high heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil. Add the eggs and scramble them until just done. You can even start scooping them up when they look like they are almost done and set aside. They will continue to cook in the bowl and you will cook them again in the rice. I'm only harping on this because you don’t want dried egg bits in your chicken fried rice!
- Heat the wok until just smoking and spread another tablespoon oil around your wok. Sear the marinated chicken in one layer for 20 seconds. Stir-fry the chicken until about 80% done. Remove the chicken to your marinade bowl and set aside.
- With the wok over medium high heat, add another tablespoon of oil and sauté the onions until translucent. Add the rice, and use your metal spatula to flatten out and break up any large clumps. If the rice is cold from the refrigerator, continue stir-frying until the rice is warmed up, which will take about 5 minutes. Sprinkling just a little water on large clumps of rice will help break them up more easily. If the rice was made fresh, cooking time will be faster. Just make sure that the rice isn't too wet––which will make frying it difficult.
- Once the rice is warmed (very important or the sauce will not mix as well and the color of the rice will not be as uniform), add the sauce mixture and mix with a scooping motion until the rice is evenly coated with sauce. You will have to break up any remaining clumps of rice with the spatula as best as possible, but no need to be obsessive. The rice should be hot by this time. Now add the chicken and any juices from the bowl you set aside earlier and stir fry for another minute.
- Add the eggs, bean sprouts, and scallions, and continue stir-frying the rice for another 30 seconds. Then gather all of the rice into the middle of the wok to let the sides of the wok heat up. After about 20 seconds, spread the Shaoxing wine around the perimeter of the wok and stir-fry for another 20 seconds. This step gives you a little of that extra "wok hay" that you taste when you get fried rice from a good Chinese restaurant.
nutrition facts
Delicious. I deleted the sprouts and added carrots. The flavor was light and perfect.
Hi Kim, sounds like subbing carrots for bean sprouts worked. :)
Looking forward to making this! Just a note, usually you don’t want to use metal in a wok. It scratches the wok and removes the seasoning.
Hi Rose, I actually always use a metal wok spatula. I don’t find that it adversely affects the seasoning :)
Awesome recipe! I made it and it came perfect! I used day old rice that I cooked and that helped a lot. I did not have bean sprouts but it still was delicious. I did add a small amount of frozen peas and carrots to the wok which made it nice as well as 2 eggs instead of one.
Hi Ben, Love that you added an extra egg! As for the peas and carrots, they are always a welcome addition to any fried rice ;-)
We made this for dinner–WOW–. we MOSTLY stuck to the recipe–mostly! We added some left over Char Siu plus the chicken and 2 cloves of garlic–it used up something we might have forgotten about and the garlic–just cause we love it. We decided that next time we may add some snow peas.
Hi Rebecca, adding some garlic makes for a nice garlicky fried rice – great idea!
I made this a few months ago without the wine and dark soy sauce. It was sooo good, I hit up several local markets to find the wine and dark soy sauce. GAME CHANGERS! Worth the time and I found a go-to market in my area.
Thank you for providing the gallery of ingredients. It helps so much when searching for them at the markets in my area. My family (especially my toddler) loves the fried rice, hot and sour soup, and egg drop soup.
Hi sam, thanks so much for sharing that information with our readers. Getting our recommended ingredients definitely matters, which is why we spend so much time writing about them ;-)
totally agree and fortunately here in california we have tons of local asian grocery markets that sell the specialty ingredients like dark soy sauce and chinese cooking wine. I made it today per the recipe and it was fantastic.
This was very delicious – we will definitely make it again. We followed instructions exactly and will do so again. We may switch up the protein here and there, but it’s delicious as is. I think sometimes we tend to over-season/spice things and then wonder why it’s not as good as a restaurant, but this kept the seasonings and ingredients fairly simple and I was happy about it.
Hi Sarah, thanks so much for your comment and excellent to hear you enjoyed our Chicken fried rice :)
Hello what kind of rice did you use to make the fried rice?? This looks delicious
Hi Shardey, it was long grain rice which is generally used for fried rice dishes.
Thank you for replying, was it long grain brown rice or long grain white rice??? I want to try this recipe one day cuz I love fried rice I want to make sure I do it correctly.
Long grain white rice! Jasmine rice is the best rice to use.
So either one is fine to use? Thank you
If I don’t have jasmine rice, can I just use long grain white rice? And when I want jasmine rice, what kind of jasmine rice should I get?
Hi Shardey, long grain rice definitely works. As for jasmine rice, any Thai jasmine rice is very good.
Bill I forgot to ask, can you please do a chicken teriyaki recipe & a Bourbon chicken recipe too one day and Chinese yellow fried like they do in Chinese takeout restaurants.
And Chinese yellow fried rice
Hi Shardey, we do have a bourbon chicken recipe here. Sarah’s Chicken teriyaki is pretty good too ;-)
Awesome! Also can you also do a yellow fried rice like they do it in Chinese restaurants?
Hi Shardey, Check out our Egg fried rice recipe. Let me know if this is what you want. Restaurants use eggs and food coloring to get that yellow fried rice. You can also see our Shrimp fried rice recipe where we add seasoning to fresh cooked rice. Many restaurants add a few drops of yellow food coloring to achieve the yellow color. Turmeric powder can also be used instead of yellow food coloring.