This simple fried rice is a nutritious and quick-to-make meal that is mostly made with food staples—rice and frozen vegetables. It’s easy to customise to suit your taste and mood. Enjoy it in less than 15 minutes!
While living in Singapore, my husband worked long hours, so I often had dinner on my own. Also, fresh ingredients could be quite expensive, and eating out was significantly cheaper. Thus, I ate out more often than not.
However, I did get into the routine of cooking up a batch of brown rice so that I could quickly whip up a brown rice salad or a bowl of simple fried rice. In Singapore, I developed this recipe for Simple Fried Rice for One.
The recipe consists mostly of food staples, making it an excellent fall-back meal when you aren’t sure if you’ll be eating at home or out.
Now that I live in New Zealand and mostly work from home, I continue to fall back on this recipe, particularly when I want something warm for lunch rather than a cold salad.
Customise the fried rice to your taste
You can modify the recipe to suit your taste and choose proteins that you like.
I’m vegetarian and don’t particularly like the texture of scrambled eggs, which are traditional in fried rice. Instead, I often add beans or tempeh for added protein.
For this reason, this recipe doesn’t include eggs. But don’t let me stop you from adding an egg if you’d like!
You can use white or brown rice for this recipe. I have used a combination of rice and red quinoa. Again, the choice is yours.
Selecting vegetables for this easy fried rice
Frozen Vegetables
Fried rice commonly contains corn, peas and carrots, which come conveniently packaged in the frozen food section in the supermarket. They’re a nutritious option, packed fresh. Furthermore, they are handy when eating for one as you don’t have to worry about vegetables wilting or getting mouldy in the fridge should you not use them.
Fresh Vegetables
You could combine other fresh vegetables, such as broccoli, snow peas, capsicum, shredded cabbage or kale.
Do you have any favourite fried rice additions?
Let me know in the comments below so that we can share ideas on how to customise and vary the recipe.
More recipes portioned for one
If you are looking for more easy meals, you can make for one, check out my recipes for:
Simple Fried Rice for One
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon peanut or sesame oil
- ¼ cup cashews or peanuts optional
- 1 medium carrot, grated or finely diced (alternatively use a frozen carrot, peas and corn combo)
- ½ cup frozen peas and corn
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon chilli powder or chilli flakes
- 1 cup cooked brown rice or microwave cup of brown rice mixture
- 2 tablespoons coconut aminos or reduced salt tamari or soy sauce
- Pinch pepper
- Coriander, chives or green onion, thinly sliced to garnish (optional)
Instructions
- Heat oil in a medium fry pan on medium-high heat.
- Add cashews or peanuts. Stir until lightly brown, keeping a close eye on them to ensure they don’t burn.
- Add the carrot, peas and corn with the turmeric, garlic powder and chilli. Stir through for 2-3 minutes.
- Then add rice and coconut aminos.
- Stir through, until veggies and rice warmed through. If this takes some time, you may need to add a tablespoon, or more, of water to stop the rice sticking to the pan.
- Serve topped with your chosen optional garnish. You could even serve with a little chilli-garlic sauce.
Notes
- Whisk one egg in a bowl.
- Push the rice and veggie mixture to the side and pour the beaten egg into the pan.
- Use a spatula to scramble the eggs. Once cooked, mix the egg with the rice and veggies.
Storage You can store this simple fried rice in the fridge for 3-4 days or freeze it for later.
