Continuing the theme of healthy eating, I wanted to make something veggie filled and healthy for dinner tonight. Luckily, I had a whole bunch of ingredients in the fridge to put together this tasty vegetable fried rice.
The trick to restaurant style fried rice is to use cooked rice that is a day old. So you can make rice the day before or use any leftovers you may have. Since this isn’t always practical, I usually cook the rice first and let it cool while I stir fry the other ingredients. Any number of vegetables can be used. I can envision a version of this with broccoli and cauliflower. Snow peas, baby corn, bell peppers, and greens would all work as well.
I deliberately kept this recipe vegetarian but feel free to add the meat of your choice. I think shrimp would be a great compliment to the lightness of the dish. Either way, it is super fast and simple to prepare. The leftovers can easily last you another night of dinner.
- 1 cup dry brown rice (or 2 cups cooked)
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 2 large carrots, peeled and diced
- 2 heads baby bok choy, washed and chopped
- 1 cup of red cabbage, washed and shredded
- 1 cup of frozen peas
- ¼ cup raw cashews, chopped (or almonds)
- ¼ cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1 tbsp rice wine
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp chili sauce (double if you want some more spice)
- If not using precooked rice, cook rice according to package directions. Set aside and allow to cool
- In a large wok or frying pan, heat olive oil on medium heat until lightly smoking
- Add onion and carrot, stir frying for 3-4 minutes, until onions are soft
- Add cabbage, peas and bok choy, continue to stir fry for 3-4 minutes until wilted
- In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, rice wine, sugar and chili sauce
- Add rice, sauce and cashews to the pan and stir fry everything together until the rice is hot, approximately 6-8 minutes
- Serve with chopped green onions
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Nice healthy dish to start a year! My kids eat all kinds of veggies when I make fried rice (probably hard to even divide between veggies and non-veggies).
Great dish!
Yay for a healthy start my friend, I love the ingredients
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
Love, love, love fried rice & we always have leftover rice in the fridge … Your version looks fabulous, Dara!
This looks fabulous! I think cashews are my favorite addition to fried rice.
Nice healthy meal. I must tell you, then when I was young and used to go to asian restaurants with my parents, that was the meal. I did not want to try anything else, as I loved this one so much
Fried rice is one of my most favorite comfort foods, and I never seem to make it at home. I need to do this! It’ll be a goal for 2013.
I’ll often have leftovers of vegetables from previous meals in the fridge and that include rice. It then takes a matter of minutes to get them into the wok with a few more veggies for flavour. I’d have some mushrooms and red or green peppers but only because they happen to be my favourites.
Good recipe though