quick and easy chicken fried rice

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Fried rice is a staple meal in our family - whether I make it with turkey, chicken, egg, pork, tofu, etc., it's a relatively healthy meal that is a real hit with the whole family (mind you, the kids will still sometimes pick out the various aspects they dislike).



I love making this whenever I have any sort of leftover protein (roast chicken in this case, but I most often make it with leftover turkey), but the beauty of this type of meal is that you can make it work with almost anything that you have on hand.  I like to make mine a bit healthier by using brown rice, and packing it full of vegetables.  I also love putting egg in it, so as long as I have eggs on hand, that's what I do.



If you're smart and organized (i.e., all the things I'm not), you can make your rice in advance (and even freeze it) and I'm told fried rice is better that way.  And I'm sure purists would be appalled at my use of brown rice, but I like to add a little fibre in wherever I can sneak it.



This particular time, I used this Planet Rice sprouted brown rice I picked up at Costco a while back.  I like that it cooks in 25 minutes (rather than 45 for traditional brown rice).  As long as you start the rice first, you can get this on the table in about 30 minutes or so.



quick and easy chicken fried rice



2 c uncooked brown rice (cook according to package directions)

1.5 T canola oil
1.5 T sesame oil

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T ginger, minced/grated
200 g mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 yellow pepper, chopped
1 large head broccoli, chopped in small pieces (I had a few smaller heads)
1 c frozen peas
2-3 c chopped chicken (or turkey or tofu or whatever)
1/4 c soy sauce, divided

1. Start the rice.  I recommend a rice cooker, if you have one. Start chopping your veggies.

2. Take your largest saute pan or wok (I have a huge 15" wok from Cool Kitchen Pro, which is fantastic), and heat it over medium heat.

3. Add the oil, let it heat until shimmering (but not smoking), and then add the eggs.  You could scramble the egg, but I usually just let it cook in an omelette and chop it up later.



4. Flip the omelette, cook until just done, then remove the egg from heat and set aside.  You should still have plenty of oil in your pan (if you don't, then add a splash more).

5. Add the vegetables (minus the peas) to the pan, and stir-fry for a few minutes, until they are lightly done.  Add the chicken and the frozen peas, and cook 1-2 minutes more.

6. In terms of adding soy sauce, I find it easiest to add some to the chicken/veggies and some to the rice, and then combining them together.  So do that.  Or you can dump everything in together and stir.  It's not rocket science, but it is pretty delicious.

This makes 6-7 servings.  It served our family of four, plus two lunches, plus another large container full.  You can stretch it a bit more by adding more rice (2.5 cups instead of 2, or even 3 cups if you wanted), but as I said, I like to keep it packed with veggies to keep it from being too carb-heavy a meal.

Enjoy!