Kimchi Fried Rice
When we first started developing Kimchenius, this is one of the first dishes that we made with it. A good friend of ours told us about a food stand that featured kimchi fried rice of all sorts and how delicious it was. That inspired us to do some recipe research and come up with a simple and trusty recipe of our own. Once you try it, I think you’ll find that you can eat it for a quick lunch or dress it up for an entrée and dinner guests will be impressed. We’ll eat it for breakfast too if we have it around!
(serves 4)
Ingredients
2T Oil or Butter
1 Medium onion diced (recommend yellow, white or sweet onion)
1 Bell pepper diced
1 15oz jar Kimchenius Kimchi drained (reserve liquid) and chopped roughly, you just want to cut it up enough so that it fries up evenly and blends with the rice nicely.
4 Cups cooked rice (cooled and even better if cooked the day before so it’s slightly dried out
1T Soy sauce
(Optional) 8oz diced ham, pork, chicken, tofu or whatever sounds good to you (we’ve tried most options including diced Spam and they all turn out great)
2T Oil (recommend canola, vegetable or similar neutral oil with high smoke point)
4oz Green onions/scallions chopped
(Optional) 4 fresh eggs
Preparation
Heat 2T oil or butter in wok or other large frying pan and saute diced onion and bell pepper until they just start to soften.
(Optional) If using optional protein, increase heat to med-high and add to pan. Continually turn to begin to brown and get crispy without letting burn.
With heat on med-high, add chopped Kimchenius Kimchi and continue to turn to blend and heat until everything is well incorporated.
Add soy sauce and stir into mixture in pan for a minute or so
Increase heat to high and allow a minute or two for pan/wok to heat while still tending to mixture to ensure it doesn’t burn.
Add cooked rice in stages to prevent wok/pan from cooling too much while continuously flipping/mixing to blend ingredients and add color to the rice. Depending on the heat output of your stove, wok setup, etc., this may take a little patience to obtain that “fried” rice browned character. If you happen to have a high output setup or wok burner than you’re probably quite familiar with the process and it will go more quickly.
Once the rice and other ingredients are mixed and starting achieve desired color, slowly add the reserved Kimchenius liquid while continuing to mix and heat. Once liquid is thoroughly mixed, remove pan from heat.
(Optional) If using eggs, heat a separate pan and cook as desired. We recommend a light over-easy to ensure a soft texture and nice runny yolk, but make to your taste.
To Serve
Portion fried rice into bowls and top each with fried egg if used. Garnish with chopped green onions and enjoy!