The Pan-Free Way To Make Fried Rice In An Instant

There's a reason fried rice is the standard accompaniment to most Chinese takeout dishes, and it's not just because it's fairly inexpensive to mass produce — it's also so tasty that many convenience food enthusiasts have begun making it themselves at home. A combination of rice, eggs, some kind of veggie blend (most often peas, corn, and carrots), oil, and soy sauce, this tasty takeout staple is a fantastic way to use up leftover basic stovetop steamed white rice and fill up your belly on a budget.

Though leftover rice is usually the key to making the best homemade fried rice — it absorbs sauces better than fresh — when a craving hits, it's perfectly okay to improvise. In fact, there's a way to build this meal from start to finish in just 30 minutes without so much as glancing at a frying pan. Instead, your microwave does all the heavy lifting, from steaming the rice and veggies to frying the egg. After they're all cooked, all you have to do is stir the components together, drizzle with some soy sauce or hoisin, and enjoy.

When making this dish, it's recommended to make the rice first, especially if you're steaming it fresh. That way, you can stir in some seasonings and allow the steam to pull them into the grains while you cook the eggs and any other tasty ingredients. It's pretty easy to steam frozen veggies in the microwave, as well as crisping up proteins like finely chopped bacon or even bologna for a salty crunch.

The biggest hurdle to making this dish properly is the rice itself. Steaming it in the microwave takes a while — up to 20 minutes total — and there's a lot that can go wrong in that amount of time, especially since microwaves are notorious for heating food unevenly. Fortunately, Trader Joe's frozen fried rice offers an easy weeknight meal shortcut, as do microwaveable bags of rice made from brands like Uncle Ben's, Minute Rice, and Seeds of Change. These bags usually require just a few minutes in the microwave to reach fluffy perfection.

Once you've mastered steaming rice in the microwave or stocked up on your favorite brand of the ready-made stuff, your biggest problem is deciding exactly what to put into your rice. There are so many expert-approved ways to elevate basic fried rice that you could eat a different version of it every evening for quite a long time. From swapping peas and carrots for frozen stir-fry veggies to adding cubed ham, diced rotisserie chicken, miso paste, or cashews and edamame, there are literally dozens of different flavor combinations to experiment with.

When choosing your flavors, however, it's important to remember that everything will likely have to be microwaved separately in stages to get your food to the right temperature and texture. The easiest way to compensate for this is to stir everything together once it's all been heated individually, then zap the whole dish for a few more seconds to ensure your meal is hot and delicious.