The easiest egg fried rice that you can prep and cook in 10 minutes, and it tastes better than the restaurant version. {vegetarian adaptable}
This 3-ingredient egg fried rice has been my favorite snack since the time I was growing up. Yep, for me, an afternoon or late-night snack is a plate of fried rice. Not chips or cookies. This fried rice is a life-saver because it’s so fast to make. It only uses three ingredients: leftover rice, eggs, and green onions, which I always have in the fridge. Whenever I crave some salty food, I rush to the kitchen to whip up this dish in 5 minutes.
The dish does not require complicated seasoning or other meat or vegetables. It’s so simple yet so good!
Cooking notes
Here are a few tricks to make the best fried rice with an electric stove and a nonstick pan (good news, you don’t need a wok for great fried rice!).
(1) Don’t skimp on the oil. This is the best way to make the rice crispy without making the dish too dry.
(2) Cook the beaten egg halfway through, and add the rice on top of it. This way you get both scrambled egg pieces and crispy rice that is coated with egg. Double yum!
(3) Use PLENTY of green onion. It is a key ingredient to make the rice fragrant. You can use regular onion as a substitute, but green onion always works best for fried rice.
(4) Do not stir too frequently. This way, the rice will be perfectly toasted on the hot pan. That’s the other secret to creating super crispy rice without using a wok.
When it comes to fried rice I keep it simple, because I want to taste the natural aroma of the rice and the eggs.
You’d be surprised at how satisfying the result is. I make this dish as a side, but sometimes I eat it as a main for lunch because it’s so good.
More delicious fried rice recipes
Looking for a fried rice recipe that’s loaded up with more goodies? I’ve got you covered. Check out these recipes:
- Red Curry Chicken Fried Rice
- Jambalaya Fried Rice
- Shrimp Fried Rice
- Chinese Olive Fried Rice
- Chicken Fried Rice
- Kimchi Fried Rice
- Peking Duck Fried Rice (using leftover chicken)
If you give this recipe a try, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it (once you’ve tried it), and take a picture and tag it @omnivorescookbook on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with.
3-Ingredient Egg Fried Rice (蛋炒饭)
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons peanut oil (or vegetable oil)
- 4 eggs , beaten (*Footnote 2)
- 3 to 4 cups cooked white rice , frozen or refrigerated overnight works best
- 1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
- 4 green onions , chopped
Instructions
- Add oil to a large nonstick skillet and heat over medium-high heat until hot. Add the beaten eggs. Wait until the bottom of the eggs is set but the top is still runny.
- Add the rice on top of the runny egg. Use your spatula to chop the rice to separate it into small pieces, so some of the rice is coated with egg. Keep chopping the rice until the rice is well separated. Sprinkle with salt and add the green onion. Keep cooking and stir occasionally, until the rice turns slightly golden and crispy, 2 to 3 minutes. Taste the rice. Adjust seasoning by add more salt, if needed. You can leave the rice in the pan for a couple more minutes after turning off the stove, so the rice gets even crispier.
- Transfer everything to a plate and serve hot as a main dish or side dish. You can serve it with some hot sauce like Sriracha, but it’s not required.
How does the rice become crisp when it is cooked on top of the eggs?
This is a classic! I also love this simple dish. Thank you for bringing this dish to light, and for creating a recipe for it 🙂 Bon appetit!
so tasty rice recipe i loved it, so keep posting.
Hi Maggie! Thank you so much for putting together this website! I spent five years in China, and I miss the food so much! I am definitely going to be working through some of my favorite recipes. Egg fried rice was a late night go-to so many times when I was in China. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
You refer to a footnote 2, but I see no footnotes at all.
?
So simple! So tasty! So satisfying! Wo fei chang xihuan chi Zhong huo cai!
Typical. The author invites you to leave comments then doesn’t bother responding to them.
I’ll take a guess at Andrew’s question: I expect that if the oil is hot enough, the crispiness starts to happen from when you start ‘chopping’ up the rice to mix it in with the semi-set egg. If you then follow the directive to not stir too much, you’ll end up with the rice having prolonged contact with the hot pan, and it may crisp up (allowing for there being enough oil and that it’s at the right temperature). It looks like a trial and error thing to me. It takes a lot of discipline to NOT stir food like this. After all, it’s STIR fry 😉 What I suspect you’d do more of here is turning, not stirring per se.
She is one person not a billion dollar company with a social media monitor. She responds to all the personal emails that I send her asking questions. Thanks for the advice but cut her some slack.
A hit with the family! Deceptively simple but really tasty & fast, which is great for the cook 🙂 Thanks for sharing
We enjoyed this tasty and easy to prepare dish. Two of us made quick work of it. Nothing left, as happens with many of your recipes. Many thanks, Maggie.
My tummy has low tolerance for green onions. Can you please suggest an alternative? Ginger? Garlic? Fennel?
This dish is super simple and it relies on the green onion to provide the flavor.
If you want a different seasoning, I highly recommend the soy sauce fried rice: https://omnivorescookbook.com/soy-sauce-fried-rice
And replace the green onions with 2 to 3 cloves minced garlic.
This was the nicest Fried Rice I have ever tasted.I put it under my 5-Ingredient Baked Chicken Thigh.They were both sensational.Thank you for sharing this recipes Maggie.
So easy, simple and delicious
This was so easy. I loved the way the rice was egg coated. The only change I made, well, not really changed but added, was some asparagus I needed to use up.
I’ve always found it very difficult to make good tasting Chinese food, but every one of your recipes that I try turns out delicious!! Yummy!