Best Vegan Fried Rice

Last Updated on January 15, 2024

This Best Vegan Fried Rice recipe is a takeout classic that can simply make at home. Vegetable fried rice is a quick and easy one-pan meal that is gluten-free, filling, delicious, and budget-friendly. It makes a great lunch, side dish, and dinner.

I love vegetable fried rice! We have a lot of delicious veg rice dishes in Asia and this fried rice recipe is my favorite.

Back home, vegetable fried rice is a way to use up leftover rice and whatever vegetables are in the fridge.

I think a lot of people think you cannot freeze rice, but it’s perfectly ok to freeze cooked rice.

I always make a big batch as meal prep or eat it cold as a flavored rice salad

Vegan Fried Rice

This recipe is quick Chinese fried rice, restaurant-style, and highly versatile. Seasoned with light soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and a touch of maple syrup (or organic sugar)

It looks simple but the flavor is so sophisticated. Surprisingly speedy to cook, and easy to adjust with your favorite or whatever-in-hand add-ins.

So filling and comforting. You probably won’t spend money on takeout again once you know how to make such simply pro-leveled veg fried rice.

How to make Fried Rice?

Usually, I would use a carbon-steel wok for my fried rice at home to obtain the authentic charred flavor from wok-hei on a gas stove.

In this recipe, I used a large heavy-bottomed skillet for my vegetable fried rice, I’d like to show you that you don’t have to have a wok, and you still can make very tasty fried rice at home with a skillet on a conduction stovetop. 😚

However, there are my highlighted Tips below for the best fried rice:

• Always use” cold” cooked rice: It’s easier to make your fried rice with separated grains with long-grain rice such as Basmati and Jasmine rice. They are usually better than short-grain rice for fried rice. Leftover cold rice( a day old ) is the best for fried rice. The key is that the rice has to be cold and dry before stir-frying, otherwise, the rice will become mushy and sticky.

• Always use a large frying pan or skillet– to move everything around easily while cooking.

• Sauté aromatics on low heat: This is very important for bringing out the fragrance from aromatics such as garlic, ginger, and scallion. Saute scallion( white part) along with minced garlic and ginger in cooking oil on low heat( if they start getting color, you need to turn the heat lower as we don’t want to burn them) and constantly stirring for about 5 minutes. This is going to become the base flavor for our homemade vegetable fried rice.

• Small diced vegetables: Have you ever seen fried rice with big chunky vegetables? Oh…that’s a big NO-NO to me. The cooked rice doesn’t need much time to heat up. Chunky vegetables in fried rice make fried rice look unappealing ( also make rice invisible…) and take a much longer time to cook. I like to use a mix of frozen small diced vegetables( frozen peas, carrots, and corn) – defrost them before cooking, this will shorten your whole cooking time greatly.

• Mix the stir-fry sauce beforehand– the whole stir-frying process is very short and intense. Mixing all the ingredients for the sauce in advance will make the whole cooking process smooth.

Once you know these tips, you will become a master of fried rice! Ok, let’s get right into the ingredients for today… 😎

Vegan Fried Rice Ingredient List

We are going to make our vegan vegetable fried rice with everyday ingredients (inexpensive)- they start with cooked cold white rice (or brown rice).

Thinly sliced scallion/green onion (white part for sautéing, green part for garnish), crushed garlic, grated ginger, and small diced frozen veggies as our main ingredients.

You can add firm tofu or other ingredients you like for sure.

For the seasoning sauce, I like to keep it simple. I use Light Soy Sauce( use gluten-free soy sauce if you’re a gluten-free eater), Rice Vinegar, Toasted Sesame Oil, and a touch of Maple Syrup (you can use 1/2 tsp organic sugar instead).

P.S. Here is the list of brands I use in my cooking. The quality of ingredients will directly affect the cooking result.

How to make Vegan Veg Fried Rice

I used a large skillet for 3-4 portions of fried rice (I use a 12″/ 30 cm skillet ). For larger quantities, I’d prefer to use a big wok.

The cooking time for vegan veg fried rice is less than 15 minutes. Make sure the preparations are ready before turning on the gas.👩‍🍳

1. Mix the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl( light soy sauce, rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil, and maple syrup), ready for use.

2. Heat cooking oil( I use grapeseed oil) in a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-low heat, add sliced scallion( white part), minced garlic, and ginger, constant stirring, and saute for about 5 minutes without coloring. (If they start getting color, you need to turn the heat lower as we don’t want to burn them)

3. Followed by small diced mixed veggies( defrosted), turn the heat to medium-high and saute them for a minute.

4. Add cold cooked rice into the pan, constantly stir, and make sure all the rice until they’re separated. ( It takes around 5 minutes)

5. Pour the sauce mixture into the pan, and mix everything together until the rice is coated with the sauce. When mixing, you need to keep scraping the bottom of the pan to make sure no rice is burnt.

6. Add thinly sliced scallion(green part) into the pan and mix with everything. Serve veg fried rice when it’s hot, topped with your favorite veggies or tofu( such as baked tofu), and garnish with some toasted sesame seeds, sliced red chilies, or red pepper flakes.

If you’re looking for a vegan vegetable fried rice recipe to try, I hope you’ll enjoy this one😘 

More Asian Dishes

• Fast Sha Cha Glass Noodles
• Cold Tofu Noodles
• Vegan Singapore Mee Hom
• Vegan Pad See Ew
• Vegan Zaru Soba
• Vegan Yakisoba
• Vegan Yaki Udon
• Vegetable Chop Suey
• Pad Pak (Thai Stir-Fried Veggies)
• One-Pot Bitter Melon Soup
• Pickled Daikon
• Sweet Potatoes Sautéed with Five Spice
• Homemade Puffed Tofu

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