Honey Soy Chicken Fried Rice

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A classic Fried Rice dish is a cornerstone of a good home cooked meal. Everyone loves Fried Rice because you can put whatever ingredients into it, and it’ll taste great. We’ve got a few delicious Fried Rice dishes in our repertoire, but this one may just be the best. An amazing Honey Soy Chicken Fried Rice recipe with a rich, depth of flavor brought on by a wonderful sauce and tasty, fresh ingredients

How to make this amazing Honey Soy Chicken Fried Rice Dish

One of the benefits of Fried Rice is how easy it is to make. It’s a great ‘catch-all’ meal when you’ve got a bunch of ingredients in the fridge that need cooking. Throw them all into a hot pan along with a tasty sauce and some Rice and you’ll be eating well in no time at all! That’s what’s so great about Fried Rice, it’s so versatile!

To make this dish there is a little bit more preparation required than a typical Fried Rice. No, don’t run away! It’s not that much more work I swear, and it’s well worth it for the flavor! The additional work required is really just marinating the Chicken for a little bit before cooking. It makes all the difference to the overall flavor, and well worth it

Marinate the Chicken overnight in the Honey Soy mixture for the best flavor

Many Fried Rice recipes will have you adding all the typical sauces such as Soy, Vinegar, etc. while you’re cooking everything together in the hot pan or wok. For our recipe, we do things slightly differently. The Sauces are all added together to create a marinade which the Chicken will sit in for a few hours (up to 24 hours)

The quantities of sauces doesn’t really change from a typical fried rice, we’re just adding them into a Chicken Marinade instead of straight into the Pot. We’ve found by doing this, the flavors of the Chicken are much more concentrated and deliciously tasty than if you were to simply add the sauces at the last minute

Like most Fried Rice Dishes, the cooking technique is all about building flavors

Fried Rice is cooked fast, over a high heat. This method ensures that everything gets cooked but allows all the vegetables to remain beautiful and crispy. The perfect Fried Rice is all about contrasting textures, so a high heat gets the best texture out of those wonderful vegetables

The trick to making the perfect Fried Rice isn’t to simply dump all the ingredients in at once, however. You need to build flavors by adding the right ingredients at the right time. Start with the flavor builders and aromatics, then add the Chicken. Then comes the Vegetables, and finally the rice and (optional) egg to bring it all together

Cooking Fried Rice can sometimes feel a bit frantic in the kitchen as it all comes together so fast. To get the best result, prepare all your ingredients beforehand and have them all laid out and ready to go in your kitchen before you start to cook. This way you won’t be frantically chopping vegetables while the dish is cooking, which can sometimes become chaos!

It is much better to use pre-cooked rice as you’ll get a much better Fried Rice texture

Most Fried Rice recipes you’ll find will tell you to use ‘day old’ Rice when making Fried Rice. It’s a great use for any leftover Rice you have for previous meals. Instead of throwing it out, keep it refrigerated and then use it to create a wonderful Fried Rice dish

The reason day-old Rice is recommended over fresh rice is the texture. The older Rice will have thickened up and be a lot more resilient to the high heat and aggressive cooking that comes with a classic Fried Rice. If we were to use freshly steamed / boiled Rice in this dish, the Rice will simply fall apart and become mushy

You don’t specifically need to use ‘day old’ Rice to make our Honey Soy Chicken Fried Rice. What you simply need to do is cook rice, let it cool and then refrigerate it. Once it’s cooled in the refrigerator it’ll be ready to cook. So, prepare your rice a few hours before cooking and the dish will turn out great

Chinese Sausage (Lap Cheong) gives this dish a wonderful, sweet flavor

It’s a traditional ingredient in the classic Cantonese Fried Rice – the amazing Lap Cheong, or Chinese Sausage. The Sausage is incredibly sweet, so you don’t need to use a lot of it to flavor the dish. The flavor it brings to this Honey Soy Chicken Fried Rice completely transforms the dish. The flavor is rich and sweet, yet does not overpower the overall balance of the Fried Rice

The best way to utilize Lap Cheong in this dish is to slice it up on a 45-degree angle into pieces, about the size of a quarter coin. We fry it up in a hot pan to render all the fat and cook the Sausage. It will only take about 1 minute on each side if you’re on a high heat

You can then remove the Sausage from the pan and add it back into the dish right before serving. The rendered fat can remain in the frying pan, and use it as a base to flavor the vegetables, which you’ll add next to start to build the Fried Rice

Lap Cheong is not the most common ingredient, so many grocery store may not sell it. We encourage you to shop around for it however, as the flavor is immense and really does make this dish special. You will be able to find it at any Asian specialty grocery store

What are the best vegetables to cook in Fried Rice

There’s no rules when it comes to vegetables in Fried Rice. That’s what is so great about this dish, it’s a great way to utilize vegetables that are available in your fridge. Cooking them over a high heat quickly will get the best out of them, so why not experiment?

For our Honey Soy Chicken Fried Rice recipe, we’ve kept the vegetables selection quite traditional. A combination of Onions, Carrot, Celery, Snap Peas, Mushrooms and Scallions are what we’re using in our recipe. This combination of vegetable flavors tastes great, and they all seriously benefit from the high heat cooking method

The vegetables be cooked, yet crispy and flavorful. They’ll soak up a little bit of that wonderful sauce we’ve made, meaning every bite you take of this dish is going to taste amazing

We made this delicious Honey Soy Chicken Fried Rice without Egg, that doesn’t mean you have to

Egg is a staple ingredient in the classic Fried Rice. We have an Egg allergy in our household, so many dishes (particularly dinners) we avoid using Eggs for this reason. However, we fully understand that adding Egg to Fried Rice is a delicious luxury that so many people enjoy. Who are we to tell you not to do so!

I’ve found that many Fried Rice recipes that include Egg add it far too early in the cooking process. Fried Rice is cooked at a high temperature, and Eggs take absolutely no time at all to cook. Therefore, for the perfect Egg addition to this dish, we recommend whisking it up in a separate bowl or mug, and then adding it to the dish in the final 2 minutes. Stir it around for it to be just cooked and then serve immediately

The residual heat of the Fried Rice will continue to cook the Egg even after it’s been removed from the Pot and put into serving bowls. Egg is a difficult ingredient to undercook, but a very easy ingredient to overcook! So just add it at the last minute and it’ll come out great

Honey Soy Chicken Fried Rice Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 lbs. Chicken Thighs
• ½ lb. Chinese Sausage (Lap Cheong), cut into pieces
• 1 Onion, finely diced
• 1 Carrot, finely diced
• 2 Celery Sticks, finely diced
• 1 cup Button or Cremini Mushrooms, sliced
• 1 cup of Jasmine or Long grain Rice
• 6 Garlic Cloves, finely chopped
• 1 cup Snap Peas
• 1 cup Scallions, roughly chopped
• 5 tbsp. Soy Sauce
• 2 tsp. Honey
• 1 tbsp. Chinese Vinegar
• 1 tbsp. Chinese Wine or Mirin
• 1 tbsp. Peanuts, roughly chopped
• 1 tsp. Chili Crisps
• Salt
  
  

Instructions

1. Add the Rice to a saucepan over high heat along with 1 ½ cups of boiling water. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cover for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat then leave covered for a further 10 minutes. Remove the lid, let the rice cool and refrigerate for 2 hours, or overnight
2. Cut the Chicken into bite sized pieces and place into a Ziploc bag. Mix together the Soy Sauce, Chinese Vinegar, Chinese Wine, and Honey in a small bowl and then pour into the bag with the Chicken. Seal and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, up to 24 hours
3. When ready to cook, remove the Chicken from the refrigerator for 30 minutes to bring up to room temperature
4. Heat a large frying pan or Wok over medium heat. Once hot, add the Vegetable Oil and the Mushrooms. Cook for 5 minutes to release all the Mushrooms water content, then set aside
5. Turn the heat up to high and once hot, add the Chinese Sausage. Cook for 1 – 2 minutes on each side to brown then remove from the pan. Retain the rendered fat in the pan
6. Add the Onion, Carrot, and Celery and stir fry for 2 – 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the Garlic, cook for 30 more seconds then add the Chicken along with all the marinating sauce
7. Continue cooking, stirring constantly until the Chicken has browned, another 3 minutes or so. Add the Snap Peas and Scallions along with the cooked Rice. Stir for another 1 – 2 minutes then you’re ready to serve
8. Place individual portions of the Honey Soy Fried Rice into individual bowls and top with a sprinkling of Peanuts and Chili Crisps. Serve immediately
   
   

Recipe Notes

For added presentation, reserve one Chicken Thigh and keep it whole. Add to the marinade along with the chopped pieces and then cook it separately in a frying pan. Once rested, cut into slices, and place them over the top of the Fried Rice right before serving

In terms of Fried Rice dishes, we think this Honey Soy Fried Rice dish is up there with some of the best! We hope you’ve enjoyed it too! If so, leave us a comment below and head on over to these other fantastic Rice Dishes and give them a try too!:

• Lemon and Dill Risotto
• Honey Soy Vegetable Stir Fry
• Butternut Squash and Mushroom Risotto
• Salmon and Dill Rice Balls
  
  

Happy Cooking!