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Cauliflower Fried Rice

By:Nagi
92 Comments
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This looks and tastes so much like real fried rice, I forgot for a moment that I was writing up a CAULIFLOWER Fried Rice recipe!

77% less calories, 89% less carbs, astonishingly similar mouthfeel as real fried rice and definitely right up there with flavour. This is one that even Cauliflower Rice cynics will love!

Close up of Cauliflower Fried Rice in a bowl, ready to be eaten

Cauliflower Fried Rice

Yes, it really does taste like real fried rice.

Cauliflower rice cynics, I’m talking to YOU!

And that includes me. It took me many years before I got on board the cauliflower rice train. And even once I was on board, it took me many months before I was happy enough with cauliflower fried rice to share the recipe with you.

Here are the top tips I’ve accumulated for wickedly good cauliflower rice:

  • cook it like real fried rice. Hard and fast. Keep the cauliflower crisp-tender, don’t let it get mushy and wet!

  • A great sauce is essential. Disguise the cauliflower flavour!

  • The cauliflower has to be rice-size. As opposed to tiny crumbly couscous size. Nobody wants mushy cauliflower-couscous!

What goes in Cauliflower Fried Rice

What goes in Cauliflower Fried Rice

  • Cauliflower rice – best to either make your own or buy fresh pre-prepared. Frozen thawed will also work, but is a bit more watery. Drain it well and dry as much as you can, even go as far as squeezing out excess liquid (but note that you will lose volume by doing this and you still need 4 cups).

  • Ham or bacon – goes a long to add a great flavour base! Can be skipped to make it meat free

  • Frozen mixed vegetables – I use frozen for convenience, and because I totally buy into the whole “snap frozen” thing. Feel free to substitute with any diced vegetables, frozen or fresh

  • Mirin or Chinese cooking wine – this is key in this sauce, to give it depth of flavour and complexity, making it extra tasty. Substitute with dry sherry or cooking sake. For a non alcoholic sub, add chicken stock powder (granulated chicken bouillon);

  • Oyster Sauce adds a good back of sweet-savoury flavour. The only appropriate substitute I can think of is Hoisin, though you will get a faint fie spice flavour (very nice though!)

How to make Cauliflower Fried Rice

Here’s how you make it – just like normal fried rice, cooked hard and fast over high heat!

How to make Cauliflower Fried Rice

How to serve Cauliflower Fried Rice

Serve this as a tasty low-carb side dish, or as a meal in itself. Cauliflower Fried Rice packs in a serious load of vegetables, and very small amount of carbs. So while I’d never recommend normal fried rice as a meal, Cauliflower Fried Rice IS a healthy, satisfying complete meal in itself!

While I usually use plain rice or (when I’m trying to “be good”) plain Cauliflower Rice for saucy stir fries and curries, I like to serve fried rice alongside other Asian and Asian-esque dishes that aren’t saucy. Here are a few ideas.

Dishes to serve with Cauliflower Fried Rice

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Char Siu Pork (Chinese BBQ Pork)
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Chinese Crispy Pork Belly
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Potstickers (Chinese Pan Fried Dumplings!)
Grilled Thai Chicken (Gai Yang)
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Vietnamese Caramel Pork is a simple, magical recipe - tender pork in a sweet savoury glaze and no hunting down unusual ingredients! recipetineats.com
Vietnamese Caramel Pork

Have a browse through all my Asian recipes for more ideas!

So tell me, Cauliflower Rice cynics, have I convinced you to give this a go?? 😉 – Nagi x

Watch how to make it

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Close up of Cauliflower Fried Rice in a bowl, ready to be eaten

Cauliflower Fried Rice

Author: Nagi
Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 10 mins
Total: 20 mins
Sides
American Chinese, Asian
5 from 35 votes
Servings5
Tap or hover to scale
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Recipe video above. This is how you make cauliflower rice totally delicious - by making Cauliflower Fried Rice! The trick is to cook it hard and fast, just like real fried rice, and to ensure the cauliflower rice are "cooked rice size" rather than blitzed into tiny couscous-size grains. This gives it a real fried rice mouthfeel and eating experience!

Ingredients

  • 1.5 tbsp oil , separated (vegetable, canola, peanut)
  • 3 garlic cloves , minced
  • 1/2 onion , finely chopped
  • 75g/ 2.5 oz ham or bacon , diced
  • 1 1/2 cups frozen diced peas, carrots, corn (mix, or other diced fresh veg of choice)
  • 400g (4 cups) cauliflower rice, raw (Note 1)
  • 2 eggs , lightly whisked
  • 2 green onions , finely sliced

Sauce - Mix:

  • 1 tbsp Mirin (or Chinese Cooking Wine) (sub dry sherry or cooking sake) (Note 2)
  • 1 tbsp Oyster Sauce (sub Hoisin)
  • 1.5 tbsp soy sauce , light or all purpose (Note 3)
  • 1 tsp sesame oil , toasted

Instructions

  • Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large skillet over high heat.
  • Add garlic and onion, cook for 30 seconds.
  • Add ham, cook for 1 minute to release flavour.
  • Add frozen vegetables, cook 2 minutes until carrot is almost cooked.
  • Add cauliflower and Sauce. Cook, stirring regularly, for 4 minutes until sauce is reduced and cauliflower is almost cooked - firm, tender crisp, not soft and mushy.
  • Push the cauliflower to one side of the skillet. Add 1/2 tbsp oil, let it heat up briefly, then pour in egg.
  • Leave for 10 seconds, then leisurely scramble it. Once almost cooked, mix egg through cauliflower.
  • Toss through green onions then serve immediately!

Recipe Notes:

1. Cauliflower rice - make your own, buy it ready made or frozen. If frozen, thaw and drain well before using. If making your own, key trick is to ensure cauliflower is grated until it's the size of cooked rice, not tiny couscous size. Texture of cauliflower fried rice is much better when it's rice size!
2. Mirin or Chinese cooking wine ("Shaoxing wine") is the secret that will make this dish really taste like your favourite fried rice! Substitute with Japanese cooking sake or dry sherry. Non alcoholic sub - reduce Oyster Sauce to 1/2 tbsp and soy sauce to 1/2 tbsp, add 3/4 tsp chicken stock powder (granulated bouillon) into the Sauce.
3. Soy Sauce - light or all purpose soy sauce is ideal here, adds flavour without staining rice colour too much. If you only have "dark soy sauce" (will be labelled as such on the bottle) reduce to 1 tbsp. Note the your rice will be stained a dark brown colour (which actually looks very appetising!).
4. Storage - best made fresh. It's still pretty good the next day, but on Day 2 and beyond I find it starts getting a bit too wet for my taste. Still edible and decent though!
5. Nutrition per serving. Recipe will serve 5 to 6 as a side, or 3 as a meal.
Half the carbs in the nutrition per serving below is attributable to the peas, corn and carrot so they could be eliminated if you wish to make the carbs even lower. To keep some colour in it, you could toss through baby spinach instead - 1 cup raw spinach only has 1g carbs.

Nutrition Information:

Calories: 144cal (7%)Carbohydrates: 13g (4%)Protein: 9g (18%)Fat: 10g (15%)Saturated Fat: 2g (13%)Cholesterol: 72mg (24%)Sodium: 660mg (29%)Potassium: 438mg (13%)Fiber: 3g (13%)Sugar: 3g (3%)Vitamin A: 4132IU (83%)Vitamin C: 46mg (56%)Calcium: 48mg (5%)Iron: 1mg (6%)
Keywords: cauliflower fried rice
Did you make this recipe?I love hearing how you went with my recipes! Tag me on Instagram at @RecipeTinEats.

Life of Dozer

New year, new home! Actually, I moved in the week before Christmas. And for almost a whole week, this is all I had in the living area – a work desk, and Dozer’s bed. The two most important pieces of furniture I own! 😂

Dozer the golden retriever new home

Hi, I'm Nagi!

I believe you can make great food with everyday ingredients even if you’re short on time and cost conscious. You just need to cook clever and get creative!

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92 Comments

  1. Angela says

    5 stars
    Another winner, Nagi! I made this with your mom’s teriyaki chicken and of course, they were both hits with the whole family. You couldn’t even tell the “rice” was cauliflower. We all said another win for Nagi. FYI, every recipe we’ve tried of yours have been winners. Keep ‘em comin.. Love Dozer too!😍

    Reply

  2. Mackenzie says

    5 stars
    Hi Nagi, would this freeze well? I’m looking to use this for meal preps and freeze it in portions with chicken breast. Thank you so much 🙏🏼

    Reply

  5. cc says

    5 stars
    This is so delicious and so perfect!! I finished 1.5 servings yum! I used vegan bacon instead and it still tasted delish

    Reply

  6. Aimy says

    5 stars
    Honestly I didn’t have high hopes, I make fried rice all the time and I love your recipes but I just felt it wouldn’t work. But I recently joined weight watchers so I decided what the hell, I reduced the vegetable oil to 1/2 a tbsp and used extra ham, eggs and veg and honestly I have never had anything ‘healthy’ be better than this. I couldn’t really tell much of a difference when eating it I felt like I was having comfort food and it really made my day. Maybe this dieting thing won’t be so hard after all 🙂 thank you so much for the recipie

    Reply

  7. Dewey says

    Hi Nagi,

    Would it be possible to add some beef mince to this recipe? If so, how much extra sauce do you think would be appropriate? Any advice would be wonderful.

    With thanks, Dewey

    Reply

    • Nagi says

      Hi Dewey, you could definitely add mince if you like. Fry is off until brown first before proceeding with the recipe. I would throw in 150g or so and adjust the sauce up by 50%, just use as much as necessary 🙂 N x

      Reply

      • Dewey says

        5 stars
        Hi Nagi,

        Thank you very much for your advice. I made this dish for dinner tonight, and added the mince and extra sauce with your suggested proportions. It was really yummy, and the whole family really loved it 😊

        I’ve made your cauliflower fried rice in your original recipe form many times over since I first discovered it, and it has always been a big hit! So yummy in its original form, as well as beefed up 😊

        Big thanks again Nagi!
        Dewey

        Reply

  8. Chris says

    5 stars
    I was a bit hesitant about cauliflower fried rice, but wow! What a terrific recipe! So tasty. Thanks, Nagi! I’ll be making this regularly.

    Reply

  9. Graham Kenny says

    Nagi, many thanks for the ‘Festive baked salmon’. What a great success it was with our extended family yesterday! Please keep up the good work!

    Reply

  10. sherry says

    5 stars
    What a scrumptious, guilt free dish. I as a bit skeptical but it was surprisingly good. Worth doing over and over again.

    Reply

  11. Sandra says

    5 stars
    I’m doing the Nagi double tonight. Your Asian beef bowls (which my kids call bolonasian) and this cauli fried rice on the side. So good. Thanks Nagi. Your recipes work every time. xx

    Reply

  13. Sally says

    5 stars
    3 kids and cauliflower-hating husband just lapped this up without question, all amazed when I told them (after lapping completed!) that this was cauliflower rice. Your recipes and descriptions are alway amazing Nagi, a big thank you! A definite keeper.

    Reply

  14. Deborah says

    5 stars
    I made this tonight as a side dish and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We are reducing carbs in our diet and this will definitely become a regular in our home. Thank you!

    Reply

  15. Sarah says

    5 stars
    Love this recipe! So tasty and easy! I added some prawns to it for a bit more protein and tasted amazing! Also had to use hoisin sauce because I didn’t have any oyster sauce and it still tastes amazing! Love your recipes!

    Reply

  17. Michelle says

    5 stars
    Nagi – you are amazing ! I made this tonight – told the kids i was making fried rice and when i served it up , they just shovelled it in. Brilliant success – will be our new staple recipe for fried rice

    Reply
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