I could eat this healthy Chinese fried rice all over again. And I will. There is a small lunch box of leftovers still in the fridge. Just enough for me and whoever catches me heating it up :)
Healthy Fried Rice
If you didn't start early with introducing your children to Whole Foods or Clean Eating (like me with first three kids) then the change can be met with a small, surprisingly coordinated revolt. Or a big revolt as in the case of my eldest son.
My first attempts at serving up brown rice and Quinoa is a really good example. He hated it. As in gagging, sweating and tears kinda hated it. To get over this vehement reaction I had to mix it together with standard basmati rice and slowly increase the brown rice to basmati ratio. Now he eats it without too much of a fuss.
The point is - He eats it and brown rice is now a regular addition to our meal plan.
This is a really good healthy fried rice dish to slowly get your kids used to brown rice. It's full of flavor and the vegetables are your standard variety broccoli, cabbage and carrots. You can mix and match them.
I recommend introducing your kids to one new ingredient at a time so don't over do it by adding vegetables that you know are going to freak your kids out. By the way - this is only for the fussier eaters. If your kids eat everything, then ignore all of the above.
Ingredients
Chicken Thighs
You get far juicier chicken meat when you use thighs. They get a bad wrap because they're also so fattier cut of mean, but they're also tastier. Clean eating's about eating Real food and so I'm not concerned with the fat content as long as the food is healthy, unprocessed and in the case of meat, reared so the animal has a good life.
You can swap the thighs for breast meat if that's what you prefer, but the fat from the thighs helps the rice fry, so for us, it's chicken thighs for this recipe!
Brown Rice & Quinoa
I like to mix these two together for this. It gives you a bit of variety, and if the kid are objecting to one or the other, there's not so much of it they really kick off. And besides, even if they initially object, the taste gets them...they can't resist it!
Fresh Vegetables
Fresh veg makes chopping and grating them for this easy. There's no need for perfection here, just roughly chop and grate, and they provide a nice bit of color to this.
Is Chinese Fried Rice Healthy?
This Chinese fried rice recipe is Clean, nutritious and healthy. It's fried in heart healthy Olive oil, and bulked out with lots of fresh veg. The sort of Chinese fried rice we used to get from the take out however, is not remotely healthy.
The main component of the take out dish is white rice: It's got next to no fibre and very few, if any, vegetables. And then there's the oil used to fry the rice in, which is likely to be Hydrogenated vegetable oils that are high in unhealthy trans fats.
For us, it was the flavor of the rice being fried that made it so irresistible. But having hardly any fibre or veg meant it never really filled you up. This healthier version is filling, full of fibre, loaded with vegetables and tastes every bit as good as the take out version.
Healthy Fried Rice Options
Vegetarian - For a veggie option, simply leave out the chicken and add more veg. Traditional Chinese fried rice is very heavy on the rice, whereas I prefer to make the dish more equally made up with veg. Add in as much as you like. Veg with less water content works better, you don't want the rice saturated with water as the veg cooks, so keep it fresh rather than frozen and choose veg with a low water content.
Shrimp - I've out shrimp in this dish before and it's just as good as chicken. You need to add slightly more oil when you're cooking it as the shrimp are drier than chicken thighs.
Pork - You can add finely chopped pork to this rice for more of a special fried rice dish. Or you can add shrimp and pork for added interest, if your kids will have it :)
How To Make Healthy Chinese Fried Rice
Ingredients
- 1 Cup uncooked brown Rice
- ½ cup uncooked Quinoa
- 4 Chicken thigh fillets sliced into small strips.
- 1 onion finely diced
- 2 cloves of garlic chopped
- ½ teaspoon fresh ginger grated
- Salt and Pepper
- 2 Cups of Mixed Vegetables I used broccoli, grated cabbage and sliced carrots for this recipe
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 mild chilli finely sliced Optional
Process
- In a large pot, bring rice and Quinoa plus 4 cups of water to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes until rice is soft and not too chewy. Remove from heat and allow rice to slowly absorb excess water.
- Heat up a fry pan. Add onions, garlic, ginger (plus chilli if you are using it) and cook until soft. Add chicken and cook until cooked through and lightly browned.
- Add Vegetables to your chicken and lightly fry until just tender.
- Add Rice to the chicken and vegetables and mix through. Fry for a few minutes until the rice makes that delicious sounding frying sound and all moisture is gone from the bottom of the pan.
More Clean Eating Rice Recipes
Chinese Fried Rice Recipe
Healthy Chinese Fried Rice
Ingredients
- 1 Cup uncooked brown Rice
- ½ cup uncooked Quinoa
- 4 Chicken thigh fillets sliced into small strips.
- 1 onion finely diced
- 2 cloves of garlic chopped
- ½ teaspoon fresh ginger grated
- Salt and Pepper
- 2 Cups of Mixed Vegetables I used broccoli, grated cabbage and sliced carrots for this recipe
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 mild chilli finely sliced Optional
Instructions
- In a large pot, bring rice and Quinoa plus 4 cups of water to the boil. Simmer for 15 minutes until rice is soft and not too chewy. Remove from heat and allow rice to slowly absorb excess water.
- Heat up a fry pan. Add onions, garlic, ginger (plus chilli if you are using it) and cook until soft. Add chicken and cook until cooked through and lightly browned.
- Add Vegetables to your chicken and lightly fry until just tender.
- Add Rice to the chicken and vegetables and mix through. Fry for a few minutes until the rice makes that delicious sounding frying sound and all moisture is gone from the bottom of the pan.
