Fried Rice Breakfast Burritos
We know that everyone is short on time, so our goal is to help you save time in the kitchen by being more creative and efficient. And how does one do that? Well, one great way is repurposing your meals so that one dish can become multiple dishes. We’ll be offering lots of ideas and possibilities in our meal planning newsletter starting in September (sign-up here for free weekly meal plans), but in the meantime we’ll offer up some teaser tips below.
- If you want to get some tips from the cookbook queen herself, check out our podcast with Celia Sacks of Omnivore Books. She recommends making large slow cooker dishes that can be turned into everything from a pasta sauce to a taco filling on different nights.
- In our latest monthly newsletter, we came up with a whole list of ways to repurpose dishes
- This blog entry! Fried rice dinners –> Breakfast burritos
I make a lot of fried rice at home (I’m Chinese after all), and I’ve learned it’s one of those dishes that takes about the same amount of time to prepare whether you’re making 1 serving or 6, so it’s just easier to make 6 and have leftovers. Understandably you may not want fried rice more than 2 nights in a row, so let’s get creative.
When we think of fried rice, we usually think of Chinese takeout, so let’s reframe so we can expand our possibilities. We like rice in our burritos, so couldn’t we easily make a breakfast burrito (or a few) with our leftover fried rice? Making a batch of scrambled eggs alongside your fried rice is not a lot of trouble, and if you wrapped up one big batch of breakfast burritos, you’d have a healthy breakfast to grab and go every morning. Here’s how you do it:
Ingredients
- Long grain brown or white rice - 1 1/2 cup dry or 4 cups pre-cooked, frozen
- Garlic - 3 cloves
- Broccoli - 1 small to medium head
- Green cabbage - 1/2 head
- Tofu - 1 lb.
- Eggs - 8
- Canola oil - 2 tbs.
- Olive oil - 1/2 tbs.
- Butter - 1 tbs.
- Hot sauce (optional) - 1 tbs.
- Soy sauce - 2 tbs.
- Fish sauce - 1 tbs.
- Sugar - 1 tsp.
- White pepper if you have it, otherwise black - 1 tsp
- Kosher salt
- Tortillas (your preference of type) - 5
Instructions
Prep
- Rice – If you’re using pre-cooked, frozen, just follow instructions. If you’re cooking from scratch, here are the directions:Rinse rice until water is no longer cloudy. This guarantees that the rice will come out light and fluffy vs. soggy. Using a 2:1 water:rice ratio (3 cups of water in this case), combine water and rice in a >3 quart saucepan. Add a generous dash of kosher salt, cover with lid, and bring to a boil. Uncover, give everything a stir, re-cover with lid, and then turn heat down to low. Cook white rice for about 15 to 20 minutes; brown rice will take longer – about 45 to 60 minutes. You should check at the lower end of the time range, and see if the rice has absorbed all the water, meaning it’s cooked! The rice for fried rice is best if it’s a day old, so if you remember to do this the night before, it’ll be even better
- Garlic – Mince
- Broccoli – Chop into bite-sized pieces
- Cabbage – Slice thinly
- Tofu – Chop into cubes and then pan-sear using these 3 quick steps if you like. You can use the same pan later for the fried rice or eggs. While searing the tofu is completely optional, it definitely will add texture, flavor, and presentation to your finished dish
- If not making right away, the above prepped ingredients can be stored in an air-tight container / bag for 3 to 4 days
Make
- Mix together cooked rice and 1 tbs. canola oil using your hands or a wooden spoon
- Crack eggs into a bowl. If you have some milk on hand, add 1 tablespoon. Whisk everything together with a generous dash of salt and a few turns of fresh pepper
- Heat up a non-stick wok or saute pan over high heat. Add another tablespoon of canola oil to the pan.
- Once oil is warm, add the minced garlic. Since garlic can burn easily, add the next ingredient – broccoli – as soon as you can smell the garlic.
- Add a generous pinch of kosher salt, and stir-fry the broccoli for about 5 minutes. If the pan ever gets too dry, and it looks like your ingredients may burn, add some (meaning 2 to 3 tablespoons at a time) of water or broth to the pan
- While the broccoli is cooking (but do keep an eye on it!), heat a non-stick frying pan (any size) over medium heat. Add the olive oil and butter. When butter has melted, add the eggs and let them sit for a minute before lightly scrambling with a wooden spoon / spatula. Scramble until the eggs have reached the consistency you like. They’ll be soft and fluffy if you take them off the heat while they’re still a bit runny since they’ll continue to cook from the residual heat. Add hot sauce if you like and mix through.
- Now, get back to the stir-fry. Add the cabbage with another pinch of kosher salt. Stir-fry for another 3 to 5 minutes, until the broccoli is almost cooked through. Test by just taking a bite – if it still has a bit of crunch to it, it’s done as it will continue to cook a little longer
- Now add the rice and season with the soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, and pepper. Mix together so the seasoning gets incorporated throughout the rice. Then add the tofu and toss everything through until all ingredients are heated. Season to taste with more kosher salt, soy sauce, or fish sauce if it’s too bland.
- Now you’ve got enough fried rice for some dinners / lunches + enough to make some breakfast burritos. Take out your 5 tortillas and tear off 5 sheets of aluminum foil so that the tortilla can fit on it with some room to spare. Spoon on some scrambled eggs towards the bottom half of the tortilla, and then some fried rice. Start off with less to prevent the tortilla from breaking as you wrap it (This will happen at some point, but don’t despair. You’ve seen it happen to the most seasoned burrito wrappers at Chipotle too.)
- Now fold the bottom half over the filling and then the sides. Roll tightly and then wrap it up in the aluminum foil. Repeat until you’ve made all of your breakfast burritos.
Leftovers:
If you won’t eat them all that week, you can freeze them. If you’re going to do that, I suggest labeling them with the expiration date (2 months from when you made them is a good rule of thumb) so you know when they have to be eaten.
To reheat, you can either unwrap them and place them in the microwave and do an auto-reheat or keep them wrapped in the foil and heat in a toaster oven at 325 degrees for 7 to 10 minutes (but remember to take the label off!)
