As much as I love bread—baking and eating it—rice is in my soul. I’m not ashamed to say I have no problems plowing through a 25-pound bag by myself. Needless to say, there is almost always leftover cooked rice in my fridge. Often I’ll just freshen it up with a quick steam for a salmon rice bowl or bibimbap. Other times, I’ll whip up fried rice with whatever I want to use up—roast duck, barbecue pork, or bits and bobs from the produce bin.
Making good flavorful fried rice is as much about technique as it is about ingredients. Leftover rice is ideal, but so long as your rice is sufficiently chilled, the freshly cooked variety works just as well. There are also ways to compensate for the lack of high B.T.U.s in home kitchens—such as using a kitchen torch to achieve the smoky aroma and flavor of classic wok hei and cooking the rice in smaller batches to prevent clumping. Whether you’re craving restaurant-style shrimp fried rice, omelette-topped Japanese omurice, or flavor-packed nasi goreng we have recipes to turn cooked rice, leftover or fresh, into crave-worthy comfort food you’ll make morning, noon, or night.