How To Reheat Fried Rice in 5 Different Ways

If you have you ever tried fried rice, then you’ll know how delicious it is and why plenty of people love it! The best part is, you can use leftover rice to make it. Plus, you can add different veggies, proteins, and spices to create all sorts of flavors. It’s definitely a great way to mix things up in the kitchen.

However, if you have leftover fried rice, you may be wondering how to reheat it without it becoming dry, mushy, or bland. In this post, we’ll explore some of the best methods for reheating fried rice to help you enjoy this tasty dish again and again.

Whether you’re using a microwave, stove, or oven, we’ll provide tips and tricks to ensure your fried rice comes out hot, flavorful, and perfectly cooked. So, let’s get started!

Scroll on down to learn about the 5 different ways of reheating fried rice.

Essential Things To Prepare Before Reheating Fried Rice

When reheating the dish, the first one you need to have is a good quality fried rice.

When you store it at room temperature , you should check whether your fried rice could be used or not by smell it. If you find it smelly, throw it the right way.

In case you store your fried rice in the refrigerator, after taking the frozen rice out, leave it aside for a few minutes to make the rice becomes less cool and softer.

Because keeping fried rice in the fridge makes it was lost moisture and therefore become dry, hard, and chewy.

So the best way to reheat fried rice is sprinkling the rice stored in the fridge with 1 or 2 tablespoons of water to add moisture to each cup of rice.

If you want to add some other ingredients to make your dish tastier, it is more advisable for you to precook some ingredients like vegetables, beef or bacon since the time to reheat fried rice may not be enough to cook the raw ingredients. Also, you can add some butter to get extra flavor.

Using a microwave is the fastest and most convenient way to reheat your dish, but if you don’t have one, you may replace it with a pan, oven, or stovetop.

For pan or stovetop, remember to get some olive oil to grease the working surface

How To Reheat Fried Rice – 5 Best Methods To Follow

Technically, there are many different methods of reheating fried rice from cold rice, but based on our experience, the 5 below methods are the most effective ways to follow. Let’s discover it with us.

Method 1 – Reheating Fried Rice In A Microwave

When it comes to reheating a dish, the first thing that comes to our mind for the question ” Can I microwave fried rice?”. Yes, you can do it.

It is undeniably the easiest and quickest way to preheat your fried rice. The dish could be done within a few minutes, and then you could sit down to your meal fulfilling your stomach.

Instructions:

1. Put your fried rice in a microwave-safe container or a microwave-safe dish; you may leave some butter to get the flavor and other pre-cooked ingredients if you want.
2. Add 1 tablespoon of water, put it in the microwave for 5 minutes.
3. Turn on the microwave and heat for about 2 to 3 minutes
4. Check the reheated rice to make sure that it is perfectly heated. If not, keep heating for 2 more minutes
5. Get the reheated rice out and enjoy.

Method 2 – Reheating Fried Rice In The Saucepan/ Frying pan

If you don’t have a microwave in your home, heating the dish in a saucepan may be a good idea. In fact, reheating by a saucepan is quite popular. For the method, you need to get some olive oil for greasing the pan. By the way, this method is suitable to reheat pork fried rice.

Instructions:

1. Add a little bit of water to your leftover rice.
2. Heat the pan over medium-high heat then grease the pan with olive oil, add some butter if you like
3. Put the rice into the pan together with other ingredients you want to like eggs, vegetables, bacon or hot dog
4. Stir-fry the rice constantly until heated from 5 to 10 minutes
5. Remove from heat and enjoy your hot dish

Method 3 – Reheating Fried In The Oven

If you an oven lover, you should not ignore this method. Oven can spread the heat slowly but evenly that make your fried rice dish taste better.

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F for 5 minutes.
2. Leave the rice in an oven oven-safe baking dish, then add a small amount of water.
3. Put a little butter together with precooked ingredients on the top of the rice if you want, then wrap the container with aluminum foil
4. Put it in the oven and heat for 10 to 15 minutes
5. Check to ensure the rice is evenly hot if not, mix it around and keep heating.
6. Get the dish out and enjoy the best fried rice dish.

Method 4 – Reheating Fried Rice On Stovetop

Reheating your fried rice on the stovetop may be a great way to get your dish ready. You also need to prepare some olive oil for greasing the work surface. You can try it to reheat shrimp fried rice, I think it is not a bad idea.

Instructions:

1. Add a little water into the rice bowl.
2. Heat the work surface, then pour some olive oil or butter (to get extra flavor) at medium heat.
3. On the heated work surface, put your rice together with other ingredients (if have). Then, steam and mix around constantly to get all the rice heated thoroughly.
4. Add your favorite seasonings such as soy sauce, onions or pepper.
5. Turn the heated fried rice onto a plate or bowl and enjoy your meal

Method 5 – Reheating Fried Rice In The Air Fryer

To reheat the fried rice on Air Fryer, you only need to follow the simple below detailed steps.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the Air Fryer at 200°C (392°F) for 5 minutes, while adding a tablespoon of water to leftover Chinese food.
2. Place the leftover fried rice into Air Fryer and heat it at 200°F to 250°F for 8 minutes.
3. Open and get the best results. ( You can add 2-3 minutes if the rice was not heated completely)

Even you’ve already known how to reheat fried rice with our awesome above methods, we’d like to introduce some tips with rice which make you surprise.

Pro Tips & Tricks While Reheating

Sometimes we will get some problem with the leftover rice like crunchy or hard rice, how to deal with it?

You can get rid of the above issues by applying my reheating tips below:

1. How To Fix Crunchy Rice

Your fried rice may get a bit overheating and turn out too crunchy to chew. This happens commonly as too high a temperature evaporates the water, drying the kernels out.

But whatever the case, there is still a way to rescue it. You may add small amounts of water, set at a simmer mode until you get the fluffy content of rice again in the pan.

2. How To Fix Hard Rice

Similar to crunchy rice, you can fix hard rice by adding little water and simmering until you get the right texture.

Remember when recooking fried rice, you want to season the dish again because water may wash over some of the taste.

Safety Facts About Reheating Fried Rice

Though you don’t want to throw your leftover fried rice into the trash bin and keep it for the following meal, eating leftover rice is not recommended due to some threat to your health.

In fact, Rice may have the spores of Bacillus cereus that is a type of bacteria causing food poisoning, and the spores may survive even when the rice is well cooked.

As usual, leaving cooked rice or fried rice at room temperature creates favorable conditions for the bacteria to grow and produce a toxin, which causes the risk of food poisoning.

The more the leftover rice is kept at room temperature, the more unsafe it is to eat. Hence, you need to bear in mind the following suggestions for safety.

• Try to use your rice as soon as it has been cooked.
• If you can’t consume all the rice in one serving, don’t leave it at room temperature. You must cool it immediately to prevent bacteria from growing.
• If you aim to store for the following day, put your leftover rice into a shallow airtight container, then put it into a refrigerator.
• When you reheat your leftover rice, ensure all the rice is heated thoroughly to kill all bacteria and toxins.
• Only store and reheat your rice within 24 hours, for more, don’t hesitate to throw it into the trash bin
• Never reheat your rice second time, just once.

You also try other reheat methods for other foods such as shrimp, smoked turkey, tamales, risotto.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Long Can You Leave The Rice Out?

If you don’t intend to use up the fried rice, don’t leave it out at room temperature for more than 2 hours. It is because the growth of bacterial spores in cooked rice can make you sick.

It’s likely that you don’t use up the dish and want to leave the rice for breakfast. Cooked rice overnight should be wrapped up and kept in the refrigerator so that it doesn’t go spoiled at room temperature.

You can store the leftover in a glass jar and leave it in the cool box. When you want to eat again, the best way to reheat cooked rice reheat is using stove. If the rice is too dry, add little water before putting it into the stove.

How To Defrost Rice

Maybe you accidentally left your leftover fried rice in the freezer.

No worries! Take the food to a microwave-safe bowl with a lid. Put the bowl in and run the microwave in one minute. Use a spoon to break up mounds of rice, then microwave again in 1-minute intervals until it’s thawed.

If the rice still seems too dry, add a bit of water and continue microwaving. You can also defrost the rice in the refrigerator, but it will take several hours.

Can I Reheat Chinese Eggs Fried Rice?

Some may concern about what you need to do if your rice contains some eggs.

Well, the fact is eggs in your fried rice have been well-cooked before being placed on a plate and brought to your table, so don’t worry if you have leftover egg fried rice. 

You just need to heat the eggs properly then you can get your dish ready for your meal.

Can I Reheat Chinese Fried Rice?

Yes, you can do it. The best way to reheat Chinese fried rice is using the stovetop method. Just simply add some olive oil to the pan then put your leftover into it.

But the most important thing before reheating it is adding some moisture to it. You should spray evenly on the rice, it will make a better result.

To Sum Up

To conclude, you just need to prepare the essentials and follow one of the directions “how to reheat fried rice” (Many kinds of rice such as white rice, brown rice, or red rice).