Thai Pineapple Fried Rice

How to Make Thai Pineapple Fried Rice

Start by preparing all of your ingredients, since this dish comes together quickly once you start cooking.

1. Chop all your ingredients before you start: Your pineapple chunks and chicken should be about the same size but your veggies and aromatics should be chopped and diced very small. Slice your Thai basil into ribbons and separate your green onion into the whites and greens. The greens (the tops) will be used for garnish.
2. Caramelize the pineapple: Add some oil to your pan and cook your pineapple until brown and crispy. Remove from pan and set aside.
3. Cook the chicken: In the leftover pineapple drippings, pan fry your chicken. Once cooked, add to your bowl with the cooked pineapple.
4. Veggies: In the same pan, add the veggies and cook them down until tender.
5. Scramble your eggs: After cooking down your veggies, push them to the side and cook your eggs in the same pan!
6. Add in your rice and sauce: Next, simply stir in your rice and sauce. You can use rice that you’ve just cooked, but it’s best to use day-old rice for fried rice. If you are planning to make this recipe and don’t have leftover rice, cook the rice in the morning and let it sit out uncovered for a couple of hours.
7. Garnish: Stir in the Thai basil and green onions as garnish. The residual heat from the cooked rice will slightly wilt the basil and add an amazing flavor to the dish.

Looking for a way to mix up this Thai favorite? Go right ahead! Try subbing in shrimp for the chicken in this dish or omit the bell pepper if that’s not your thing.

Something that’s great about this recipe is that it can be prepared in the same pan- so make sure it’s a large one! The key to a good fried rice is that all of your ingredients are roughly the same size. Take a little extra time in that preparation stage to make sure all those ingredients are chopped to be the same size.

Thai Fried Rice Sauce

Traditionally, there is minimal soy sauce in Thai cooking, and Thai chefs generally make use of fish sauce or dark soy sauce instead of traditional soy sauce.

When it comes to the sauce you want to add to your fried rice, you have a couple options.

While soy sauce is generally not used in Thai cooking, you can use incorporate it into your fried rice, especially since it is more readily available.

Fried Rice Sauce Options:

One of the most commonly asked questions is what kind of sauce to make or add to a Thai fried rice. The answer is not as straightforward as it should be. It really just depends on what kind of flavor you are looking for. Something you should know, however, is that soy sauce is not something that is commonly used in Thai cooking. Fish sauce and even dark soy sauce (a sweeter soy sauce) is much more common.

A couple of sauce options are listed for your fried rice below. While soy sauce is not generally added to a Thai fried rice, you can still add it to your homemade fried rice, especially if you can’t find these other sauces at your local grocery store.

Mix together any of the sauce combinations listed below. Taste and then add to your fried rice.

• 3 Tbsn Oyster sauce & 1.5 Tbsn Fish sauce
• 4 Tbsn Soy sauce & 3 Tbsn Oyster sauce
• 2 Tbsn Dark soy sauce & 1 Tbsn Fish sauce & 2 Tbsn Oyster sauce

There’s really no wrong way to add sauce to your Thai Pineapple fried rice. There are more traditional and less traditional ways to flavor your rice, but you should add the ingredients that speak to you.

Mix it Up

Looking for ways to mix up this fried rice? There are a couple of ways to add spice to this rice dish.

• Different proteins: Instead of pan-frying chicken for this dish, you can cook up some pork, shrimp or even beef. Another option is to add in some leftover rotisserie chicken when you add in the rice to warm it through.
• Veggies: Looking for different vegetable options? Add in broccoli, Chinese broccoli or even some bok choy to this recipe. Use up some of those vegetables that you have in the fridge to make this dish a full meal.
• Make it spicy: This recipe is quite mild. If you want to make this dish spicy, or add some kind of spicy, add in jalapenos when cooking down the vegetables or add in some Thai chilis for spice. Add them in slowly and taste, as it’s difficult to reduce spiciness.

How to Serve

Serving your fried rice is quite simple, just take spoonfuls and dish out into small bowls. If you want to serve this fried rice more creatively though, you can serve the rice in pineapple bowls.