We pretty much love any and all fried rice, but this kimchi fried rice with little bits of pan fried spam is up there on my list of favorites. Spicy, sour, salty, meaty…. it has all the good things. It is similar to other fried rice, but with the addition of kimchi, Korean chili paste and Korean chili powder.
You can control how spicy this dish is by using more or less Korean red chili powder (gochugaru) and Korean chili paste (gochujang). You can find both of these either on amazon or at a Korean market. We are lucky to have H mart not to far away so I stock up on these when I go there. They last you a long time so once you buy them you can make lots of Korean food before you need more.
You also need kimchi for this obviously. You can get kimchi anywhere these days which is wonderful. All of my local grocery stores carry it. Usually near the produce section since it has to be stored in the fridge.
Fried rice is best made with rice that isn’t freshly cooked. You can either cook it earlier in the day and let it cool, or you can use leftover rice from your fridge. Fried rice is a great way to use up leftover white rice if you have any. I like to use peas, carrots, onion and garlic in my fried rice typically but for this one you want to leave the peas out. The carrots, onion and garlic are still good though.
Kimchi Fried Rice
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp oil
- 2 cups ripe kimchi drained and chopped
- 1 large carrot diced
- 1 onion diced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 3 tbsp juice from the drained kimchi
- 1-2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 can spam cut into bite sized pieces and browned in a pan until golden
- 3-4 cups cooked rice
- 1 tsp Korean red chili powder
- 1-2 tsp Korean red chili paste to taste
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 bunch scallions sliced
- 3 eggs scrambled and chopped or you can make fried eggs and serve them on top with a runny yolk. This is good too.
Instructions
- If you are using scrambled eggs in this, whisk the eggs with a little salt and pour into a hot frying pan with a dash of oil and cook them until just set, breaking into small pieces. Set aside for later.
- Make sure your spam is fried nicely to be light brown on all sides. Spam is a completely different thing when you fry it vs eating without doing that.
- Heat 2 tbsp oil your large wok or frying pan. Add the carrot and onion and cook for about 5 min to soften the carrot a little. Add the garlic, kimchi, chili paste and powder and fry for a little bit.
- Add the other 2 tbsp oil and heat to high. Add your rice and stir until it is well mixed with the other ingredients. Then let sit and fry for a little before stirring to get some crispiness on the rice. Add the spam, egg and kimchi juice, sesame oil and soy sauce and stir well. Taste and season with salt. If it seems like something is missing, add a 1/2 tsp sugar and mix well and taste again. Garnish with scallions.