Oven Baked Fried Rice

Emergency oven-baked fried rice recipe will be of your rescue when you have no leftover cold rice and(or) craving for healthy fried rice. Dump all ingredients into the oven and get ready to taste the explosion of Indo Chinese flavours in the form of this sheet pan baked fried rice. Easily customisable and takes no big effort.

You are totally right there, this baked fried rice may not beat the taste of a regular healthy fried rice but hey it’s so much better than a takeaway fried rice that will be loaded with oodles of oils and fewer vegetables.

But unlike the normal fried rice and other healthy rice recipes on the blog, baked fried doesn’t need much planning to cook the rice the previous day and you don’t even need to chop the vegetables(thanks to frozen vegetables).

I love rice so much(thanks to my South Indian roots) and so I’m always in constant search of healthy rice recipes for weight loss, the quicker the recipe is the fewer excuses I have to skip my workout.

Call it sheet pan-fried rice or one pan baked fried rice, just dump all the ingredients, add in sauces and spice powders, don’t even mix(to avoid mushy rice) and your fluffy fried rice will be ready in no time.

This oven-baked fried rice is also a great option for weight loss due to the need for very few amounts of oil required.

Jump to:

• Ingredients for Baked Fried Rice
• Step by Step Method
• Fried Rice Topping Ideas
• What to serve with baked fried rice
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Baked Fried Rice
• Notes
• Nutrition

Ingredients for Baked Fried Rice

• Rice I used regular white basmati rice as I ran short of short-grained rice. basmati rice is less sticky so works best for dump and bake. But to avoid the nice aroma of basmati you will want to use long grain regular rice.
• Vegetables Best to use frozen vegetables like carrots, beans, green peas, corn etc to keep up with the motto of lazy cooking lol. If you need to use fresh vegetables, you may want to increase water content by at least ¼th cup.
• Green onion A mandatory flavouring and fresh topping for all Chinese recipes.
• Garlic I kind of forgot to add in the picture but don’t even attempt to make fried rice without it.
• Vegetable stock Since we are baking this and not frying in high flame, in order to add extra flavour we want the rice to be cooked in some sort of vegetable broth. Use regular water if you don’t have it.
• Soy sauce I used light soy sauce that has less sodium and gives less colour.
• pepper I used ground white pepper as it will get blended with rice nicely, substitute with ground black pepper if you want.
• Sesame oil works best for fried rice but feel free to use any vegetable oil or sunflower oil but not olive oil.
• Optional Extras You can use scrambled eggs, scrambled paneer or tofu.

Step by Step Method

Let’s look at how to make baked fried rice in an easy step by step method.

Step 1: Dump the uncooked rice, vegetables minced garlic, soy sauce, ground pepper, salt(note that soy sauce also has some salt in it) into an ovenproof dish.

Step 2: Add the vegetable stock and do not mix, just stir to spread the water across the ingredients.

Step 3: Cover the dish with foil paper, this ensures the top later of the rice is not getting browned or burnt.

Step 4: Place it in a preheated oven ideally in the middle rack and bake for 20-30 minutes at 180 degrees celsius by checking in between once.

Step 5: After baking for 30 minutes, take the dish out of the oven and remove the foil paper.

Step 6 & Step 7: Add oil and chopped green onions. At this point, you may see few grains slightly harder on the top due to them receiving max temperature. But don’t worry.

Step 8 Fluff the rice with a fork gently and allow to rest for 10 minutes by covering with a foil loosely.

Fried Rice Topping Ideas

Egg – Cook separately and stir in when fluffing the rice. Either scramble or make ribbons out of a thin omelette

Cooked protein like paneer, tofu tempeh – toss on top of the rice when resting (residual heat will warm up), then mix through well-fluffing rice.

Baby spinach – Stir it through at the end with fluffing rice, residual heat will make it wilt.Kind of weird but anything in the name of my weight loss lol

To make it spicier! you can add a dollop of chilli paste or sriracha during cooking, or stir through a big handful of chopped kimchi just before serving.

What to serve with baked fried rice

Now, fried rice is great to eat on its own but you can serve it with some additional protein like or stir-fried tofu or stir-fried paneer. Also, garlic sauteed mushrooms or stir-fried vegetables goes well and offer additional nutrients.

Basically, there are no rules so you may even serve this with my healthy paneer tikka

Frequently Asked Questions

NEED MORE HEALTHY EATING INSPIRATION? Join my weekly newsletter to receive a free weight loss snacks e-book and also join me on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.