Cauliflower Chicken Fried Rice Recipe

Ever imagined a world without fried rice or never even heard of it? Cauliflower chicken fried rice is both and tasty too!

Fried rice was born to use up leftover food in Chinese kitchens where wasting food was truly frown upon. Unlike in our Western dining culture where part of our dish is naturally seen as something not to be eaten but thrown away.

How was fried rice born?

Once the starch in rice hit the wok, its fate was sealed in human history. We are a sucker for Maillard reaction in our food that is a chemical reaction between amino acids, reduces sugars and produces that golden-brown color on every carbs imaginable. We may know this process as caramelization, but actually it’s a completely different thing, although sometimes with very similar results.

Since then, fried rice has become a dish on its own, made and sold all over the Asian continent in some form or the other. Many nations have their distinctive flavoring, but the base of the dish is the same fried rice that was first recorded 1500 years ago.

How has fried rice changed?

Making fried rice has become not just something people do out of necessity but for something much higher purpose, it became an art form. Since then, people had many years to perfect fried rice, made techniques to uniformly fry the rice on extremely high heat, simply empty the leftover rice from yesterday into a skillet and stir it until warm won’t cut it anymore.

The techniques of making fried rice does not only require skill and knowledge but since we have to flip the rice around in a hot wok constantly, it needs strength too. Some restaurants take this part so seriously that they don’t let their new chefs serving customers until they have fried rice for staff meals for a year. Imagine McDonald’s does the same, what a burger we could achieve with such dedication.

What is cauliflower fried rice?

Luckily though, we don’t have to worry about such intricate practices as we are going to make our fried rice keto. Which means no carbs and no rice but shredded cauliflower.

Fired rice may survived many things through China dynasty ridden history but it seems that keto will be the one that kills it. For those on the low carb diet anyway because it’s unlikely the cauliflower can be pizza and rice too.

Of course, for those who ever tried fried rice before, cauliflower chicken fried rice will taste nothing like the real deal due to the obvious missing endorphin rush from the carbs and the lack of texture, the wok fried rice can provide. But those who never had the privilege to have Chinese relatives who can cook well or visited real Chinese restaurants, the difference may be negligible.

Is cauliflower chicken fried rice worth it?

The lucky ones are those who never even heard of fried rice before because they can enjoy the dish without expectations of any sort which is probably the worst thing when we are getting familiar ourselves with a new diet.

Naming conventions doesn’t really help much changing our mind to align with our new lifestyle, but it seems that we like slapping words like keto, paleo, stirt before anything more than naming them new and explaining what’s in it.

So here it is a keto cauliflower chicken fried “rice” ready to please anyone on a keto or gluten free diet and surprisingly even beyond.

Ingredients

4 tablespoons sesame oil
1 lb / 500g Chicken meat (two chicken breasts)(diced or sliced)
2 teaspoon Salt
1 Onion diced
½ lb / 200g Carrots (not on keto)
2 cloves Garlic
½ lb / 200g Peas (not on keto)
1 Scallion (sliced)
1lb / 500g Cauliflower (half of a small head)
⅓ cup / 100ml Soy sauce
2 Eggs
1 teaspoon Sesame seeds (garnish)

How to make Cauliflower chicken fried rice

Halve the chicken breasts horizontally then slice them into half inch / 1cm slices.
Add half of the sesame seed oil into a frying pan and on high heat start to sear the chicken breasts. Don’t forget to sprinkle half of the salt on top of them.
Once the bottom gets some golden brown spots flip the meat up and sear that side too.
While the chicken is getting ready, dice up the onion, carrot, scallion and garlic.
Once the chicken is done, take it out. If we have a wok then just pull them up to the sides. Add the other half of the sesame seed oil, onions, carrot and the other half of the salt then saute until the onion gets glassy / translucent for about 3 – 5 minutes.
Add peas, garlic and scallion then saute until garlic gets fragrant for about 3 minutes.
While the vegetables are getting ready take the cauliflower apart to florets.
Rice it with a shredder or a food processor.
Add the riced cauliflower with the soy sauce to the frying vegetables.
Stir fry until the cauliflower collapses a bit for about 5 minutes then make a hole in the middle and add the eggs.
Stir the eggs gradually into the riced cauliflower until evenly distributed.
Add the chicken and mix it well.