- 12 minutes ago
Today on Epicurious, we’ve asked professional chefs Jae Lee, Hiroko Shimbo, and Eric Huang for their unfiltered, honest reviews of some prominent frozen fried rice brands found on supermarket shelves. Which fried rice packs the most bang for your buck, and which should you avoid at all costs?
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00We've gathered three fried rice experts to blind taste test every fried rice we could get our
00:05hands on to see which ones meet their standards. P.F. Chang's signature fried rice. Smells good,
00:16smells savory. We've got classic peas and carrots and scallions. Finding green peas inside fried
00:22rice, that's like old school. Looks like just the standard veggies. It does not look like it's
00:28clumping very much, which is usually a good sign. Am I tripping or does that look like Uncle Ben's rice?
00:33When it comes to a good fried rice, I look for some specific things. So the first thing I'm looking
00:39at is distinct rice texture. It can't be clumpy, nor can it be mushy. Fully cooked, but stays firm and
00:47moist. I like nice, fluffy, light grains. Everything should be balanced. Nothing too sweet, nothing too
00:55salty. Definitely needs an umami component, whether it's MSG or soy sauce or fish sauce. The third
01:00thing I'm looking for is quality mix-ins. Those vegetables all play a specific role. No flavor
01:06dominates over other flavor. The rice texture is horrible. Rice is a little mushy. Some of the rice
01:15grains are broken up, which is why it's kind of hard to tell if it's like a medium or a
01:18long grain. When
01:19rice breaks, it releases a lot of its starch. That's how, you know, you get gummy. Eating textures.
01:24It tastes like fried rice made in a white family's home. Can I say that? I don't know if I
01:28can say
01:28that. The seasoning's pretty light. There's something called wok hei. Foundational pillar of Cantonese
01:33cooking. Literally translates to breath of the wok. That will not be an easy thing to achieve for a frozen
01:39fried rice. Once it's frozen, we heat it. Unfortunately, we can't taste it. This has zero wok hei. It's wok
01:48nei.
01:48The carrot is mushy. Peas are a little wrinkly. It's like 90% rice to 10% vegetables, which is,
01:54I would say is appropriate. This seems like a Chinese style fried rice. I would say it's like a,
01:59like an American brand. Maybe P.F. Chang. Whoa. What? P.F. Chang's? It's a very, very popular
02:08American, yeah, chain. So yeast extract. That's a umami enhancer. Yeast extract is a smokescreen for MSG.
02:16It's just the salt, just like anything else. Billions of people eat it every single day.
02:20Yeast extract is a glutamate. Um, it is, it is MSG derived from yeast. That's what makes it taste
02:26good, guys. P.F. Chang's? I mean, I respect you. I have a lot of love for you, but personally,
02:31this, this rice wasn't it. Trader Joe's barbecue pork. This looks legit. It actually looks like fried
02:38rice, right? Smells good. It's got a lot of stuff in it. Peppers, peas, corn. Looks like ham. Ham,
02:45potentially? I'm going to try Chinese ham. The vegetables are cut similar size as the ham. And
02:51lots of colors. Bright, energizing. I want to eat that. That tastes like fried rice. Has a chew to it.
03:00The
03:00rice, I liked it. It's seasoned very nicely. Great seasoning. There's definitely umami here. All the
03:06ingredients here survive the thawing process and the heating process. The veg is like maybe like a
03:11hair on the overcooked side. This has to be like a Chinese brand from Asia, I would say. Trader Joe's.
03:18Wow, what? With the font. The oriental riff. Bbq pork fried rice with cha shu style pork and mixed
03:24vegetables. The pork doesn't exactly taste like cha shu. Cha shu in its original form is fatty cuts of
03:29pork roasted in a high heat charcoal oven and then it's dipped in maltose. It's more to add shine and
03:35stickiness and texture. Cooking instructions on a stovetop and a skillet. That makes a huge difference.
03:41There is unexpected ingredient. Beats juice. It says color in parentheses.
03:47Yeast extract, natural flavor, celery juice powder. All code words for MSG. It's a very good meal in the
03:54bowl. I really would buy this.
03:58Bibigo, Korean barbecue. Oof, what happened to this one? The color is very dark and maybe meat. Oh my
04:07gosh, that looks like dog food. Kind of dog food-y. The rice is all broken up. It looks mushy.
04:13It just
04:13doesn't look appetizing. It looks kind of just like a pile of mush. This tastes like straight up just MSG.
04:20There is a sweetness. One-dimensional, one-note, sweet. Horrible rice texture. Mushy, yet has a weird bite.
04:27The rice is pretty busted. What are they even going for? Like Korean maybe?
04:33Bibigo fried rice. Korean barbecue flavor. Korean fried rice. We use like medium, short,
04:40medium grain rice. Oh, and it's made with brown rice. When you cook rice, brown rice perfectly. You can
04:47enjoy the slightly chewy texture. There's not that texture in this fried rice. Brown rice has the bran
04:54intact and, you know, has better fiber and glycemic index. Usually the grains are a lot firmer.
05:02Textured soy protein. Mock meat. I'm guessing like a seitan product of some sort.
05:07Letting me down, Bibigo. My heart's with you. My belly is not.
05:13Bulldog carbonara chicken. Whoa. I smell butter. Interesting. Looks like chill paste. Let us see.
05:22Oh my gosh, that's spicy. It's pretty hot. Oh. Heat level is very high. The creaminess does balance
05:31the heat to a certain point, but there's like a hint of curry flavor too. There is nothing to do
05:36with
05:36star fried rice. Oh, is this like bulldog chicken? It tastes like bulldog ramen. Bulldog. Yes.
05:42Bull means fire. Dak means chicken. I have never had bulldog rice before. Oh, it is the carbonara one.
05:49Hence the cheesiness. I'm pretty sure during the Korean war, like GIs went over. That's like where spam came from.
05:55That's how American cheese got introduced to Korean cooking. So I think the carbonara thing
05:59is continuing on that. But it's very starchy, very heavy. Whole milk powder. That's, I guess,
06:06that's really where I'm getting the butter flavor. They just list out monosodium glutamate. Yeah,
06:12they want that. They want it to be super flavorful and addictive. It's meant to be eaten like potato
06:15chips. You know what I mean? It's delicious though. P.F. Chang's chicken fried rice. That looks amazing. I think
06:23we're back in like a Chinese style fried rice territory. Wow, this has egg. In a Chinese style
06:30fried rice, egg to me is a non-starter. I think you could call it a fried rice if it
06:34had rice, egg,
06:35and scallion in my mind. The egg, carrot. Green soybeans, edamame. It's all like similar shape.
06:40There's chicken in here. This long grain rice, very colorful. It's pretty good. It has good seasoning.
06:48This tastes like homemade. I'm getting some ginger. They get a little bit of the chew from the rice.
06:53The spice is firm. That's good. The egg has a pretty good texture. The chicken has a pretty
06:58good texture. I love the chicken. Chicken is cooked properly and has flavor. I'm gonna say
07:04it tastes Chinese. Some Chinese company. Is this like P.F. Chang's like premium? Oh. Oh, P.F. Chang.
07:12P.F. Chang's, you have redeemed yourself. This one is much better than their other one. There's more
07:17flavorings in here. More seasoning like oyster sauce, garlic, onion, ginger. That's the holy trinity. This one
07:22specifically says cooked jasmine rice. The other one was seasoned long grain rice. This is solid.
07:29I'd eat it. Ajinomoto yakitori chicken. Some of the rice shows burns. The rice is a little,
07:37is a little sad. I do find eggs in here as well. Smaller pieces. However, it's in there. The protein
07:44is a
07:44big old piece. Rice texture, mushy. This is the long grain rice. Very nice chew. A little bit salty.
07:54It's so aggressive. It leans very, very sweet. Or maybe Japanese chowhan. This is a Japanese-style
08:01fried rice. Japanese-style yakimeshi. With Japanese-style fried rice and hibachi-style fried rice,
08:06the seasoning is generally lighter. And the texture is usually stickier because of the kind of rice they're
08:10using. Probably by Ajinomoto or something like that. I do ride for Ajinomoto. These guys are
08:17homies. Japanese-style yakitori chicken fried rice. Yakitori is chicken skewered and grilled. Yaki means
08:25grilled. Tori means chicken. Yakitori. When you taste the chicken, it doesn't taste like yakitori. I think
08:30it's had some sort of tenderizing treatment to it. This rice is cooked with hondashi. Bonito soup stock.
08:37Hondashi is dashi powder. It's kombu and shaved katsubushi, which is a petrified smoked bonito fish.
08:45Which has lots of umami. This doesn't taste homey. It almost tastes like factory-made. The rice
08:52is a little beat up. The chicken's a little odd. It wouldn't rank high on my list.
08:58Trader Joe's spicy Thai shrimp. It's a shrimp fried rice. It looks Thai. Definitely Thai.
09:06We have some maybe bird's eyes chilies. Bird's eyes, foundational ingredient in Thai cooking.
09:13And the aroma hits my nose and the color is very balanced.
09:18This is a spicy shrimp fried rice. Let's try the shrimp. For me, shrimp should have a bounce and a
09:24snap to it. And it has that. I like how they use baby shrimp. It's kept in whole and intact.
09:29Anything
09:29that freezes well by itself, it would generally do well in a fried rice. The rice is pretty well
09:35seasoned. It has a little bit of heat. The white pepper, it's aggressive, but it's intentional in
09:41this fried rice. The texture of rice, it's cooked properly. So it has nice firmness and a slight
09:51chewiness. I would think it's like spicy shrimp fried rice. Yeah, let's go Trader Joe's.
09:56Okay. Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's again. We're back, baby. Let's go. A spicy Thai shrimp fried rice.
10:03Wow. They do quite well. Jasmine rice. Perfect choice. Shrimp. Great. There is basil. Okay,
10:11that's great. I'm definitely a fan of this one. I would buy this one. I like this because of the
10:16spiciness level is very good. Texture is wonderful. I mean, I get what they're going for. People love
10:22variety, options, the illusion of choice. So I get why this product exists and it's fine.
10:31Healthy choice. Chicken fried rice. A lot going on here.
10:36This looks bad. It looks wet, mushy. Very watery. Distinctively wet. Fried rice is
10:42not supposed to look like this. Almost looks like a risotto. But I'm doing this for you,
10:46man. I'm going to try it. Try it anyway. Texture of this rice is very chewy. So the texture is
10:53not good.
10:54It has like this wetness around it. Well-cooked brown rice should have a distinct bite and individual
11:01grains. This is a little overcooked. It's a weird analogy, but eating fried rice is like inhaling air.
11:06Brown rice, you have to constantly chew. Not my favorite. This sauce is very overpowering. How sweet and
11:13gingery taste. The seasoning. Okay. It leans very one-dimensional. Maybe over-seasoned. Are they going
11:20for like a healthier chicken fried rice kind of situation? Healthy choice. Chicken fried rice. So
11:28they're going for brown rice because, you know, brown rice is healthier in terms of fiber and glycemic
11:33index and nutritional content. I get why they have a sauce now because in order to make it healthy choice,
11:38they're adding a water-based sauce for flavor and viscosity and mouthfeel. Where normally,
11:45with a fried rice, you'd be doing that with fat. This is not fried in oil or cooked in broth.
11:51But if
11:51you're trying to make fried rice healthy, it just seems like an oxymoron. It's low-calorie. Now,
11:58whether you think low-calorie necessarily means healthy, you know, I would disagree. If this is
12:04a stir-fried rice, they didn't succeed. But healthy choice exists for a reason.
12:12Grain Trust. Hibachi. How does every fried rice have carrot and peas? I think it's probably because
12:18peas and carrots were like one of the first most successfully IQF frozen foods. This has a very
12:24clean look, but not much wok hair. Should we try it?
12:31It does taste like maruchan chicken noodle soup. That seasoning, the MSG, but the the balance is
12:38very strange. This is probably one of the more heavily seasoned fried rices I've had today. So
12:42it's fine, but I don't know if I'd want to eat a whole bowl of that. Rice is mushy. I
12:47don't like the
12:47choice of rice here. This is short grain rice. A little broken up. The more intact the rice is and
12:53the more
12:53identifiable it is, the more premium the product, which makes sense. Short grain rice tells me this
12:58means like Japanese. Hibachi fried rice. Grain Trust? Is that the company? Hibachi is like teppanyaki.
13:10Cooking on a flat top entirely, usually in front of people. You know, this is what Benihana
13:14popularized. There's frequently egg. I mean, that's like the fun, the hibachi chef spinning the egg,
13:19throwing it in the air. They have been marketing Japanese style casual dining, but everything is
13:26Americanized. If you've been to Hibachi, you know they use mad soy sauce and mad butter. This doesn't
13:33taste like either one of that. 365 by Whole Foods Chicken. It looks pretty good. I would pretty
13:40confidently say this is a jasmine rice or a long grain rice. Pretty good smell. It looks like bland rice
13:45again. The vegetables are pretty uniformly cut as we use the protein, the chicken and the egg. These
13:50are good signs. It's a little heavy on the soy sauce for me, but it's not bad. The flavor of
13:57the rice
13:57throws me off. It tastes like Uncle Ben's rice. The rice is cooked nicely. It has like a distinct chew.
14:03Rice is firm. Its texture is okay. Long grain rice suits much better than medium or short grain rice,
14:13because it's less starchy and texture is much better. Let's try the chicken. A little tough,
14:20a little dry. Chicken looks quite dry. I'm gonna try just the egg. Egg is a little bit dried out.
14:27You know, this is probably was a rehydrated powdered egg, maybe. Like a Walmart brand,
14:32maybe like Target or something like that. Is it a 365? It is a 365. And we got the yeast
14:38extract,
14:39SDMSG. We got caramel color. It's to make the fried rice look more savory. It's more commonly seen
14:47in CPG foods. It's just to add color, because again, we eat with our eyes. But it's something that,
14:52you know, Chinese chefs have been using for millennia. But the vegetables, mushy, and the chicken dry.
14:59The flavor is not evenly mixed. It's a kind of rough job. Whole foods, not a fan of this one.
15:07It's not bad.
15:10Trader Joe's vegetable fried rice. Visually, this looks great. This was definitely heated up in a
15:15in a skillet or on a stovetop. Wow, this is very cheerful. Carrot and peas. We meet again.
15:22Peas and carrots. We're so back. Edmame, carrot, bell pepper. The cuts of vegetables are all pretty
15:28different. And looks like vegetarian. I really love this choice of rice here. Not too dry. It's not too
15:37moist. The seasoning is very, very light. And the flavor is very simple. Quite well balanced. It has
15:45the right amount of soy sauce, the right amount of sugar, the right amount of oil. I think the scallion
15:49white is a nice choice. Aha! Oh, Trader Joe's. Okay. She bad. I have tasted the three Trader Joe's.
15:57They have so many fried rice's. So the scallion they used wasn't a scallion. It was a leek. Same family.
16:03Leeks would freeze and thaw better than scallion. Kelp extract. Kelp naturally has MSG. So kelp extract
16:10would add umami to a dish. Mirren is on here. Mirren is a sweet rice wine. You don't really add
16:15that
16:15to a fried rice actually, but it's used in a way where it's not really noticeable. It's simple. Very
16:21cheerful appearance. Simple is the best. I like it. This is the best vegetable fried rice that I've had so
16:29far.
16:32Taipei chicken. Corn, carrots, peas. We have chicken. Some grill marks here. The corn is a little bit
16:40shrank. Rice is broken. I don't feel much rice. Doesn't give much texture. Seasoning's good. Not
16:51too sweet. Not too salty. The highlight is this chicken. The chicken on its own is actually better
16:57seasoned. Well seasoned. A little bit salty on the side. It's juicy. It's tender. It just tastes like
17:06natural chicken. And if you're going to call it a chicken fried rice, chicken better be good.
17:11Uh, maybe. This is ajinomoto. Okay. Is it ajinomoto? Okay. It's ajinomoto. Taipei. Chinese fried rice.
17:20That's pretty cool. I've never seen a fried rice in like an ice cream container. This is a convenience
17:25product. You microwave it. You eat it right out of it. Well, this is quite disappointing. It doesn't
17:30give you eating star fried rice. So maybe this is cheap. This is high on my list. I'm actually pretty
17:38surprised how nice the rice is. But it's, it's, you know, pretty bland, pretty boring. Very badly done.
17:47Innovation. Vegetable fried rice. Onion. Red pepper.
17:51Edamame. Egg. Carrot. Can't really tell what kind of rice that is. Looks a little bit stale. Yet another
17:58light brown. Rice of questionable providence. Vegetarian fried rice. Although this one has egg.
18:05Again, very bland. But the rice isn't bad. It's cooked pretty well. The rice. It's a chewy. It's pretty
18:12good. It's just very light seasoning. It's kind of too bland. The egg has like a decent size and a
18:17curd to it.
18:18Egg texture retains very well. I would kind of think this is one of those like vegetarian health
18:25marketed products. Is it like a nasi goreng? Kind of like Indonesia kind of fried rice?
18:33Innovation. Aha. What brand is that? This one is pretty consistent. A kind of standard fried rice.
18:42Oh, it has miso paste. Miso is made from fermented soybeans. I think that's where it does have a
18:48little bit of that nose of like wine. Miso adds umami as well. It's, it's a, it could be salty,
18:53a little sweet, umami. You don't necessarily find miso paste in a, in a fried rice. Pretty unexciting.
19:01But the rice is cooked pretty well at least. So that, that's a plus. The ingredients inside the rice,
19:07it was lacking. It was too light. It almost needed more of its character.
19:13Stouffer's Hawaiian style chicken. At least I'm getting my vegetables today. The sauce returns.
19:19This has a little weather texture. Rice looks definitively long grain. And there's a chicken,
19:27I think. Not a fan of this fried rice. This has significant sweetness. So the sweetness definitely
19:36resemble like chicken teriyaki. It's very sweet and sour. It's very ginger forward. It just like kind
19:41of has like a very artificial quality to it. Is this chicken? I, I can't. It's so, it's so tough.
19:46Zoom in on this. What is that? It's like a dehydrated something. I can't even pull it apart.
19:53Oh my gosh. Not, not a huge fan. And the color is kind of off. Rice is a little bit
19:58overcooked or mushy.
20:01This is not star fried rice. I don't even have a guess. Okay.
20:05Stouffer's Hawaiian style chicken fried rice, pineapple juice concentrate, brown sugar. So anything
20:12Hawaiian is going to be sweet, which I think is a disservice to Hawaiian cuisine, but whatever.
20:17Rice, wine, vinegar, sesame oil, ginger puree. Sounds like risotto.
20:21It's a different eating experience and a different thing when you add that much liquid to it.
20:25What it ends up doing is just overpowering everything else. It's made with white meat,
20:30chicken, water isolated, soy protein, modified rice starch, chicken flavor. So that's what this weird
20:36thing is. It says fried rice. But when you see the photo, it doesn't look like fried rice.
20:44What it actually ends up being, not amazing. This is not good for you. It's not delicious.
20:49I would not recommend.
20:52Daring fly-by-jing chili crisp plant chicken. Oh, it smells like instant ramen. Whoa,
20:58there's some pepper seeds. Is this fermented black bean? Peas, carrots, something huge.
21:04What's that? What is that? Is that chicken?
21:10Not a fan. It smells amazing and the flavor is lacking. The seasoning weirdly is kind of all over
21:15the place. Like the only thing I'm really getting is heat. Oh, spicy. Rice is a little bit overcooked.
21:22The mix-ins do like how the carrot is cut similar size as the peas. And then carrots,
21:28very uniformly cut, nice texture, a little softer side. And the peas, not mushy, has a nice bite to it.
21:36It looks
21:36vibrant and in color. And there's scallion in here, which is good. And you can see the dry chilies.
21:42I have to attack this big, I don't know. Is it chicken? What is this? I'm tasting something. I have
21:49no idea what it is.
21:51Oh, so this is tofu product. Yuba. What the heck is that? It's like made in a lab.
21:59The seitan or whatever this product is, I think, you know, it has a pretty tough texture. It took a
22:04while to chew.
22:05I can't even guess what that is. I don't even know the brand. It's definitely not Korean.
22:10Daring? Daring flyby jeng chili crisp. Plant chicken fried rice bowl.
22:17A lot going on. Chili crisp is great. Very popular condiment.
22:20Flavor is very strong. This soy protein, it's very interesting.
22:26Daring plant protein. I don't know how they make it. It seems like it's proprietary,
22:30given that it's a trademark name. Not a fan. Very strange.
22:33I just don't know why the decision to make the piece is so big.
22:38I'm really supportive of plant protein. Like, I really want to be able to figure this out.
22:42Flyby jeng is a really great product. I think the heat is definitely there.
22:45The black bean flavor is definitely there. Not bad.
22:49Now, let's see which brands our experts liked the most and the least.
22:53We ate a lot of fried rice today, friends.
22:55I could see so many varieties today.
22:58A lot of them were pretty good. A lot of them were really bad.
23:01One I thought most purely expressed fried rice was the P.F. Chang's chicken fried rice.
23:08The chicken was juicy. It was cooked well. And it really stood out as a co-star in the fried
23:14rice.
23:14That very much felt like something you would get in a Chinese restaurant. Pretty close.
23:18All the Trader Joe's fried rice were really great. I would say my favorite is the spicy shrimp.
23:23I probably like most of their products, honestly.
23:26It really did have like a Thai flavor profile.
23:28I instantly could tell, oh, this is Thai.
23:32You know, in a Westernized way, but it was good. And the shrimp was like a nice texture.
23:36It was pretty solid and it had heat.
23:38Trader Joe's, you did an amazing job. Hit me up if you want to launch Trader J's.
23:43And then I also liked the bulldog.
23:46Although it wasn't quote unquote balanced seasoning and light, with this, it was intentional.
23:52Although I wouldn't really call it a fried rice, but I think if you added an egg to that,
23:57added some protein to that, maybe some cheese, if that's your bag.
24:01I just burped right now and I taste it and I want it again. It's crazy.
24:04This is the one I choose the least.
24:08There were many on the list today that I didn't like. I did not like the P.P. Go fried
24:13rice.
24:13I didn't like that it was brown rice.
24:15They said there were vegetables, but there was just like some, some mulched carrot, like just, just not great.
24:20And it was just like the texture of it was all off.
24:23Poorly done Korean flavor. It's just like way too sweet.
24:26And it looked like dog food.
24:28If you put it in a dog bowl, I would have thought it was dog food. Like, I'm sorry.
24:31It just didn't look great.
24:33I was not a fan of the healthy choice chicken fried rice.
24:35Maybe not fair because they're going to like try to get under a certain calorie count,
24:39but like that sauce was really unpleasant.
24:41It was wet, had a very strange texture.
24:44It was like simultaneously under and overcooked.
24:47I didn't like anything about it, honestly.
24:48If you wanted healthy fried rice, use good ingredients.
24:51I also was not a fan of the Stouffer's fried rice, the Hawaiian fried rice.
24:56It used a very strange chicken protein.
25:00It was again, very saucy and wet.
25:03It looked like a risotto, quite wet.
25:05I don't know. I don't like the sauce on the fried rice. I don't think it makes sense.
25:08Look for a fried rice with minimal ingredients.
25:10The first thing is looking for like an intentional decision on the rice that they're using.
25:14If it says specifically long grain or jasmine rice, that's a good sign.
25:19When you're reheating the fried rice, go with the instruction that says heat in a skillet.
25:23Fried rice was always meant to be cooked in a wok, in a skillet, in a pan.
25:27That's going to immediately improve whatever you bought.
25:29You may have some leftover chicken, fresh egg, and toss with the fried rice product.
25:36Fried rice is amazing because you get to take humble ingredients and bring it together to make it taste like
25:42heaven on earth.
25:43So I get why it's become a really popular CPG frozen product.
25:47You're having a sad day, fried rice.
25:49Late night meals, fried rice.
25:51Hungover meals, fried rice.
25:52It's the ultimate thing.
25:54And it's most of our childhood memory, I would say.
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