During our trip to Hawaii, almost every dish we ordered for lunch and dinner, came with 2 heaping scoops of white rice. At the beginning of our trip, we would just take the extra rice back to our condo and make fried rice. Towards the end of the trip, we were so sick of rice that we were willing to pay extra for the rice alternative!
Alex, my husband, recently did a blog post for fried rice. It is really tasty and a great way to use up leftover rice. A friend recently asked me how to cook pineapple fried rice, made with spam. I decided to make a low-carb Hawaiian fried rice dish made with cauliflower instead. For Hawaiian cauliflower fried rice, use spam as the protein, substitute cauliflower rice for the cooked white rice and add diced pineapple to the recipe.
Hawaiian cauliflower fried rice with spam and pineapple.
Cauliflower rice is basically grated or blended cauliflower depending on your process. It is a wonderful substitute for white rice with a lot more nutrition and a lot less caloreis and carbs. There are 25 calories and 5 g of carbs. per cup of raw or cooked cauliflower rice compared to 200 calories and 41 g of carbs. in a cup of cooked white rice.
Tips for making cauliflower fried rice.
Cauliflower rice.
Cauliflower is a great rice substitute. Cauliflower rice is becoming so mainstream that it can be found frozen in grocery stores. For this fried rice recipe, I made my own cauliflower rice using the food processor. When using a food processor, only use the "pulse" button with the metal blade to keep the integrity of the cauliflower. Otherwise, you'll end up with tiny granules. It is also good to cut and separate the florets from the stems and then process them in separate batches. You can also use the coarse grater which gives a different look. If you don't have a food processor, you can use a box grater and grate the cauliflower head by hand.
Pineapple.
I decided to use half of a pineapple for the bowl. It looks great but doesn't hold too much cauliflower rice. In this video, I show you how to cut the pineapple to create the pineapple bowl.
Vegetables.
Use vegetables with vibrant colors. Do not overcook your vegetables, because they will lose their brightness. See other tips for fried rice here.
Toppings.
I like adding crunch to the fried rice. For this cauliflower fried rice, I finely shredded iceberg lettuce and tossed that into the fried rice right before serving to give it crunch. I also added some roasted pumpkin seeds and fried shallots! Enjoy and let me know how yours turned out in the comment section.
EASY FRIED RICE
Ingredients
- 500 grams cooked and refrigerated rice
- 100 grams corn fresh or frozen
- 100 grams frozen peas
- 100 grams diced carrots fresh or frozen
- 100 grams diced onion
- 100 grams chopped tasty meat
- 3 large eggs, scrambled and chopped
- 1 Tbsp cooking oil
- 1 Tbsp light soy sauce
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp sugar
- ½ tsp chicken bouillon powder
Instructions
PREP ON THE DAY BEFORE OR SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE
- Cook the rice.
- Leave it in the refrigerator, uncovered.
PREP BEFORE COOKING
- Dice the vegetables.
- Dice the meat / protein.
- Scramble the eggs.
- Cut the eggs.
COOK
- Preheat wok / pan to medium heat.
- Add oil.
- Add carrots, onions, and meat. These ingredients are added first because they take longer to cook.
- Cook for 2 minutes until vegetables look cooked.
- Add corn and rice.
- Cook for another 2 minutes.
- Add flavorings. Authentic Chinese fried rice is closer to white than brown.
- Add the eggs last. This way, they won’t get darkened by the other ingredients or shredded from too much stirring.
- Serve!