Asparagus Fried Rice! Loaded with spring vegetables, tofu, edamame, fried wild rice is a quick and easy dinner the whole family will love. Made with wild rice cooked at least a day in advance, this is a great vegetarian recipe for batch cooking.
Fried rice is one of my favourite back pocket meals. I tend to make it without a recipe, with grains that are a day or two old and whatever veggies I've got on hand.
Once you get the system down, I'm sure that you, too, will find yourself cooking extra rice to set aside for this uncomplicated weeknight dinner. For this Asparagus Fried Rice, I chose wild rice instead of regular white rice because I love the flavour and the chewy texture of it.
It takes longer to cook than regular ol' white rice does, which is one of the reasons I love to cook it in bulk and freeze it in one-cup portions (related: Batch Cooking for Beginners). Then I've got wild rice ready to go for fried rice, Meal bowls (related: How to Make a Meal Bowl Without a Recipe), or salads whenever I want.
Fried rice is one of my favourite go-to quick and easy healthy meals. If the photo below looks intimidating with all of those elements, rest assured that much of it can be done in advance and the rest of it is pretty quick chopping.
As with any fried rice recipe, the results are best if the rice is cooked at least a day in advance, which is a win for your meal prepping.
What's in fried wild rice?
Alright friends, time to gather your ingredients! Here's what you're going to need:
- Cooked wild rice --> Preferably at least a day old.
- Asparagus --> Because we're making asparagus fried rice today.
- Edamame --> Frozen, shelled will do the trick.
- Tofu --> Bringing the protein, yo!
- Eggs --> Even more protein. You can leave this out for vegan fried rice.
- Ginger --> Taking a trip to flavour town.
- Rice vinegar --> Getting saucy.
- Soy sauce --> I love Bragg's Liquid Aminos here.
- Honey --> For balance.
How do you make fried rice?
When you're whipping together asparagus fried rice, I think there are two basic strategies. You can go either quick and easy, pretty much throwing everything in the same pan as you go, or you can take a more finicky approach.
Doing things the finicky way takes a bit more time and creates considerably more dishes to clean up, but if you're someone who, like me, is particular about the texture of things, this is the way to go.
The recipe as written below is for the move involved approach. It means whipping up a plain omelet, and then sliding it out of the pan onto a plate to cool while the tofu goes in to get crisped up. Once the tofu is nicely browned it, too, goes off to the side to wait, while you cook the vegetables.
Then, the wild rice gets added to the mix, the tofu goes back in, and the omelet, now sliced into thin little ribbons, gets tossed through.
Although it's a bit more time consuming, I like this approach because it means each of the elements in this Asparagus Fried Rice is perfectly cooked. No mush, nothing done under, and you can taste and season as you go.
Tips for making Asparagus Fried Rice:
- Make sure your wild rice is cooked at least a day in advance. When cooking whole grains such as wild rice that take some time to cook, I like to make a big batch and freeze in one-cup portions.
- Do all of the chopping before you start cooking. It all come together pretty quickly in the end, and if you're frantically chopping as you go, something is bound to get over cooked.
- Make the sauce before you start cooking, for the same reason as is stated above. You're going to want it ready to pour on a moment's notice.
- Want to make this dish vegan? Simply leave out the eggs and swap out the honey in the sauce for another liquid sweetener.
- Don't like asparagus? No problem. Swap it out for another in-season vegetable that you do like.
- Wild rice is expensive, right? So free free to blend it with brown rice or another grain to cut down on cost.
Is wild rice healthier than regular rice?
Excellent question, my friends. If we're comparing wild rice to plain old white rice, then yes, for sure it is. Did you know that wild rice isn't actually rice? It's an aquatic cereal grain that's native to North America.
Wild rice has a good portion of the husk intact, which means you're getting a good dose of dietary fiber plus valuable vitamins and minerals that would otherwise be stripped away. Wild rice is also a good source of B vitamins, including B1, B6, B9, and B12.
Other Recipes You Might Enjoy:
Vegan Poké Bowls
Wild Rice Salad
Wild Rice Bowls with Sweet Potato and Spicy Tofu
Red Curry Coconut Stir Fry with Tofu and Vegetables
Black Bean Noodle Bowls with Spicy Sesame Sauce
Mung Bean and Coconut Curry
Fried Wild Rice with Asparagus
Ingredients
- 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 4 large eggs lightly whisked
- 7 ounces firm tofu cut into small cubes
- 8 ounces fresh asparagus cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 cup frozen shelled edamame
- ½ cup sliced green onion
- 3 cups cooked wild rice* preferably at least a day old
For the sauce
- ¼ cup light soy sauce I like Bragg's liquid aminos
- 2 Tablespoons freshly grated ginger**
- 1 Tablespoon honey or other liquid sweetener
- 2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
- pinch red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Start by chopping everything that needs chopping and organizing it on your kitchen counter. So trim the asparagus and chop into bite-sized pieces, chop the green onions, and dice the tofu. Get all of the ingredients lined up in the order you'll be using them in.
- Now make the sauce so it's ready when you need it! Whisk together the soy sauce, honey, ginger, vinegar, and red pepper flakes in a small bowl. Set aside.
- Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 Tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, and swirl to coat the bottom.
- Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk until pale yellow and slightly foamy.
- Pour the eggs into the hot skillet and swirl around in the pan to distribute evenly. Wait a minute or two without disturbing the eggs, so the bottom begins to set.
- When the eggs are firming up, using a spatula fold one-third of the egg over towards the center, and then roll this over the remaining exposed third, so you've got a three-layer omelet.
- Slide the omelet out of the pan and onto a waiting plate.
- Return the same pan to the heat and add a tiny bit more oil if needed. Add the tofu cubes, and let them cook for a few minutes on each side, until nicely browned. This should take about 10. Slide the tofu out of the pan and onto a waiting plate.
- Return the same pan to the heat, and add the asparagus. Cook for 2-3 minutes until bright green.
- Add the frozen shelled edamame and the green onions. And cook, stirring frequently, for 2-3 minutes.
- Add the cooked wild rice and stir to thoroughly combine with the vegetables. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly, until rice is hot.
- Quickly slice the omelet into thin ribbons, and add it to the fried wild rice, along with the cubed tofu. Stir to combine well.
- Add half of the sauce, stir to combine, and taste. Add remaining sauce if desired.
- Serve fried wild rice immediately, with extra hot pepper flakes sprinkled over top if desired.
Notes
- Make sure your wild rice is cooked at least a day in advance. When cooking whole grains such as wild rice that take some time to cook, I like to make a big batch and freeze in one-cup portions.
- Do all of the chopping before you start cooking. It all come together pretty quickly in the end, and if you're frantically chopping as you go, something is bound to get over cooked.
- Make the sauce before you start cooking, for the same reason as is stated above. You're going to want it ready to pour on a moment's notice.
- Want to make this dish vegan? Simply leave out the eggs and swap out the honey in the sauce for another liquid sweetener.
- Don't like asparagus? No problem. Swap it out for another in-season vegetable that you do like.
- Wild rice is expensive, right? So free free to blend it with brown rice or another grain to cut down on cost.
Nutrition
This recipe was originally published June 12, 2011. It was retested, rephotographed, and updated on May 5, 2020.
Kim
Spring veggie yum! Turned out great! Whole family enjoyed it. I didn’t have edamame on hand but did have fresh English shelling peas so I swapped those out with success.
kellie@foodtoglow
I'm a texture person too, so I always go the finicky route (or, as I would say, the proper route!). We have a brown basmati and wild rice mix (it's just the grains - nothing else) that I use a lot but I've not used it for fried rice. Now I will! The whole recipe looks great and your photographs are very enticing. 🙂
scatteredmom
I love the photos! I'm so glad that I had the chance to meet and spend time with you while you were over here. It was a lot of fun. 🙂 Congrats on your graduation! You worked so hard for it.
The strawberry crop here is apparently not doing well because of our cold, rainy weather. SO not good.
themuffinmyth
Thanks, Karen! It was great to get a chance to meet you 'in real life' as well!
:)KT
Vicky
Congratulations on graduation! I too have hateful memories of Organic chemistry.....
Elizabeth
The world is a wonderful place of opportunities...relationships, travel and ....food!! All so beautifully described, arranged and photographed! When my front porch steps are dry (the back steps have also been painted today) I shall scoot to our market to get the ingredients for this sumptuous dish.
themuffinmyth
I have such fond memories of playing on those steps as a little girl (possibly with a side pony tail). Let me know how this recipe turns out for you!
Cammy
Yep, just a few weeks ago I realized fried rice is way bettter when the egg is cooked separately. I would like to add that I DID come up with this idea myself, but I will concede that I was not the first (like the time when I was little and thought I invented the side pony tail). Incidentally, I tossed some asparagus into last nights fried rice, too. It just felt so right this time of year.
themuffinmyth
I also love using this same egg technique (plain omelet in sesame oil) and tossing the strips in with salad.