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SPAM friend rice is an easy dinner that makes use of leftovers, with a delicious meaty taste from canned SPAM – one of Hawaii’s favorite foods – and brings you back to the islands!
This easy recipe is budget-friendly, customizable, hearty and filling, and has a family-friendly flavor everyone loves. We’re showing how to make it on a griddle or Blackstone grill, or in a pan on the stove – so you can even take this recipe camping, to a tailgate, or at home for a busy weeknight.
Don’t want all the extras in a recipe post? We provide a skip to recipe button in the top left corner, as well as a clickable table of contents, just below, to help make this page easier to navigate.
At Sweet C’s, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe – my goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.
I want each reader to walk away with a solid knowledge of each recipe, with all of the tips I’ve gathered from extensive testing of each recipe. I also answer questions my friends and family have asked about my recipes, to help everyone better understand the processes we use – and why!
Table of Contents
Easy Griddled SPAM Fried Rice
Fired rice on the griddle is a delicious and simple dish that’s a welcome weeknight dinner. Adding SPAM is a hint to Hawaii and brings a delicious porky and salty zing to your friend rice.
You really can’t go wrong with your friend rice ingredients. The dish is popular across Asia with a variety of of regionally specific ingredients.. Even Latin American cultures have dishes very similar to friend rice, such as Ecuadorian chaulafan, Peruvian arroz chaufa, or Cuban arroz frito.
Friend rice is believed to have been developed during the Sui Dynasty in China sometime between 580-620AD, so all friend rice dishes pay homage to the Chinese variety.
Hawaiians traditionally add SPAM to their fried rice along with egg, green onions, peas, cubed carrots.
How to Make Easy SPAM Fried Rice
To make this recipe, you’ll need the following ingredients:
- Cooked Rice – Pre-cooked rice is key.. Cold, pre-cooked rice fries the best for fried rice. Say that five times fast.
- SPAM – SPAM is made primarily of minced pork shoulder and ham, which gives it a rich, fatty, salty pork flavor.
- Eggs – Eggs add protein, texture and wonderul flavor to your fried ric.
- Garlic – Garlic cloves has a strong, almost spicy flavor that adds needed flavor to the cooked rice. Garlic has a prominent place in fried rice, even featuring centrally in Sinangag (Filipino garlic fried rice).
- Frozen Peas and Carrots – Pre-packaged frozen peas and carrots are such a convenient and easy way to bring these traditional vegetables to the dish.
- Yellow Bell Pepper – Bell pepper isn’t strictly traditional to SPAM fried rice from Hawaii, but I think the yellow bell pepper adds a beautiful pop of color and flavor to this dish.
- Soy Sauce – Soy sauce as an ingredient is over 2000 years old, where the Han dynasty used fermented soy beans to create a salty, rich sauce full of umami flavor.
- Fish Sauce – Fish sauce is a staple of east Asian cuisine. It’s made from krill or fish that has been salted and fermented for up to two years.
- Sesame Oil – Sesame Oil has a distinctive flavor that is central the to taste of fried rice.
- Green Onions – Green onions add a great kick of onion flavor without the strong bite of a large onion. It’s also a beautiful garish, and we all eat with our eyes first.
- Cooking oil – To cook the rice, SPAM and vegetables, you’ll need some kind of neutral cooking oil, preferably with a high smoke point. I like to use avocado oil.
Once you’ve gathered your ingredients, we will use the following method:
- Prepare your ingredients. Dice your SPAM in ? inch squares. Finely dice your bell pepper, green onion and garlic. Keep them separate. Beat your two eggs thoroughly.
- Fry your SPAM. Cook your SPAM on your griddle with the minced garlic and cooking oil. Cook until brown on the outside, and then remove from the heat.
- Fry your vegtables. Cook the frozen carrots and peas along with the bell peppers on your griddle fore 3-4 minutes until the peppers start to get soft.
- Fry the Rice. Add the cold, cooked rice to the vegetables and stir thoroughly. Cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the SPAM and sauces. Add the SPAM back to the rice and vegetable mix. Once that’s well mixed, add in the soy sauce, fish sauce, and sesame oil.
- Cook your eggs. Create a well in your rice mixture, and cook your eggs before mixing fully.
- Garnish and serve. When the eggs are cooked, add in the finely chopped green onions and stir together. Remove from the heat and serve.
Tips and Tricks to Perfect Spam Fried Rice
Griddled SPAM fried rice is easy to make, but these tips will help make it even better.
Use medium or long grain rice. I used long or medium grain Jasmine rice for this recipe. Short grain rice tends to clump and fall apart more easily that longer grain rice.
Add Mongolian Fire Oil for spicier rice. I like my easy SPAM fried rice more on the spicy side, so I add a couple of tablespoons of Mongolian Fire Oil along with the other sauces in step five. It adds a wonderful flavor and heat to the SPAM fried rice.
FAQs
Yes, it makes a big difference to use cold or leftover rice in fried rice. Warm, freshly cooked rice has too much liquid in it for it to properly cook in fried rice. Cool, day old rice is firm, and dry enough to maintain its taste and texture up to the high heat and stirring involved in
Diced bell peppers, snow peas, water chestnuts, pea shoots, and mushrooms are all delicious in SPAM fried rice – use what you have on hand!
Absolutely! Swap out rice for riced cauliflower to make this dish healthier.
You can swap coconut aminos for soy sauce in this recipe. For even more flavor, you can try garlic coconut aminos.
What to Serve With SPAM Fried Rice
SPAM fried rice is traditionally served with steamed vegetables and springrolls or egg rolls.
I think SPAM fried rice is a great side dish itself, and pairs well with most main dishes such as my easy grilled tandoori chicken, or crunchy baked chicken drumsticks, as well as Sesame Ginger Grilled Tuna Steaks!
We also love serving this fried rice with Sesame Ginger Grilled Bok Choy.
Try these other favorites next:
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SPAM Fried Rice
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 cups of Cooked Rice
- I can of SPAM
- 2 Eggs
- 3 cloves of Garlic finly chopped
- 1 cup Frozen Peas and Carrots
- ¼ cup of finely diced Yellow Bell Pepper
- 1.5 tablespoons of Soy Sauce
- ½ tablespoon of Fish Sauce
- 1 tablespoon of Sesame Oil
- 2 Green Onions, diced
- 3 tablespoons of Cooking oil
- 2 tablespoons of Mongolian Fire Oil, option for spicier rice
Instructions
- Dice the SPAM into ? inch cubes.
- Finely dice the red pepper.
- Beat the two eggs thoroughly until fully mixed.
- On a hot griddle, cook SPAM and garlic in half the cooking oil. Once the SPAM is browned, remove from heat.
- Add vegetables to the griddle and cook through.
- Add the remaining oil to the vegetables and add the rice to the griddle top. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
- Add the SPAM back to the rice and vegetables, stir together and cook for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the sesame oil, soy sauce, and fish sauce to the rice mixture and stir.
- Creat a well in the center of the rice and add the eggs. Allow the eggs to cook for 30 seconds before folding over. Cook and stir until the eggs are cooked. Use the side of your spatula to chop them up and then mix thoroughly with the rice mixture.
- Add half the finely chopped green onions and stir. Remove from heat and garnish with the remaining green onions.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
