A quick, tasty dish prepared in just a few minutes, Chinese sausage fried rice delivers a balanced smoky, savoury & sweet taste.
When I have a busy day coming up, I often deliberately cook extra rice the night before intending to make a quick dish using the leftover rice on the day. It’s really a time-saver! Last Friday, I spent only 8 minutes in the kitchen and produce a very tasty meal for two: Chinese sausage fried rice, one of our favourite fried rice dishes in the Red House.
Inspired by “Clay pot rice”
First of all, I’d like to talk about what inspired me to create this Chinese sausage fried rice. Have you ever eaten (or heard of) Clay Pot Rice/煲仔饭, a classic one-pot dinner dish that you can find in almost any Cantonese-style restaurant.
Typically, the rice is firstly cooked in a small clay pot (traditionally over a charcoal stove), then meat (Chinese sausage, Chinese bacon or cooked chicken, etc.) and vegetables are added on top of the rice during the second part of the cooking process. When serving, a dash of soy sauce-based seasoning is stirred into the rice.
Not having a clay pot to hand but craving this Cantonese delicacy, I decided to create my own fried rice version with the same flavour profile. It takes less than 10 minutes to cook from start to finish. And may I say, it tastes almost as good as the authentic clay pot rice!
What is Chinese sausage?
Chinese sausage, the star ingredient of this recipe, refers to a type of sausage which originated from the province of Guang dong (Canton) in China. It’s commonly known as “Cantonese Lap Cheong (广式腊肠)”.
Made of pork and seasoned with rice wine, soy sauce, rose water, etc., lap Cheong has a distinctive fragrance, smoky flavour and has a very pleasant sweet taste. It’s often used as a flavour component in stir-fry dishes. You can find Lap Cheong on the chilled shelves in Chinese supermarkets (and in some Asian shops too).
Tips on “leftover rice”
Chinese-style fried rice always calls for cooked rice, more precisely, leftover rice. There are two tips that I’d always like to emphasize when it comes to making a perfect bowl of fried rice.
- Do not use leftover rice which has been overcooked to a very mushy, sticky texture.
- Keep the leftover rice refrigerated prior to frying.
If you’re keen to make top-notch fried rice that’s super light and fluffy, check out my post on Three Ways to Cook Rice. It includes two methods that produce firm, al dente rice that’s perfect for making fried rice.
More one-bowl dishes
Looking for more quick dinner inspirations? Check out these one-bowl meal recipes on my blog:
Chinese sausage fried rice (腊肠炒饭)
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon cooking oil
- 1 stalk scallions
- 2 Chinese sausages - aka Lap cheong
- 400 g cooked rice - 14oz, see note 1
- 120 g peas - 4oz
For the sauce
- 1 teaspoon light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce - see note 2
- 1 teaspoon oyster sauce
- 1 pinch white pepper
- 1 pinch salt
- 2 teaspoon water
Instructions
- Thinly slice Chinese sausage diagonally. Finely chop the scallions.
- Mix all the ingredients for the sauce then set aside.
- Heat oil in a wok (or a deep frying pan) over medium heat. Add the spring onion and the sausage. Fry until fragrant.
- Add cooked rice and peas. Stir constantly.
- Pour in the sauce. Give everything a quick stir before dishing out.
NOTES
NUTRITION
NUTRITION DISCLOSURE: Nutritional information on this website is provided as a courtesy to readers. It should be considered estimates. Please use your own brand nutritional values or your preferred nutrition calculator to double check against our estimates.
Mmmmm like it a lot,thanks.
I’ve made it twice now and I love it! Because I can’t take much oil I leave that off. The Chinese sausage has enough fat in it to take care of it anyway. I really love that this recipe is so easy to convert to gluten free too…as long as you can find a GF version of the sausage. I used GF tamari, GF oyster sauce, and homemade GF dark soy sauce made from my tamari. Thank you so very much!
My pleasure to share! It’s very nice of you to share how you made this dish gluten-free. My readers will appreciate your input!
Hi Wei 🙂 This is very similar one of our favourite ’10 minute’ dishes, when we want something cooked quickly and we have left over rice. We can get Chinese sausage in the UK in Chinese supermarkets, UK sausages are totally different and not suitable for this dish. The main difference is that we add chopped leeks (we always have a bag in the freezer). It hadn’t occurred to me to add oyster sauce, I will try that next time.
Which brand of lap cheong have you been using for fried rice? Been trying so many brands and haven’t found the right one.
Hi Jo! I don’t remember the brand name since I wrote this post quite a long time ago. It was a random choice. I haven’t found very good ones outside China either.
Kam Yen Jan is the best brand and is available at most Asian grocers and some Costco and Sam’s Club locations.
Hi Wei, so quick and easy. Loved it. I steamed the sausage before adding it to the rice. Dish a little salty for my taste but I’ll adjust next time. Thank you so much for a delicious recipe.
Hi Claude! Yes, It’s a good idea to steam the sausage beforehand if you are not tight on time. The steaming process really brings out the pleasant fatty flavour of it. Thank you for sharing your idea.
this was really nice! On the lap cheong wrapper it said to cook or steam it beforehand. I didn’t, should I have?
Hi Evelyn, for this recipe, you don’t have to cook or steam it beforehand. However if you are making a quick stir-fry with it, I suggest you to follow the instruction. Hope this is helpful to you.