Vegan Vegetable Fried Rice

This versatile, high-protein twist on fried rice is a great dish to limit food waste & use up any produce you may have in the fridge.

Need to use up some random produce before it goes bad? This fried rice recipe is a great one to throw in any veggies you might already have.

When trying to figure out what's for dinner this week, we found that we had one carrot, a few pieces of broccoli, ½ head of cauliflower and some sweet peppers that were about to go bad.

We try to minimize our food waste as much as possible, and some nights that means finding a way to throw a bunch of produce together. This always ends up being a fun way for us to expand our culinary creativity, by combining vegetables that you may not think to.

There are a few ways we like to go about using up produce, one way is by preparing fried rice. Fried rice is a great dish because it allows for so much versatility. I would argue any vegetables could be good in this dish.

I don't know about you, but I love making meals in large amounts, so I can have leftovers for the week. This meal is a great one to make for a couple dinners, lunches throughout the week or as a quick meal to warm up on those busy days.

It’s also an easy one to make, and you’ll be sure to have enough protein.

We put edamame in ours the most recent time we made it, which I think added another layer of texture, taste and protein. We also bake tofu for the fried rice which serves as the meat, but with a more egg sort of texture, a little two-in-one. Because edamame and tofu are both soy, there isn’t a variety in the source of protein.

One thing we try to avoid with our plant-based diet is having too much of the same protein source. We like to switch up where we get our protein from, rotating between things like tofu, tempeh, mung beans, black beans, lentils, quinoa, chickpeas and our pea protein powder.

Because this dish has a high amount of soy protein, we might choose a different plant-based protein source the next day. However, you’ll get about 18g of protein from this dish which is great.

Some other vegetables I think would be great in this dish are cabbage, celery, zucchini, eggplant or green beans.

Along with the produce we wanted to use up, we also added onion, mushrooms and edamame to the dish.

We prepare this dish gluten free by using Tamari rather than soy sauce. You could use also use liquid aminos. The soy sauce we used is the SAN-J Tamari, and we love it.

Below is the version of this recipe we made most recently, but feel free to take your own twist on the dish with vegetables of your choosing. You can definitely do less of one vegetable and more of another depending on your preferences. And remember with any of our recipes, you can always add more of any spice to taste.

Ingredients:

• 3 cloves of minced garlic (or 3 tbsp)

• 8 mushrooms, we did a mixture of cremini and shiitake

• 1 block of extra firm tofu

• 6 variety sweet peppers

• ½ head of cauliflower

• ½ cup broccoli florets

• 1 bag of frozen edamame

• 1 large onion

• 1 ½ cup of jasmine rice

• ¼ cup Tamari soy sauce

• ¼ cup vegan butter

• Salt & pepper

• 1 tsp paprika

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• ¼ tsp cayenne pepper

• Olive oil

Directions:

1. Start by pressing your tofu for about 15 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

3. Start your rice in a rice cooker, or over the stove.

   1. If using the stove, boil 3 ¼ cups of water and once it is boiling, add your rice, a pinch of salt, and reduce the heat to medium-high.

   2. Put the lid on and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the rice has absorbed the water.

   3. If you've mastered your own rice recipe, prepare it that way!

4. Prepare a baking sheet with olive oil and crumble the pressed tofu into small pieces.

5. Season the tofu with the salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika and cayenne pepper and add a drizzle more of olive oil.

6. Use your hands to make sure tofu is evenly coated with oil and spices.

7. Bake tofu for 20 minutes. I like the tofu to be more of the egg texture, but if you’d like it to be more crispy, you can flip it and cook for another 10 minutes.

8. Wash and cut veggies to your preference.

9. Heat a large pot on medium-high with olive oil.

10. Add your garlic first and cook for 1 minute.

11. Add your onion and sauté for about 1-2 minutes.

12. Add broccoli and cauliflower and cook until it gets slightly tender, about 5-6 minutes.

13. Add mushrooms and peppers and cook for another 5-6 minutes.

14. Mix in the bag of edamame and let sit for 2 minutes.

15. Season vegetables with 1 tsp salt and some pepper to taste.

16. When veggies are done, add your cooked rice, butter and Tamari.

17. Lastly, add the tofu.

18. Enjoy!

You can definitely add more of the spices, butter, or Tamari depending on your preferences. It's always fun to follow a recipe but put your own spin on it!

If you make this recipe, let me know what vegetables you choose to use! We are always looking for new ways to spice up recipes and combine vegetables. And let me know if you'd like more recipes to help you use up any produce that's in the fridge!

What ways do you limit food waste in the kitchen?

Love always, Abby Long