Chicken Fried Rice on the Blackstone Griddle: Easy Hibachi Style Recipe

About the Author

Tom Davidock

Tom has been working in the outdoor recreation and environmental fields for over 25 years and writing about for the past 15. Whether it's camping, or RVing, Tom provides first-hand kneowldge of the information outdoor enthusiests need to enjoy adventures on the road. Tom has had his content featured in industry-leading news publications including RV Business, RV News, and RV.com. Tom is also the author of "Used RV: The Complete Guide for Buying a Used RV."

One of the best and most fun recipes to make on your Blackstone griddle is Chicken Fried Rice. It’s a fast meal that is inexpensive to make. To get started with a simple recipe, which you can use as a foundation for your creativity, all you need is:

  • Chicken
  • Rice
  • Mixed vegetables
  • Green onions
  • Garlic
  • Eggs
  • Soy sauce
  • Toasted sesame oil
  • Salt and pepper
  • Butter

With this simple ingredient list and your Blackstone griddle, you’ll have delicious Fried Rice and plenty of it. The great thing about this recipe is that you can easily adjust it to add your favorite ingredients to tickle your tastebuds. It’s a family favorite!

What makes the Blackstone the perfect tool to use for cooking Fried Rice?

Before we get into the actual recipe, let’s briefly discuss why it’s easiest to cook Fried Rice on a Blackstone griddle. The number one reason is space. Cooking Fried rice uses many ingredients that need to be cooked at different intervals and then combined. If you try and do this in a large frying pan, large skillet, or even a typical kitchen wok, you’ll be limiting yourself to small batches.

If you ever watch cooks at a Chinese restaurant, they use super large woks for the recipes. At home, you typically won’t have access to something this large. However, on a flattop griddle, like the Blackstone, you’ll have plenty of space for a large Fried Rice recipe, making enough food for the whole family like you’re the head chef at the Hibachi Grill. In fact, Hibachi chefs use a flat top griddle, just like the Blackstone.

A griddle works great because you’ll be cooking on a nonstick surface when it’s properly seasoned. You’ll be able to brown and caramelize your ingredients perfectly, move them out of the way when adding the next recipe, and slowly build up your pile for mixing. For example, you can cook the following recipe on any size Blackstone Griddle, even the smaller 17-inch griddle.

Ingredients:

In this recipe, we’ll use the basics for a tasty recipe. However, the sky is the limit in what you choose to add. You can change your protein, go wild on the vegetables, increase the amounts, or try out new sauces to give it that extra taste. Once you master the basics, you can experiment to find the perfect combination for your palate.

Ingredients

Butter

Let’s start with the key ingredient for this basic recipe. While you can use any oil (even vegetable oil or olive oil), I find that using butter as your cooking base offers a superb flavor and adds to the overall recipe. Of course, any butter will do, but I like to have a tub of whipped butter and scoop out a tablespoon at a time when I’m adding new ingredients to the skillet.

Chicken

You can use either chicken breast or opt for the dark meat in chicken thighs. I like the simplicity of boneless diced chicken breast, and it tastes great, but you can get a nice moist protein with thigh meat or chicken tenderloins. Whatever chicken you use, you’ll want to cut it into small pieces, about the size of a prune. The smaller chicken pieces will cook up nicely but be large enough to fill even the hungriest bellies. The key is to have a fried rice mixture that allows every forkful to have a little of everything in it.

Vegetables

Vegetables add to fried rice flavor, and adding a variety of vegetables can significantly enhance the taste. We’ll focus on simplicity and use the basics for this recipe- a regular-sized bag of frozen peas and carrots. I can’t imagine Fried Rice without this combination. You can use fresh vegetables, but the frozen bag works great. If you add other ingredients, I suggest you don’t forgo this combination unless you absolutely distaste easier of these vegetables. When adding other vegetables into the mix, keep the volume around the same as the bag of frozen peas and carrots to have an even mix of rice, vegetables, and protein. Some other great vegetables to add include: (diced bell pepper, yellow onion, corn, and mushrooms)

Green Onions and Garlic

In my opinion, these two ingredients are essential to a flavorful Fried Rice dish. Cut up the fresh stalks of the green onions into moderately small pieces. You don’t want to dice them too small, or you’ll miss out on the flavor punch when you bite into them. Some recipes don’t call for garlic, but I find that it adds a perfect taste to the recipe. Fresh garlic cloves are always great to use, but I have a lot of success with a jar of minced garlic. It also significantly cuts back on your prep time and still adds plenty of flavors. I don’t suggest substituting garlic with garlic powder.

Eggs

It’s not Fried Rice without the eggs. The key to adding eggs into the dish is not to overcook them. It’s easy to dry out an egg, so when adding them, cook lightly and quickly move them to the pile of to-be-mixed items while they’re only partially cooked. While you can start with beaten eggs, I like to crack them directly on the griddle and gently mix them up with my Hibachi Spatulas (I mean flippers). They’ll quickly cook when you combine everything else and stay nice and moist at the end.

Rice

Now for the star of the show- the rice. The first thing to remember is that all rice is not created equally. You will want to use long grain rice for the best Fried Rice. My recommendation is jasmine rice since it’s easy to find, is a perfect size, and cooks up easily every time. The most important thing to remember with rice is that you want to let it sit for at least a day before using it. Day-old rice is essential for a good texture. You can let it sit longer, but don’t shorten the sitting time. If you’re a frequent rice eater, this is a great recipe if you’re looking for a way to use up some leftover rice from a previous meal. It can make a quick weeknight dinner recipe.

The other thing to remember about rice is to let it chill before cooking. You don’t want to cook the rice on the griddle. Instead, you want to fry already cooked rice, so it’s beneficial to add cold rice to the griddle instead of warmed or room temperature rice. Also, I suggest investing in a rice cooker if you eat rice a lot. It makes it super easy to get perfect rice every time.

Seasoning

Seasoning is another area where you can get creative. I like to keep it simple unless I feel my inner Bobby Flay come out. The key ingredients that I like to use are salt, pepper, soy sauce, and toasted sesame oil. I use salt and pepper throughout the cook, but just a little. It’s easy to overdo it on salt and almost impossible to undo. I sprinkle the chicken, eggs, and pepper on the rice when firing up this easy recipe.

Soy sauce and toasted sesame oil will do the trick to get the authentic Fried Rice taste. You’ll see plenty of other recipes that will add other Asian sauces like Housen Sauce, duck sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, etc. These are all fine to use and give you a unique flavor that may be just what you’re looking for. If you want to experiment, you can set aside a few servings on the griddle and add a little bit of your favorite Asian sauce to test out the taste. You’ll quickly build up a collection of Blackstone fried rice recipes to come back to over and over. However, if you choose to substitute anything, I strongly suggest keeping the toasted sesame oil. A little bit goes a long way in the flavor department, and nothing else will provide that quintessential Fried Rice taste like this ingredient. Your only other option is to use sesame seeds, which are equally as good but not quite as easy as the oil.

When experimenting with seasonings, I suggest starting with one thing at a time so you can find what you like. Some other great additions to the recipe include fresh ginger, lemon juice, diced onion, and coconut aminos.

How to cook the Chicken Fried Rice on the Blackstone Griddle

Now for the fun part, you get to call upon your inner Hibachi chef. The most important thing to keep in mind is to stagger, adding your ingredients to the griddle when making the meal. If you put everything on at once, some items would get overdone, or others would be undercooked, and you would end up with a less than ideal outcome.

Tools of the trade

You won’t need anything that you probably don’t already have to make this meal. You’ll need some tools to flip and mix the food, but you’re Blackstone flipper will do fine. I find that it works best if you have two instruments to use, but a single flipper will work fine.

Customer Favorite Blackstone Signature Series Stainless Steel Griddle  Spatula, 2-Pack | AccuWeather Shop

I also like to prep my ingredients in a separate small bowl to easily add them at the right time while cooking. It’s a good idea to get everything ready before you put your first ingredient on the griddle, as the process will move quickly once you start.

Prepped ingredients:

Chicken: Cut into medium-sized chunks. They don’t need to be uniform but avoid extra big or small pieces.

Vegetables: If using frozen vegetables, take them out of the freezer. Putting them on frozen or slightly thawed is fine.

Green Onions: Green onions should be chopped along the stem in small pieces about a ¼ inch wide.

Garlic: If using fresh garlic, mince the garlic, so you still have small chunks. If using minced garlic from a jar, all you need to do is scoop it out.

Eggs: I suggest cracking the eggs right on the flat surface of the griddle—no need to pre-beat the eggs.

Rice: As mentioned above, start with at least day-old rice that is chilled. If you can, keep the rice in the refrigerator until you plan to use it.

Seasoning: Have everything at the ready. You can use a measuring spoon if you like, but eyeballing it works too if you feel comfortable with your pouring skills.

Setting up your grill

This recipe will work best if you have a two-burner griddle. If not, you’ll still be fine. If you have two burners, consider half of the griddle as your cooking side and the other half as your warming side. Turn your cooking side of the griddle onto medium-high heat. Your warming side should be on low. If you have more than two burners, you can customize this setup event more (medium high heat, medium heat, low heat/off)

image 8

As you cook, you’ll want to transfer (slide) the cooked ingredients to the warming side (the cooler side of the griddle) and pile them up until you’re ready to mix everything. Make sure you start with a hot griddle before putting on the first ingredient. This will help to keep everything consistent throughout the cook.

Ingredients

  • 2 Chicken Breasts (medium dice) (you can also use Chicken thighs or tenders)
  • About 5-6 cups of cold white rice; (1.5 uncooked rice)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 Bag of Frozen Peas and Carrots
  • 1/2 cup chopped green onions
  • 2 tbsp garlic
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 tbsp of soy sauce (or to taste)
  • 1-2 tsp sesame oil (To taste)
  • 3 eggs
  • Butter (lots of it for frying)

Step 1: Chicken

image 3

Take a few scoops of butter and apply them to the entire griddle. You can also use oil if you don’t want the butter. Next, coat the entire griddle, including the warming side. As soon as the butter melts and is spread, toss on your chicken pieces. Sear them for a few seconds on each side, and add some salt and pepper to taste. Next, give them a good mix and flip. You will want the chicken to get about 80% cooked (just eyeball it), flipping it throughout the process to get a nice caramelization on each side. Once your chicken is ready, slide it over to the warming side (the edge of the griddle will be the cooler side of the Blackstone).

Step 2: Vegetables, Green Onions, and Garlic

image 4

Add another scoop of butter to the cooking side. Open up your frozen bag of vegetables and spread them evenly into a singular layer. Let them cook for a few minutes, and then add the green onions. Flip the entire pile over a few times and get a very slight brown on some of them. Flipping is your friend- it will prevent burning and still give it a nice flavor. Your goal is to get a light cook from a frozen state but not overly done. You want to make sure that the peas still have a snap when you bite into them. Shortly after adding the green onions, add the garlic. After about 3-4 minutes, you can move your vegetable mixture over to the warming side with the chicken.

Step 3: Eggs

image 5

The key thing for the eggs is not to overcook them. First, ad some more butter and spread it out. Next, crack three eggs into the butter and gently scramble them around with the flipper. I like to add some additional salt and pepper to the eggs. Cook the eggs until they start to firm up just slightly but still have the liquid(ish) yolk. Move all of the eggs over into the warming pile.

Step 4: Rice and Sauce

image 6

 You guessed it, more butter. Grab a few scoops of butter and spread it around the entire cook area. Next, take your chilled bowl of rice and dump it all on the griddle, and spread it evenly into a uniform layer. Let it cook like this for a minute or two. Next, take your seasoning (say sauce and Sesame Oil) and apply it evenly over the entirety of the rice. At this point, I usually like to give it its first flip. After that, you should start to see a little browning occurring with the rice.

image 7

Once I flip it, I will spread it evenly over the griddle and let it cook for another few minutes. You want it to brown but not burn. Keep an eye on it, and when you notice it browning a bit, it’s a good time to flip it. Repeat the spread, cook, and flip process a few times, reducing the time between doing so little by little.

You’ll start to notice the rice darkening up a bit from the caramelization of the rice and the spreading of the soy sauce and sesame oil. You want your rice to take on a nice, even light golden brown color. You know the color if you’ve eaten Fried Rice from a Chinese restaurant before. When it is just about there, start to bring in your other ingredients slowly.

The goal is to get everything mixed evenly. This is best achieved by sliding over an ingredient pile and flipping it into the mixture. I continue this process until everything is mixed together. Once you have a uniform mixture on the griddle, keep flipping for a few minutes. You can spread everything evenly, let it cook for 30-40 seconds, flip, mix and repeat. This is honestly the most fun part of the entire meal. Watch the video below to see what I’m describing in action.

Before finishing up the flipping, turn off both burners and keep flipping. This will allow the griddle to begin cooling down so you can begin serving it.

Step 5: Serve and enjoy.

You’ll now have a meal for a small army (or at least the entire family). The last step is to serve it on a small plate or bowl and enjoy. You’ll likely have extra, so transfer it into small freezer bags when cooled and toss it in the freezer for a quick meal in the future. It freezes up well.

Conclusion

Now that you have a basic understanding of making a simple fried rice dish, you can get a little more creative with your next dish- add in some different proteins, explore different sauces and seasoning, and try some new vegetables. You’ll find that fried rice is really easy to cook, just like any other stir fry. By experimenting, you can make the dish your own. Fried Rice is one of my favorite things for griddle cooking- I love using the entire griddle.

Leave a Reply