Made bacon and egg fried rice for breakfast – this is probably the fourth or fifth time I’ve fried rice from various recipes in this wok and I get the same result each time.
The wok was seasoned following Kenji’s video. I don’t have a problem with anything else sticking; even the egg cooked perfectly without sticking.
The rice was rinsed properly, stored in the fridge for a few days, and easily broken up into individual grains.
Wok was smoking hot, and I added a good bit of peanut oil just before the rice went in… And the rice started sticking pretty much immediately. Even with constant stirring and tossing, I end up with a sticky rice crust across the bottom of the pan.
The meal still came out delicious, I’m just wondering what I’m doing wrong here that’s making clean up such a pain.
by NOODL3
35 Comments
Following. This happens to me too.
My fried rice would turn out like that. I solved by getting my wok hotter than before and keeping it moving more aggressively.
I get this too.
I think the issue might be as you write. The wok is too hot. Try lowering the temp and see if that works better.
You need to get your wok hotter on the pre heat, make sure it’s smoking, add the oil then your rice. Another factor could be that the rice isn’t washed thoroughly enough and this is the starch
r/carbonsteel might have useful tips for this
Looks too wet to me, especially if it sticks immediately. You can steam your rice instead of submerging rice to cook, like Chinese cooking demystified suggests. Then you can fry the rice within five minutes instead of several days. Won’t be too wet.
I think the key is really keeping it moving constantly. But if you keep the food in the pan and allow it to cool atop the stuck food just a little, usually the good stuck bits at the bottom will unstick when you give it a stir. I make a little crusty bottom like this on purpose with most rice dishes, that’s flavor!
More oil.
Proper wok burners put out an insane amount of heat and unfortunately most westerns stoves just don’t have anywhere near those kind of BTUs. Some gas stoves let you remove the cap from the burner and just light a jet of gas and that works reasonably well. Ultimately temperature management is the primary issue, at the proper heat anything stuck to the bottom would be black by the time you finished cooking. I would make sure the heat is completely maxed out on your burner for the entire duration of cooking and give the wok some time to heat up between ingredient additions, or cook smaller quantities.
When I watch the pros they put the pan on high heat on the wok burner, add a scoop of water to the pan and swirl it around before dumping, then they add a scoop of oil to the pan and swirl it around before dumping it out. At home I get my wok nice and hot before adding about a tablespoon of oil and wiping out as much as I can before I add my cooking oil and actually start cooking, that usually helps with sticking too.
If you really want to learn how to properly use a wok go watch some Asian travel food channels on YouTube like yummyboy and jjinfood they have tons of great videos in Southeast Asia.
Hotter wok and more oil almost always solves all sticking issues when cooking with a wok. The key is to keep all the ingredients moving and not allowing time for them to necessarily stick to it.
A little more oil, & smokin’ hot wok. It’s very hard to get a wok as hot as it needs to be to make most stir fries or fried rice on regular kitchen stoves. I’ve had better luck using my wok on my grill, to get it to searing heat.
Is the rice dry enough? Also, as mentioned, it needs to be much hotter, and you have to move it faster.
The wok should be a blazing hellfire before anything touches it.
Rice may be too cold when going into wok. I bring my leftover rice to room temp to use for fried rice. Not as much sticking, especially if you have a high BTU burner and fry the egg first. Try that next time. And make sure everything is ready to toss in some you can keep it moving to prevent sticking and scorching.
A fave YouTube vlogger, Dancing Bacons, posted [teppanyaki dining experience with garlic fried rice](https://youtu.be/1bhuN9nqEb4?si=9GDSziLGHDvakD1d) video that has a spectacular solution to the issue you’re showing.
The rice starts at 19:35 in the video if you want to skip ahead.
Freezing the rice can help. You could also experiment with more oil or hotter wok
What kinda spatula you using?
I use a metal one and scrape as I cook. No sticking.
Wife hates the metal on metal sound so uses silicone. It effectively scrapes the oil from the wok, so sticking ensues. She hates woks for this reason.
If it’s sticking immediately *and* you’ve aged it for a couple days, I’d say you’re either not rinsing it thoroughly enough or the oil isn’t hot enough or you’re not moving it enough or a combination of all.
If rice is really starchy, I find that it sticks more but you can still overcome the issue by stirring/tossing more frequently until it stops. The wok needs to be very hot (if you’re adding refrigerator temp rice, the wok may need to get hotter). Also metal spatula, silicone is useless in my experience.
Try freezing the rice
Maybe it’s the lighting in the pic but there are parts of the wok that don’t look very seasoned
You’re probably adding to much egg at once, you want to pour a bit, stir it in, then add some more.
Also consider seasoning your wok and using higher heat.
Uncle Roger: “Hiy yahhhh…”
Wet your fingers and flick water at the pan. If the droplets don’t dance on the surface of your wok it isn’t hot enough.
Try the Chinese technique of “langyao”.
https://www.seriouseats.com/wok-skills-101-stir-frying-basics#:~:text=In%20Chinese%20professional%20kitchens%2C%20chefs,smaller%20amount%20of%20oil%20before
If your Wok is fairly new, and you oven seasoned it a bit, it could be that it hasn’t my built up enough of a seasoning layer yet.
Otherwise, fry the rice in smaller quantities – doing it all in one go could sap the heat, and cause the rice to stick.
Finally, two tricks to deal with not enough oil if that’s the issue. First, use more oil. Better still, steam the rice with a bit of oil (chicken fat or lard if possible)
Try the steaming rice method. Chinese Cooking Demystified shows a a version. I make fried rice at least once a week and it’s my go-to method. That being said I don’t know if that’s your issue. My old carbon steel wok is seasoned and I get it hot (just starts to smoke) and never have rice stick. I don’t bother getting it super super hot. I think your seasoning might be off unless you’re going rice in before the wok is hot.
Bacon grease for me can become sticky and gummy when cooked too long in my wok.
Probably just need more oil. Fried rice uses more than most folks expect. 2 tablespoons per cup of cooked rice.
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Looks like you were using fresh rice? If you have to make it fresh, just spread it out on a sheet pan and let it air dry/cool for an hour and that’ll be good enough to be used
How much rice are you adding? Might be the volume of the rice lowering the heat of the wok
Lolll… just buy a non stick wok. Problem solved.
Comments all seem to agree, not hot enough. I agree too.
But this could be for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason, IMO, being too much rice for a single batch and/or the rice came straight from the fridge killing your wok temp when it went in so the rice steamed and stuck rather than fried immediately.
Get the wok hotter, make the rice warmer, use less rice in a batch, probably some combo of the three. Good luck!
What kind of rice are you using? You should only use jasmine rice