Ground Beef Fried Rice

Ground Beef Fried Rice is a simple, satisfying, and wonderfully crave-able main dish for any night. Serve plain or with some fun garnish that makes it taste like cheeseburger fried rice for a meal that will wow your family.

Crisp-edged, pan fried beef with garlic and scallion in rice is amazing all by itself. The process is so easy, too.

If you love not being tied to the pan while cooking, this ground beef fried rice recipe is the one for you. It’s so low-effort it’s almost laughable.

You begin by pressing a pound of ground beef onto the bottom of a hot frying pan. You salt and pepper the beef and leave it alone.

That’s right. Don’t touch it.

Just let it fry for a few minutes. You’re basically frying a thin, pan-sized burger.

Why stop there, though? Take it to the next level

All it takes is a little bit of fresh and fabulous garnish to turn your ground beef fried rice into a dish you’ll want every week.

Cheeseburger Fried Rice

You can transform your already delicious ground beef fried rice into cheeseburger fried rice with just one extra step and some easy garnish.

It’s a simple as stirring in shredded cheese and letting it melt. Then you serve it in lettuce cups or top with chopped lettuce, diced pickles, red onions, lettuce, plus a little drizzle of mustard, ketchup, sriracha, and kewpie mayonnaise.

It tastes like the best of a cheeseburger and the best of a bowl of fried rice combined. Not only does entire family inhale this dish every time I make it, they request it, too.

If you’re a big cheeseburger fan, you’ll also want to check out our bacon cheeseburger. And if you’ve got a bunch of ground beef on hand, you might also want to consider the Cheater Sesame Beef and 15 Minute Korean Style Beef meals!

And if you’re looking for a beef meal to eat off of for a couple of days, try our Chipotle Barbacoa recipe!

You’ll definitely want a great drink or dessert to accompany the cheeseburger fried rice. Look no further than our Berry and Basil Sangria by the Glass and Lemon Yogurt Cake.

Making Fried Rice

Making fried rice is not difficult if you know a few simple tricks to ensure a great result. Let’s go over a couple of tricks on how to make fried rice.

Always make fried rice with cold rice. This is the most important rule of all. You can use just about any variety of rice you’d like for fried rice so long as you remember that rule.

My personal preferences for fried rice are basmati rice (pictured here) or jasmine rice. I’ve also happily made fried rice with brown rice; both long and short grain.

If you start with fresh, warm rice, your fried rice will become soggy or mushy. This makes for sad fried rice.

If you start with cold rice -preferably day old rice- you’ve given the rice starches a chance to set up on the outside of the grains. They dry out a bit and this gives your fried rice the distinctive chewy texture that makes the best fried rice.

This does mean you’ll need to do a little advance planning to have excellent fried rice, there’s no getting around that. But once you’ve made and chilled rice, you’re just minutes from making fried rice and eating it!

In fact, I have devised a method so that I can have fried rice any time I’d like. This post on how to freeze rice talks you through the process.

You can also make ground beef fried rice using leftover take-out rice that has been refrigerated. If you’re hankering for fried rice and have no cold rice, you can cheat a little and spread freshly cooked rice out in a thin layer on a sheet pan and stash it in the refrigerator, uncovered.

This will allow the rice to cool rapidly and dry out a bit on the surface. The fried rice made from leftover rice will be better, but this cheat gives you a close approximation of the results.

If you’re a big rice fan, you should also check out our California Roll Sushi Bake. It’s a sure-fire party pleaser!

Ground Beef Fried Rice

After you carefully lift the edge of the burger to confirm it’s browned and crisp in places on the bottom, you reach the spatula underneath it and flip it over in large sections. Repeat leaving it alone.

When the bottom side is once again deeply browned and crispy, use the spatula to break it up into small bite-sized pieces. Add in the minced garlic and the white parts of the scallions and fry, stirring until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

Use your hands to gently break up any clumps in the cold rice. Add the rice to the beef and toss to coat.

Cook the rice, stirring frequently, until it is hot through and through and has begun to brown in places. Stir in the beaten eggs. Continue cooking, stirring often, for about 6 minutes.

Stir in the rest of the green onions. You can serve this as is or you can give it the cheeseburger treatment.

Stir in the shredded cheese and let it sit for 3 minutes. Toss gently one more time.

Serve in lettuce cups or top with shredded lettuce, fresh or pickled red onions, chopped dill pickles, and a drizzle of mustard, ketchup, sriracha, and mayonnaise.