In keeping with my weekly meal plan and my desire to broaden not only my culinary skills, but also my family’s taste preferences I decided a few weeks back to take up the task of making my OWN shrimp fried rice. I expected a disaster, but I was pleasantly surprised :) I have to admit, I did a good bit of internet research prior to choosing a recipe and I read countless websites with tips on how to get this dish to turn out perfectly.

After all that, I got to the store planning to get all the ingredients I needed to make my shrimp fried rice and lo and behold I ran across Sun Bird Fried Rice Seasoning Mix… and whaddaya know – there was a perfectly good recipe right there on the back. So that is what I used. However, my internet research did come in handy because I picked up a few tips and tricks that were NOT on the back of the Sun Bird mix. {scroll down below the photo thumbnails for the recipe}

This recipe calls for the following ingredients:

• 1 package (3/4 ounce) Sun-Bird® Fried Rice Seasoning Mix
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 cups cooked rice, any style
• 3 green onions, sliced
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup frozen peas and carrots, thawed
• 1/3 cup chopped, cooked, chicken, pork, beef, or shrimp (optional)

I used shrimp and sausage in mine and I opted out of the green onions as my husband hates them. I also chose to use Wesson Canola Oil rather than vegetable oil… and for the peas and carrots, I used Great Value (WalMart’s brand) frozen bag of mixed vegetables which also includes whole kernel corn.

The first thing you will need to do is cook the rice. Once it is cooked, spread it out on a cookie sheet or a couple of large dinner plates and place it in the freezer for at least 15-20 minutes. I read online that using cooked rice that has not been dried will result in a very “soggy” rice mixture that isn’t very texturally pleasing. A friend on Twitter confirmed this for me – she made shrimp fried rice without utilizing that method and she said it turned out terribly. SO – freeze dry your rice before using it for the shrimp fried rice!

Preparation {taken from The Food Channel via the Sun Bird Fried Rice packet}

• In a large skillet, heat oil. Stir-fry rice and green onions until heated through.
• Blend together seasoning mix and soy sauce in a separate dish and pour over rice. Continue to stir fry for one minute.
• Push rice mixture to the sides of the skillet leaving an empty well in the center. Add eggs and scramble. Combine into rice when cooked.
• Stir in peas and carrots and meat or shrimp as desired. Allow all to heat through and serve.

I didn’t scramble the eggs inside of the rice. I used separate pans to cook the mixed veggies, sausage, shrimp, and eggs. Once they were all ready, I mixed them together and then stirred the mixture of ingredients into the seasoned rice. I served this Shrimp Fried Rice with chicken eggrolls and sweet and sour sauce. We added a bit more soy sauce to each plate to each person’s taste. This was an amazingly delicious – yet not too complicated – meal. I actually cooked the entire thing in the dark… we had a bit of bad weather which knocked the power out and I made this for the first time with barely any light to see LOL Try it – you’ll LOVE it!

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