How To Give Your Crispy Rice The Perfect Browned Crust It Deserves

If you hear crispy rice and equate it with undercooked grains or the burnt bits at the bottom of the pot, you've been missing out on an iconic dish. A staple in nearly every global region, crispy rice refers to cooked rice that's been toasted with a bit of fat to form a browned crust. While famous recipes like Persian tahdig make crispy rice from scratch, other forms of crispy rice are the repurposed leftovers of fresh counterparts. Consequently, crispy rice is the perfect way to reuse any type of rice you have leftover from a previous meal. And browning rice is simple, requiring only a non-stick pan and a fat of your choice.

Leftover rice right out of the fridge is actually advantageous to the crisping process as refrigeration dries it out, making it easier to absorb the fat you'll pan fry it with. If your rice is clumpy or sticky, break up the clumps with a fork. Once you've ensured the rice grains are separate, heat oil or butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Then you can spread the leftover rice over the hot oil coated pan, using a spatula to flatten the rice into a single, even layer. Leave the rice to crisp for around 5 to 10 minutes without stirring it at all. Then, you can either break the rice up to serve in a textured mound, or use a plate to flip the entire crispy layer over in one fell swoop.

Seasoning crispy rice can start with the type of fat you use to brown it. You can use a neutral oil like avocado or canola oil, or a flavorful fat like butter or olive oil depending on personal preference. The advantage of most oils over butter is that they can withstand a higher heat. But as long as you leave the rice to brown, a slightly lower heat should also work. Using a non-stick pan like this one from Amazon makes life easier by facilitating the removal of the rice after you've crisped it.

Depending on the type of rice you're crisping, you can draw inspiration from different global crispy rice dishes to season the rice. For example, you can crisp leftover jasmine or basmati rice with a few spoonfuls of sour yogurt and saffron or turmeric for a shortcut to the impressive chelow with tahdig. You can garnish the rice with sumac, fresh mint, toasted almonds, and golden raisins. Leftover risotto is already seasoned, full of fat and flavor, and ready to transform into risotto al salto, which are fried risotto cakes usually made with a simple saffron risotto, Milanese style. But you could use the idea to fry up leftover mushroom risotto in a single layer or use its cream and cheese to your advantage by forming smaller cakes for a tantalizing appetizer.

If you have leftover sushi rice, you could add a splash of rice vinegar and a sprinkling of this Furikake rice seasoning or nori flakes to the rice before crisping with a blend of canola and sesame oil. Seasoned crispy sushi rice would be a flavor-packed upgrade to this California roll bowl.