Have a taste of Shanghainese food with stir-fried rice cake, which you may also know as Chao Nian Gao. The highlight of this dish is the chewy and soft rice cake, stir-fried with any of your favorite meat and vegetable ingredients, such as shiitake mushrooms and eggs. Enjoy this dish’s contrasting flavors and textures with a savory brown sauce!
All About Stir Fry Rice Cakes Recipe
Rice cake or Nian Gao boasts a delightful soft, chewy, and sticky texture reminiscent of mochi. You can explore similar textures in recipes like Easy Mango Mochi, Peanut Mochi, and Strawberry Mochi.
The rice cake is made from rice flour and is often white and bland, perfect for stir-fried dishes and savory soups.
However, you may find a sweet and brown version of rice cake, such as Chinese New Year Rice Cake. For this recipe, the type of rice cake to use is typically white and oval-shaped, sold in slices or in logs which you have to slice into thin oval slices. Although the rice cake slices have very little taste, it is the stir-fried meat, vegetables, and seasonings that lend it flavor.
In this recipe, the rice cake slices are stir-fried with scrambled eggs, green onions, garlic, and Thai chili peppers for heat. I added protein and fiber with shiitake mushrooms, carrots, sausages, and bok choy. You will enjoy its umami and delicious sauce made from salt, soy sauce, and oyster sauce.
How To Customize Stir Fry Rice Cake
Similar to fried rice recipes like Chinese Sausage Fried Rice or noodle dishes such as Shrimp Chow Mein, stir fry rice cake is easily customizable with your favorite meat and vegetables. It is up to you if you want to pack it with meaty ingredients or turn it into an all-veggie meal. You can use your leftovers as well and adjust the taste, whether you like it sweet, savory, or spicy.
Here are my top suggestions on how to modify this recipe:
- Rice cake: Use the plain and white version of rice cake. You can typically find these in Asian grocery stores or on Amazon labeled as “rice cake”, “rice cake sliced”, or “rice cake stick type”. Rice cakes are sold frozen, dried, in a vacuum-sealed package, or fresh. If using dried rice cakes, these are soaked in warm water first until it softens. If using rice cake logs, cut them into thin oval slices before cooking in boiling water.
- Scrambled eggs: Stir fry rice cake often incorporates scrambled eggs. However, you can change the egg style to sunny side up and use it as a topping in the last step if you prefer. If you are going for an all-veggie version, I recommend using tofu scrambled “egg” made with fully drained crumbled firm tofu. Cook the crumbled tofu in the pan and season it with turmeric (for yellow color), black salt (for an eggy taste), cumin, black pepper powder, soy milk (optional for additional creaminess or softness), and a bit of soy sauce for umaminess.
- Green onion: Chopped green onions or spring onions are great for mild sweetness and onion taste. If you don’t have green onions, you can substitute this ingredient with chopped chives, shallots, white onions, yellow onions, or red onions.
- Garlic: Green onions are best combined with minced garlic for a combination of nutty and pungent flavors. You can also incorporate pre-cooked garlic, such as crispy fried garlic. If you don’t have fresh garlic but want the flavors of garlic, you can substitute 1 garlic clove with 1/8 tsp of garlic powder or 1/4 tsp of granulated garlic.
- Thai chili pepper: Thai chili pepper or bird’s eye chili is optional for a spicy taste. You can use green or red chili peppers. To replace Thai chili peppers, use crushed red pepper flakes, cayenne peppers, or chili flakes. Adjust the amount according to your desired level of heat. Remove this if you can’t tolerate heat.
- Meat and vegetables: I added sliced shiitake mushrooms, diagonal slices of carrots, chopped sausages, and bok choy.
- Mushroom: I chose shiitake mushrooms for their smoky and ‘meaty’ Fresh and dried shiitake mushrooms are both acceptable, but if you want a stronger taste, go for dried shiitake mushrooms. In this recipe, I used fresh shiitake mushrooms. Aside from shiitake mushrooms, you can use other types, such as button mushrooms, portobello mushrooms, and king oyster mushrooms.
- Carrots: I cut the carrots into thin diagonal slices to cook them fast and for decoration purposes. However, other cut types are fine, as long as it is in small slices for stir-frying. You can cut it in julienne or dice.
- Sausages: Use any type of sausage you prefer, such as Hungarian sausage, frankfurter, or Chinese sausage. Aside from sausages, you can incorporate other meat types, such as marinated chicken strips or tender pork julienne. Again, if you are making this a veggie meal, use plant-based sausages, soy meat chunks, or fried tofu cubes.
- Bok choy: Use green leafy vegetables like bok choy. You can use any type of bok choy, such as white bok choy, dwarf bok choy, and Shanghai bok choy. Aside from bok choy, other bok choy substitutes to try are napa cabbage, yu choy, and Chinese broccoli, to name a few.
- Sauce: My sauce recipe is simple, just a mix of salt, soy sauce, and oyster sauce.
- Salt: Salt brings out the flavors of the ingredients. Use any type of salt, such as sea salt, pink salt, and kosher salt.
- Light soy sauce: You can use light soy sauce or dark soy sauce and adjust to taste. Other types of soy sauce to try are amari, liquid aminos, coconut aminos, and gluten-free soy sauce.
- Oyster sauce: Oyster sauce is great for an umami and caramel-like taste. You can substitute oyster sauce with hoisin sauce, teriyaki sauce, kecap manis, Worcestershire sauce with soy sauce and sugar, or oyster-flavored sauce.
- Optional flavoring ingredients: Tweak the sauce according to your desired taste with these optional flavoring ingredients. You can add a bit of sesame oil for extra nuttiness or white pepper powder for a musty earthy taste. Incorporate more Asian flavors with Shaoxing wine, which adds a slightly sweet and briny taste. Minced ginger or ginger powder helps add a warm, peppery taste. If you want to make the sauce extra thick and creamy, mix in cornstarch slurry (1 tbsp of cornstarch with 2 tbsp of water). Lastly, you can adjust the saltiness by adding a bit of sugar.
Ingredients And Kitchenware To Prepare
Apart from your knife and spatula, all you need is a non-stick pan to stir-fry everything together. Using a strainer would also be helpful in draining all the water from the boiled rice cake slices. For the ingredients, here’s what you need, and adjust the amount according to your liking:
- 1 to 2 rice cake logs (thinly sliced)
- 1 tbsp of oil (for boiling rice cakes)
- 2 tbsp of oil (for stir fry)
- 2 eggs
- 10g of chopped green onions
- 10g of minced garlic
- 10g of chopped Thai chili peppers
- 20g of sliced shiitake mushrooms
- 20g of sliced carrots
- 20g of sliced sausages
- A bunch of bok choy
- Salt (to taste)
- 1 tbsp of soy sauce
- 1 tbsp of oyster sauce
Detailed Instructions To Make Stir Fry Rice Cakes
Once all the ingredients are chopped and ready, the recipe can take about only 10 minutes to finish cooking. Stir-frying is usually done quite quickly since the ingredients are chopped into bits and thin slices for faster cooking time. Learn about the recipe steps by watching my short tutorial video on Instagram or TikTok.
- Prepare the rice cakes. If using rice cake logs, slice them into thin oval pieces. The width should be about 2mm or 0.2cm. I prefer thinner slices to cook them faster in the pan.
- Prepare a pot with water and bring to a boil. Once it boils, cook the rice cake slices with 1 tablespoon of oil for about 2 minutes. Drain and set aside. Adding oil helps the rice cake slices from sticking together in order to cook them evenly.
- Clean and chop your meat and vegetables while waiting for the water to boil.
- Beat 2 eggs. Heat oil in a pan and make the scrambled eggs by stir-frying in a quick circular motion.
- When the eggs are cooked, add chopped green onions, minced garlic, and chopped Thai chili peppers.
- Add shiitake mushroom slices, carrot slices, chopped sausages, and your other chosen meat and vegetables. Fry until they are well-cooked.
- Put in the cooked rice cake slices and bok choy leaves. Bok choy leaves should be added last to prevent it from going soggy and retain its slightly crisp texture.
- Season with salt, soy sauce, and oyster sauce. Stir-fry for an additional 2 minutes. In this last step, avoid overcooking to prevent the ingredients from going too soft or burnt.
If you enjoyed this dish, I recommend making my other stir-fried dishes, such as Chinese Water Spinach Stir Fry, Stir-Fried Chinese Sticky Rice, and Stir-Fried Shrimp Mei Fun.
Stir Fry Rice Cakes Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 to 2 rice cake logs thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp of oil for boiling rice cakes
- 2 tbsp of oil for stir fry
- 2 eggs
- 10 g of chopped green onions
- 10 g of minced garlic
- 10 g of chopped Thai chili peppers
- 20 g of sliced shiitake mushrooms
- 20 g of sliced carrots
- 20 g of sliced sausages
- A bunch of bok choy
- Salt to taste
- 1 tbsp of soy sauce
- 1 tbsp of oyster sauce
Instructions
- Prepare the rice cakes. If using rice cake logs, slice them into thin oval pieces. The width should be about 2mm or 0.2cm. I prefer thinner slices to cook them faster in the pan.
- Prepare a pot with water and bring to a boil. Once it boils, cook the rice cake slices with 1 tablespoon of oil for about 2 minutes. Drain and set aside. Adding oil helps the rice cake slices from sticking together in order to cook them evenly.
- Clean and chop your meat and vegetables while waiting for the water to boil.
- Beat 2 eggs. Heat oil in a pan and make the scrambled eggs by stir-frying in a quick circular motion.
- When the eggs are cooked, add chopped green onions, minced garlic, and chopped Thai chili peppers.
- Add shiitake mushroom slices, carrot slices, chopped sausages, and your other chosen meat and vegetables. Fry until they are well-cooked.
- Put in the cooked rice cake slices and bok choy leaves. Bok choy leaves should be added last to prevent it from going soggy and retain its slightly crisp texture.
- Season with salt, soy sauce, and oyster sauce. Stir-fry for an additional 2 minutes. In this last step, avoid overcooking to prevent the ingredients from going too soft or burnt.
