For the tastiest Hawaiian fried rice recipe, make sure you’re using fully cooked and cooled rice. If you can, make the rice the day before so it’s fully cooled down. If you cook the rice fresh and use it straight away you may find it makes the end texture of the dish slightly mushy and undesirable.
For the pineapple you can use either a fresh variety or canned pieces. Canned pineapple will help to minimize any food waste and skips a time-consuming step of preparing the pineapple. We’ve suggested using a red bell pepper in the recipe above as this provides an appealing colorful contrast to the pink ham, yellow pineapple, and green scallions, but if you’re trying to use up ingredients at home and only have yellow or green bell peppers to hand, these will work well in the recipe too.
As this is a quick dish it’s best to prepare all of your ingredients ahead of time and make sure you have all the necessary elements ready to go. Once you add your eggs to the pan it’ll come together very quickly, so you don’t want to still be preparing your pineapple at this point.
Protein and Veggie Variations
There are lots of additions you can make to the list of Hawaiian fried rice ingredients. The recipe shared above is a classic variety, but some chefs will add a Chinese sausage, cashew nuts, or even water chestnuts. If you’d prefer to make a fully plant-based version of this dish, then you can easily remove the ham from the recipe, or swap in tofu if you want to keep a protein-rich ingredient in the dish. You could also try making a more straightforward version of the recipe with fried rice with egg and scallions, though this is less colorful than the recipe above.
Nasi goreng is another take on a fried rice dish, hailing from Indonesia, and incorporates other ingredients such as fried shallots and green chilis for an Asian twist. This dish is usually traditionally served with a fried egg on top too, instead of scrambled into the dish as with the Hawaiian rice.
Leftovers and Storage
Once the dish has fully cooled, you can store it in the fridge for up to three days in an airtight container. In fact, the flavors often enhance after a few days developing in the fridge. It’s not always advisable to reheat rice more than once so it’s better to enjoy this dish cold from the fridge. You can actually freeze this dish too. You’ll need to transfer it to airtight bags and ensure it’s fully cooled before placing it into the freezer. It’ll last for up to three months in the freezer and will need to thaw in the fridge when you want to use it again.
