How To Keep Blackstone Fried Rice From Turning Soggy

Fried rice is a deceptively difficult dish. The key is in the texture, and that's one of the reasons takeout fried rice is so delicious. By carefully controlling a few key steps of the cooking process, though, it's not hard to recreate that crispy bite on your Blackstone griddle — or even take the recipe up a notch. The best way to prevent soggy fried rice is to keep it dry throughout the cooking process, and that starts with the rice itself.

Use dry, day-old rice, or rice that's been left uncovered in the refrigerator for at least eight hours. During cooking, cut down on liquid by sprinkling soy sauce or other seasonings over the rice rather than fully pouring them. Finally, cook any additions like eggs or vegetables separately — easy to do on a Blackstone's large flat-top surface — so the moisture they release during cooking doesn't mingle with the grains. (This is the same technique celebrity chef Roy Choi uses when cooking fried rice in a pan.)

Temperature matters, too. The large flat-top surface of a Blackstone lets you control it, and higher temperatures will result in more excess moisture evaporating rather than weighing down your dish. According to the fried rice recipe on the company's own website, that means medium heat, or about 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Medium heat keeps the rice sizzling without scorching it, so give the grains room to spread across the surface instead of piling them up.

Why does day-old or leftover rice work better than fresh? Simply put, it's dry. The moisture has had time to evaporate, especially if you've stored the grains in a non-airtight container like a cardboard takeout box from a Chinese restaurant. Even if you don't have any leftovers, you can take a shortcut by spreading out freshly cooked rice on a plate or sheet pan, which will similarly dry it out because the moisture will evaporate during cooking in the form of steam.

Cooking order matters, too, and that's a key trick for making delicious egg fried rice at home. Jazmine Hall of Taste Buds Kitchen told Mashed that home cooks should add aromatics first, then proteins that can take a while to cook. "We recommend adding your rice towards the middle or end of the cooking process," she said. A Blackstone griddle's large surface allows you to cook multiple items at the same time, but because the rice won't need long, make sure to get the other ingredients fully (or almost fully) cooked before starting it.

Many restaurant fried rice dishes feature a distinctive, crispy texture that's impossible to achieve with too much moisture. If you've followed these tips, you can further enhance that crispiness factor by melting butter in the middle of the rice. Remember to skip the lid, too, since trapped steam is exactly what you're trying to avoid.