This healthy kimchi fried rice is everything I love in a meal: veggies, fibre, protein, probiotics, and so much flavour.
I love food. Eating can be a joyful experience, especially when we eat healthy foods that make us feel good.
I also love trying foods from different cultures. One of my favourite Korean foods is kimchi. So when Cabbage Patch Kimchi gave me a bottle of their kimchi to cook with, I was thrilled. Their flavourful kimchi is my absolute favourite, and it’s locally made.
If you’re not familiar with kimchi, it is a staple in Korean cuisine; it’s a delicious mixture of fermented cabbage and Korean spices. It’s tangy and salty and oh so tasty!
Besides being delicious, Kimchi is extremely healthy. It’s high in fibre and vitamin K, C, and B6. Since it’s fermented, Kimchi is also a probiotic.
I’ve talked about my love for probiotics in other blog posts, including this one on My Top 5 Healthy Habits.
Probiotics are live microorganisms (sometimes called “good bacteria”) that provide the body with a slew of good things!
Some of the health benefits attributed to probiotics are:
providing a healthy digestive system (or “good” gut flora)
reducing inflammation
boosting our immune system.
As someone who has been diagnosed with IBS, I have found that fermented foods such as kimchi have been extremely helpful in reducing my symptoms and calming my digestive system.
Our gut microbiome is also healthiest when we’re eating a wide variety of foods, so if you’ve never tried kimchi, now is your chance to expand your culinary horizons!
I used my bottle of kimchi to make a yummy kimchi fried rice. This dish is full of veggies, fibre and flavour. I’m sharing the recipe here so you can enjoy it as well.
Kimchi Fried Rice
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups brown rice
- 1 cup kimchi, coarsely chopped and 2 tablespoons juices reserved*
- 3 tablespoons reduced sodium Tamari
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 3-4 tablespoons avocado oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 small onion, diced
- 1-2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
- 1 cup cremini mushrooms, sliced
- 1 cup matchstick carrots
- 1 bunch broccoli, chopped into bite-sized pieces
- 4 fried eggs (I like mine with a runny yolk!)
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds
Directions:
- Cook the brown rice according to package directions. I cook mine always in homemade chicken broth to really elevate the flavour! Set the cooked rice aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the Tamari and sesame oil; set aside.
- Heat the avocado oil in a large skillet or frying pan.
- Once the oil is hot, add the onions and ginger. Cook, stirring often, for about 3 minutes, and then add the garlic. Keep stirring and cook for a few minutes more, being careful not to let the garlic burn.
- Add in the kimchi, mushrooms, carrots, and broccoli, and stir constantly until the veggies are a little tender, about 4 minutes.
- Stir in the Tamari-sesame oil mix, and the rice, and give everything a really nice round of powerful stirring to mix it all together. The rice is yummy when it gets a little crunchy on the bottom, so keep cooking everything (and stirring!) for about 5 more minutes.
- If you can multitask, fry the eggs while you finish cooking the stir-fry mixture. Or, just turn the heat off on the rice mixture and let it sit while you fry the eggs.
- I cooked our eggs sunny side up so we could have the runny yolk in our rice bowl. Yum!
- Scoop the fried rice mixture into individual serving bowls, and top with the fried eggs, green onions and sesame seeds, and enjoy!
