Alton Brown’s 4-Ingredient Recipe Is a Brilliant Way to Use Leftover Rice

Because quick trips to the grocery store aren’t possible right now, we’ve all had to get creative in the kitchen with what we have. The leftovers from a rotisserie chicken you bought for dinner? Turn it into tacos. Those mashed potatoes left over from dinner? Turn them into pancakes for breakfast! There are a lot of brilliant ideas out there — especially right now. That’s why when we saw Alton Brown’s latest Instagram post about transforming leftover rice, we had to share. It might be one of the most creative things we’ve seen in the last couple months.

On Instagram, Brown demonstrates how he turns leftover rice into a new dish with the help of a couple eggs. It weaves in the crispy rice elements of Persian tahdig, the embedded eggs of shakshuka, and the egg and rice combo of arroz con huevos. And it actually looks pretty great.

The instructions for how to make it are right in the Instagram post, You just need to have some leftover short grain rice on hand, some oil, a few eggs, and furikake — the Japanese seasoning that is usually made of sesame seeds, seaweed, dried fish, sugar, salt, and MSG that makes everything, particularly rice, taste better. You just warm up the rice in a cast iron pan with the oil, and cook it over medium heat “until the bottom crisps and browns.” Then you make four little divots in the rice to pour your eggs into, cover it so that they cook “till just set,” and you simply season the dish by sprinkling on some furikake.

Of course you could change this up as you wish — use butter and add a little gochugaru for Korean flavor, throw in a little saffron, paprika, and garlic à la paella, or even just some everything spice, and top it with a slice of lox. The rice and the eggs are a blank slate. Alton has given you the tools to make it your own.

Try more recipes with leftover rice: 5 Extra-Easy Dinners That Start with 2 Cups of Leftover Rice