Is Kimchi Fried Rice Healthy? (Healthy Kimchi Fried Rice Recipe)

Kimchi fried rice is a classic Korean dish that I often ordered when in ventured to Koreatown in New York City. It's comforting and flavorful, packed with that delicious kimchi flavor, juicy chicken, and mixed with that yolk action. Kimchi fried rice is definitely delicious, but is kimchi fried rice healthy?

Kimchi fried rice can be a very healthy dish given that it predominantly consists of protein from the meat and eggs, carbs from the rice, and probiotics and many other vitamins from the kimchi itself, making it a well-balanced nutritious meal. A serving of Kimchi Fried rice is 400 calories, with 33 grams of protein, 10 grams of fat, and 45 grams of carbs, following the recipe and portions below. However, the key to making this dish help rather than hinder progress towards your fitness goals is portioning high calorie ingredients mindfully and choosing the right proteins.

Jump to:

• 🍎 Calories and Nutrition – Is Kimchi Fried Rice Healthy?
• 🍏 How to Make It Healthy – The Fitsian Method
• 📋 Ingredient Notes
• 🔪 Step by Step Instructions
• 💭 FAQs
• 🍳 Recipe

If you like healthy Korean food, check out the following:

• For noodle lovers, check out my Kimchi Udon Carbonara Recipe
• For another classic Korean favorite, check out my Healthy Soondubu Recipe
• For more quick and healthy recipes, check out my Fast and Fit Recipe Collection.
• For more healthy and low calorie fried rice recipe, check out my Top 10 Favorite Low Calorie Fried Rice Recipes.
• Healthy Korean Recipes for more healthy low calorie Korean recipes

🍎 Calories and Nutrition – Is Kimchi Fried Rice Healthy?

To understand the calorie and nutrition content of kimchi fried rice, it’s useful to look at the core ingredients that make up kimchi fried rice. Kimchi fried rice is made of four main components: protein, vegetables, stir fry sauce, and the base.

• Protein: Kimchi fried rice is often served with chicken, beef or pork or pork products such as spam. It is often also topped with an egg, complementing the salty taste of the kimchi well. If your goal is to keep calorie count low, using a lean protein such as boneless chicken thigh or chicken breast is ideal. Certain proteins, such as spam, can be as high as 100 calories per slice from predominantly fats, so it's important to make mindful decisions about the protein choice.
• Stir Fry Sauce: The sauce consists of a small amount of gochujang, kimchi juice, and soy sauce, none of which add a significant amount of calories.
• Vegetables: Kimchi itself is very low in calories. Additional vegetables, not limited to onions, garlic, or mushrooms will not add a significant amount of calories to the dish.
• Rice: Rice is a vital part of this dish and carbs are definitely a necessary part of our diet. However, it's important to portion this mindfully as carbs can easily add up calorie-wise if not portioned correctly, hindering progress towards your fitness goals.

Looking at each component, it’s easy to see that Kimchi fried rice can easily be made to be a high calorie and high fat dish if the protein and rice are not chosen or portioned correctly, making it less than ideal for dieting purposes. However, it’s not hard to make it low calorie and macro conscious — this recipe will show you some tweaks that will make kimchi fried rice easy to fit into your everyday diet.

🍏 How to Make It Healthy – The Fitsian Method

In this recipe, I use a more protein heavy ratio to make this a more macro friendly and calorie conscious dish. Here are some key tweaks I made:

• Used 1 serving of brown rice (¼ cup uncooked) at 160 calories
• Portioned 4oz boneless, skinless chicken thigh for a lean protein source
• Added an egg for additional protein and deliciousness

For a detailed breakdown of each ingredients, their portioning, and how they make up the nutrition profile of this low calorie kimchi fried rice recipe, you may refer to the table below:

📋 Ingredient Notes

Stir Fry Sauce

• 1 teaspoon Gochujang: Korean chili paste often found in Korean cooking. You can find it in most Asian grocery stores or on Amazon. You can omit it if you don't have it but the flavor won't be quite as good. 
• 1 teaspoon Soy sauce
• Kimchi juice: This is the juice in the kimchi container and adding this helps with the flavor and color of the rice. You can add as needed or can use chicken stock or water if you don't have any.

Kimchi Fried Rice

• 1 serving Brown rice: I used ¼ cup of Nishiki brown rice, which is about 150 calories. You can also opt for white rice if you prefer -- the calorie content is about the same.
• 1 clove Garlic: Mince before cooking
• ¼ Onion: Mince before cooking
• 4oz Chicken thigh: Use boneless skinless chicken and be sure to trim off the excess fat. You can also opt for chicken breast, but thigh is much juicier.
• 1-2 Mushrooms 
• ¼ cup Kimchi: Chopped
• 1 Egg
• Black pepper and salt (To taste)
• Furikake, scallions (For garnish)

🔪 Step by Step Instructions

1. Begin by cooking the rice, ideally the night before, and store it in the fridge so it has time to harden. Alternatively, you can buy takeout rice or microwave the just cooked rice.
2. Gather the chicken and marinade ingredients. Cut the chicken into small bite-sized pieces. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
3. Prepare the garlic and onion by mincing them. Slice the mushrooms. Then spray a skillet with cooking spray and sauté the vegetables, including the kimchi. Begin to add in the chicken pieces in a single layer. Cook for about 3-4 minutes on each side while stirring the vegetables around consistently to avoid overcooking and burning anything.

4. Once the chicken looks about done and the vegetables have softened, add in the overnight rice, breaking down the clumps with a wooden spoon. Add in the gochujang, sugar, and soy sauce and mix everything together thoroughly. Use kimchi juice to help dissolve the gochujang and deglaze the skillet. If you don't have any kimchi juice, chicken stock or water can work as well. 
5. Season with salt and black pepper as needed and mix together thoroughly. Remove from heat and set aside.
6. Fry 1 egg to desired doneness and top on the kimchi fried rice. Garnish with furikake and scallions and enjoy your yummy kimchi fried rice!

💭 FAQs

Is Kimchi Healthy?

Kimchi is made by fermenting napa cabbage in a brine mixture consisting of garlic, fish sauce, ginger, and chilis. An entire cup of kimchi is only 23 calories, and is full of probiotics and vitamins. Low calorie, nutritious, and delicious, kimchi sounds like a dream come true! To learn more, see this article from Web MD about Kimchi's health benefits.

Optimize the Texture and Flavor Of The Rice By Making Beforehand

This recipe calls for 1 serving of brown rice, which is ¼ cup uncooked. You can also opt for other types of rice if you’d like. They key to optimizing the texture of the rice is to make it a day or two in advance and keeping it in the fridge overnight. Otherwise, the rice can be overly moist and soggy. You can also make bigger portions of rice to prep for various recipes throughout the week to save time. 

Where can I find kimchi juice? What if I don't have any kimchi juice?

Kimchi juice is the residual juice found in your jar of kimchi. It's used to deglaze the skillet and give the fried rice some extra flavor. If you don't have any, don't sweat -- you can substitute it with chicken stock or water.

🍳 Recipe