Craving some Chinese fried rice takeout for lunch? Try this healthy cauliflower fried rice instead! It’s so easy and much healthier. Plus, a side of baked snap peas!
Disclaimer: this post is sponsored by Mann’s. All opinions are my own, thank you for supporting the brands who make this blog possible!
A few posts ago, I wrote a Q&A on meal prepping where I broke down what it was and how to start. A question that I got was if I could break down how exactly I meal prep for the week. This post will be part one of a two part-er where I show you how I use similar ingredients to make two different meals for the week, you know, to keep things exciting for lunch. I pretty much made both consecutively and thought this would be the easiest way to share with you my meal plan/prep so you get a better sense of how to meal prep yourself! So let’s get started!
Healthy Cauliflower Fried Rice with Baked Snap Peas
Starting a few months ago, I cut down drastically on my take-out consumption. One of the items my partner and I’d order would be Chinese fried rice and fried noodle. Over the weekend, I was feeling a little nostalgic and wanted something fried. Trying to stay on my meal prepping streak, I decided to try and make it at home!
Of course, I wanted to give this a bit of a healthier spin because traditional fried rice uses a lot of oil in addition to some not too healthy ingredients such as MSGs and sodium. I also wanted to make a faster version because let’s be honest, we want to be fast and efficient while meal prepping. Plus what’s better than a healthier and faster version of the delicious traditional fried rice take-out? This is literally faster than phoning in an order and going out to get it! So why not try this cauliflower rice instead?
For this healthy version of fried rice with cauliflower, I used Mann’s Fresh Vegetables‘ Cauliflower Cauliettes to sub out the traditional white rice. Using the Cauliflower Cauliettes also keeps the prep time low, instead of waiting 20-30 minutes for the rice to cook in the rice cooker (and even waiting an extra day since day old rice is best for fried rice!), the cauliettes were good to go to toss into the pan!
Note: the photo shows 2 packs of the Cauliflower Cauliettes, it is up to you on what ratio of “rice” to the other ingredients you’d like. One bag is more than enough but if you want equal parts rice to ingredients, add more cauliflower.
For this healthy cauliflower fried rice recipe, I kept it simple with corn, peas, carrots, and broccoli. Other ingredients you could add are:
- chicken
- beef
- mushroom
- onion
- hot sauce
- cucumbers
- and whatever your heart desires!
Okay so let’s breakdown step by step exactly what I did to get to this Healthy Cauliflower Fried Rice with Baked Snap Peas.
How to Meal Prep: Healthy Cauliflower Fried Rice with Baked Snap Peas
- Heat oven to 400F.
- Put eggs in a pot and filled it up with water (I boiled 8 but only use 4 in this recipe)
- Blot dry the stringless sugar snap peas and lightly coat them with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder then spread them on a baking sheet.
- Put the baking sheet into the oven (as it is still heating up) and set a timer for 20 minutes.
- By this time, your eggs should be starting to boil to keep an eye on that.
- Measure out your frozen corn, peas, carrots, and broccoli.
- In a large pan, pour some oil such as canola oil into it and let it heat up.
- Check on your eggs, if the water as come to a boil, take it off the heat and let it sit for another 5-6 minutes.
- Back to your skillet or wok, put some garlic in and cook it for a few minutes before putting in your corn, peas, carrots, and broccoli.
- Stirring it constantly, cook it to your preference of tenderness (if you like your broccoli a bit more crunchy, less; softer, more.)
- Check on your eggs, if it’s been 5-6 minutes, quickly run it under some cold water or drop it into an ice bath.
- Then back to your fried “rice,” add in your cauliflower rice and two tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce or tamari and cook until they’re tender. Again, if you want your dish to be more crunchy, cook it less. And then you’re done your healthy cauliflower fried rice!
- By this time, your eggs should be cool enough for you to peel.
- In a lunch container, scoop in your healthy cauliflower fried rice and place one egg in it.
- Your oven baked snap peas should also be done by now or soon (leave it in longer on a lower heat if you have more time). In a second container, store the oven baked snap peas.
And viola! You have your healthy cauliflower fried rice and oven baked snap peas. And just like that, you’ve just made at least three portions of lunch! (If you tend to eat a bigger lunch, you now have quite the lunch! And if you’re like me, the healthy cauliflower fried rice and egg will be my lunch and then the oven baked snap peas will be my snack before or after lunch.) All of this should have taken you 30 minutes or less! Or at least it’ll be 30 minutes or less once you get used to doing multiple components of a meal prep at once.
Healthy Cauliflower Fried Rice with Oven Baked Snap Peas
Ingredients
Oven Baked Snap Peas
- 3 bags Mann's Fresh Vegetables' Stringless Sugar Snap Peas
- canola oil
- salt, pepper, garlic powder
Healthy Cauliflower Fried Rice
- 4 eggs
- 1 tbsp canola oil
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1.5 cups broccoli
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1 cup carrots, match stick cut
- 1 bag Mann's Fresh Vegetables Cauliflower Cauliettes
- 1-2 tbsp low sodium soy sauce or tamari sauce
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400F and start the process of boiling your eggs.
- Blot dry the stringless sugar snap peas and lightly coat them with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder then spread them on a baking sheet.
- Put the baking sheet into the oven (as it is still heating up) and set a timer for 20 minutes. By this time, your eggs should be starting to boil to keep an eye on that.
- In a large pan, pour some oil into it and let it heat up.
- Check on your eggs, if the water as come to a boil, take it off the heat and let it sit for another 5-6 minutes. When they're done, run it under cold water or place in a ice bath.
- Back to your skillet or wok, put some garlic in and cook it for a few minutes before putting in your corn, peas, carrots, and broccoli. Stirring it constantly, cook it to your preference of tenderness (if you like your broccoli a bit more crunchy, less; softer, more.)
- Then back to your fried "rice," add in your cauliflower rice and two tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce or tamari and cook until they're tender. Again, if you want your dish to be more crunchy, cook it less.
- In a lunch container, scoop in your healthy cauliflower fried rice and place one egg in it.
- Your oven baked snap peas should also be done by now or soon (leave it in longer on a lower heat if you have more time). In a second container, store the oven baked snap peas. Optional: serve with dip.
Nutrition Per Serving
To save money, I purchased a larger bag of frozen corn, peas, and pre-cut carrot. Here I only meal prepped for 4 meals, stay tuned to see part two of this week’s meal prep to see how I use the rest of the frozen vegetables in a second meal prep (you can alternate between the two for lunch or have one for lunch and one for dinner). This way, you can practice making multiple different meals (gotta have variety!) by using similar ingredients while saving on both time and money!
Whew! Let’s chat! So what do you think? Does meal prepping seem a bit easier to you now that it’s broken down some more? Do you prefer meal preps to be broken down like this? What’s your favourite spin on takeout?
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Again, thanks to Mann’s Fresh Vegetables for sponsoring this post and thank you to you for supporting the brands who support me! Check out their website to see where you can find their product near you!
If you’re looking for more meal prep tips, check out this post on how to meal prep! If you’re looking for more help with meal prepping, subscribe to my newsletter (sidebar or click here) to get a week’s lunch and snack meal prep and the shopping list!
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Vlogs/Recipe Videos: Youtube
April 2018 Update! The Cauliflower Rice has been repackaged and below is how the product will look in stores.
Allison @ The Lazy Perfectionist
this looks delicious! I’m definitely gonna pick up some cauliflower next time I’m at the store because I LOVE fried rice!!
Abbey Sharp
Awesome meal prep ideas! I love the precut cauliflower products!
Deborah @ Confessions of a mother runner
the pre cut cauliflower is a huge help with meal planning. I love to make fried rice
Chrissy @ Snacking in Sneakers
I love me some cauliflower fried rice! I’m surprised at just how delicious it is when you use the cauliflower, and it’s also soooo filling.
Rebecca
ohhh looks delicious! love fried rice & I’ll have to try roasting snap peas
Rachel
This looks delicious. I love snap peas. YUM!
Amy Gorin
Looks super yummy!!
Karen G.
Yum! Love the idea of precut cauliflower, what a time saver! This looks great, thanks for sharing!
Tara @ a daily dose of fit
Saw the precut cauliflower at the the grocery store last week. Now I o ow what to do with it!
Shannon @loveatfirstbento
Love how you packed the cauliflower rice into your bento boxes – they look fantastic! I’ve just begun venturing into the world of cauliflower rice, and absolutely love it; I’ll for sure have to give your recipe a try, as I’m still searching for a favorite I can always fall back on. And I’ve never seen baked sugar snap peas before, but what a great idea! What were the dips you used for the peas?
Carmy
One was a lemon poppy seed dressing and another was tzatziki!