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30 min total 4 servings Dinner Chinese-inspired

Chile Crisp Tofu and Eggplant Fried Rice

Torn, browned tofu and steamed-then-seared eggplant tossed with day-old rice, chile crisp, and soy, finished with crunchy cucumber, rice vinegar, and sesame oil. Weighed in grams.

Chile Crisp Tofu and Eggplant Fried Rice
Prep 10 min
Cook 20 min
Total 30 min
Yield 4 servings

Ingredients

Tofu

  • 397 g extra-firm tofu (one 14 oz block)
  • 28 g neutral oil (2 tbsp)
  • 1/4 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/4 tsp white or black pepper

Eggplant

  • 288 g eggplant, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
  • 14 g neutral oil (1 tbsp)
  • 1/4 tsp kosher salt
  • 45 g water (3 tbsp)

Sauce bowl

  • 45 g chile crisp (3 tbsp), plus more to serve
  • 32 g soy sauce or tamari (2 tbsp)
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Finishing bowl

  • 15 g rice vinegar (1 tbsp)
  • 4.5 g toasted sesame oil (1 tsp)

Rice and vegetables

  • 14 g neutral oil (1 tbsp)
  • 345 g yellow onion, diced
  • 790 g cooked white rice, cold and day-old (5 cups)
  • 129 g English cucumber, halved lengthwise, seeded, cut into 1/2-inch half-moons
  • 30 g scallions, sliced (2 scallions)

Instructions

Prep (about 10 min)

  1. Press the tofu under a 2 to 3 lb weight for 10 minutes, then tear it by hand into roughly 1-inch pieces.
  2. While it presses, dice the onion; halve, seed, and slice the cucumber; and slice the scallions.
  3. Mix the sauce bowl (chile crisp, soy sauce, 1/2 tsp salt) and the finishing bowl (rice vinegar, sesame oil).
  4. Cut the eggplant last, right before cooking, so it doesn't brown on the board.

Cook (about 20 min)

  1. Heat 28 g (2 tbsp) oil in a large nonstick or carbon-steel pan over high heat. Add the tofu, 1/4 tsp salt, and the pepper, and cook, turning occasionally, until browned on most sides, about 6 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
  2. Add 14 g (1 tbsp) oil, the eggplant, and 1/4 tsp salt. Cook 2 minutes, then add the water, cover, and cook until the eggplant is tender. Uncover and cook off any remaining liquid. Add the eggplant to the plate with the tofu.
  3. Add the remaining 14 g (1 tbsp) oil and the onion. Cook until it starts to soften, about 2 minutes.
  4. Add the rice and the sauce bowl. Toss until the rice is hot and golden in spots, about 4 minutes.
  5. Return the tofu and eggplant, add the cucumber, and toss for 1 minute.
  6. Off the heat, stir in the finishing bowl and the scallions. Serve with more chile crisp to taste.

Nutrition

Per serving — 1/4 of recipe.

616 calories Calories
18.6 g Protein
72.7 g Carbs
29.1 g Fat

What's on my plate

Weigh the whole batch once after cooking, then weigh what you actually serve yourself. The macros below are scaled to your portion, not to a nominal serving.

Chile crisp tofu fried rice raw 2131.5 g · 2465 kcal batch
Enter both weights to see your macros.
Plate total —

Cooked batch weights are remembered in this browser. Cooking changes weight but not calories, so the batch numbers below stay fixed no matter how much water cooks off or gets absorbed.

Batch reference numbers
ComponentRawCookedkcalProteinCarbsFat
Chile crisp tofu fried rice 2131.5 g — 2465 74.5 g 290.8 g 116.3 g

Notes

  • Use cold, day-old rice. Fresh rice is too wet and turns gummy instead of frying.
  • Tear the tofu, don't cube it. The ragged edges brown and crisp far better than flat cut faces, and they hold on to the chile crisp.
  • The cucumber goes in last on purpose. One minute in the pan warms it without losing the crunch, which is the contrast that makes the dish.

How these macros were worked out

These are estimates, not weighed measurements. Each ingredient is priced at its USDA FoodData Central per-100 g value (chile crisp from the Lao Gan Ma label) and multiplied by the amount in the recipe - the same method Cronometer uses when it matches your ingredients to its database.

  • The rice is folded into the dish, so unlike my stir-fry recipes it is included in these macros. 5 cups of cooked rice is taken as 790 g; weigh yours if you can, since cups of rice vary a lot.
  • The extra chile crisp to serve is not counted. It is almost all oil: each extra tablespoon adds about 105 kcal and 10.5 g fat.
  • All 56 g of neutral oil is counted, on the assumption that it all stays in the dish.
  • Chile crisp brands vary. Check your jar's label if it isn't Lao Gan Ma.
  • Salt and pepper are left out as negligible. Sodium is deliberately not listed, since it depends heavily on your salt and your soy sauce.
  • The raw batch weight excludes the 3 tbsp of water, which cooks off in step 6.
Ingredient g kcal Protein Carbs Fat
Extra-firm tofu 397 330 39.6 g 4.7 g 20.9 g
Neutral oil, 4 tbsp 56 495 0 g 0 g 56 g
Eggplant 288 72 2.8 g 16.9 g 0.5 g
Yellow onion 345 138 3.8 g 32.2 g 0.3 g
Cooked white rice, 5 cups 790 1027 21.3 g 222.5 g 2.2 g
Chile crisp, 3 tbsp 45 315 3 g 6 g 31.5 g
Soy sauce, 2 tbsp 32 17 2.6 g 1.6 g 0.2 g
English cucumber 129 19 0.8 g 4.7 g 0.1 g
Rice vinegar, 1 tbsp 15 3 0 g 0 g 0 g
Toasted sesame oil, 1 tsp 4.5 40 0 g 0 g 4.5 g
Scallions, 2 30 10 0.5 g 2.2 g 0.1 g
Batch total 2131.5 2465 74.5 g 290.8 g 116.3 g
Per serving (/4) 616 18.6 g 72.7 g 29.1 g

Import to Cronometer

This page carries schema.org Recipe data, so Cronometer can pull it in directly. In Cronometer go to Foods → Recipes → Import Recipe from URL and paste:

https://simmonsbrian.com/recipes/chile-crisp-tofu-eggplant-fried-rice/

Cronometer matches each ingredient to its own food database and works the nutrition out from that, so review the matches before saving — the numbers on this page are not the ones it imports. Unmeasured seasonings get flagged; delete them.

Weigh the cooked batch once and put it in the Cooked g column of the recipe's ## Components table, and a per-gram import copy is generated at https://simmonsbrian.com/recipes/chile-crisp-tofu-eggplant-fried-rice/cronometer/ for logging by weight.