Leftover Brisket Fried Rice

It’s rare to have leftover brisket, but we occasionally order in bulk from a place like the world famous Franklin BBQ and have more than we can handle. And if you’re anything like us, finding ways to repurpose is key to avoiding brisket burnout. That’s how this leftover brisket fried rice recipe was created. All the added veggies and spicy green hot sauce adds some freshness and brings the smoky, meaty brisket back to life.

You’ll only need about 20 minutes to make it, and as always it can be modified to work for different calorie and dietary needs. I’m always thinking of my fellow fitness enthusiasts!

Leftover Brisket Fried Rice Ingredients

Inspired by Austin restaurant, Mama Fu’s Asian House, this brisket fried rice has a spicy Texas spin with jalapeño and a Green dragon sauce. Here’s everything you’ll need:

• white onion, jalapeño pepper, and mushrooms
• eggs
• cooked and chilled rice
• leftover brisket (we used Franklin BBQ from our best Austin restaurants list)
• green hot sauce (we used Trader Joe’s Green Dragon)

You can make this recipe work with other ingredients so have fun with it. Leftover proteins like our beef fajitas, reverse seared ribeye steaks, or chipotle grilled chicken, would work perfectly as substitutes for brisket.

We used basmati rice, but any rice will do. Making sure it’s cooked and chilled keeps the rice from clumping together when frying.

If you’re in a rush, you can cook some and spread it out thin on a sheet pan or plate and pop it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. As long as it’s mostly chilled and dry before going in, you should be good to go.

Healthier Fried Rice Notes

If you wanted to use cauliflower rice for a low carb fried rice option, treat it the same way by either using freshly riced cauliflower or go straight in with frozen rice like in our leftover pork tenderloin cauliflower fried rice recipe.

And our brisket style smoked tri tip is an awesome lower fat brisket alternative.

Making the Brisket Fried Rice

You’ll find a printable recipe card at the bottom of the post. But if you’d like a visual recipe walkthrough, I’ve included one below.

Add the onion, mushrooms, jalapeño, and leftover brisket to a large cast iron skillet or wok with 2 tablespoons of oil.

A wok would be ideal for this brisket fried rice, but I know not everyone has one. If you have neither a cast iron skillet nor a wok, you can use a large nonstick pan. Though you want to cook with really high heat and a nonstick pan will only get so hot so expect slightly different results.

I used a 12″ cast iron skillet. If you’re using a smaller pan, you’ll want to scale the recipe down to avoid crowing the pan.

Cook for 3-4 minutes to soften the veggies before adding the cooked rice.

The veggies should develop a slight char and soften, and the brisket should start to relax and release some of its fat into the pan.

Cook another 3-4 minutes until the rice starts to jump around the pan before pushing everything to one side and adding the eggs.

When the rice starts to do its best House of Pain Jump Around impression, you’re pretty much there.

Cook until the bottom of the eggs slightly browns before chopping into the brisket fried rice.

You can’t really mess up the eggs unless you start to stir right away, scrambling them.

Add sliced green onion and cook until fragrant, about 30-60 seconds.

Go ahead and slice some extra for garnishing your finished brisket fried rice.

Add hot sauce and/or soy sauce and cook another 30-60 seconds before serving.

The original Mama Fu’s jalapeño brisket fried rice uses green Cholula hot sauce, so you could use that or another tomatillo and green pepper heavy hot sauce. If you have trouble tracking a green hot sauce down, just use a regular hot sauce. You can also add some soy sauce and toasted sesame oil at this stage.

The Bachan’s sauce from our Japanese BBQ chicken fried rice or honey ginger sauce from our ground beef fried rice would also be great options here.

And that’s it. Top your brisket fried rice with some freshly sliced jalapeño, green onion, and additional hot sauce. It’s also great with a drizzle of BBQ sauce.

If you have a recipe question that wasn’t covered, drop a comment at the bottom of the post. And if you enjoy this leftover brisket fried rice, we always appreciate recipe reviews!