Quick & Easy Sinangag (Filipino Garlic Fried Rice)

Here’s a real crowd pleaser that will satisfy your growling bellies in no time — Filipino garlic fried rice!

Sinangag, or garlic fried rice, is a stir-fry dish of rice and garlic. In Filipino cuisine, this is a common side to eat during breakfast or with other traditional dishes.

Our recipe is simple and easy to cook up in less than 30 minutes. Read on for the recipe!

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What is Sinangag (Garlic Fried Rice)?

Sinangag is a Filipino fried rice dish also known as garlic rice or garlic fried rice. It is made by stir-frying rice and a generous amount of garlic.

In its purest form, the main ingredients focus on just rice, garlic, salt, and pepper. Garlic rice is mainly served as a side to breakfast meats such as longanisa or tapa.

We’ve grown up with this dish and have made it countless times. Through this experience we learned that there are many uses and variations we can do with garlic rice!

The recipe we’re sharing in this blog post is our version of garlic rice that we cook the most often.

What to Eat with Garlic Fried Rice

You can eat garlic rice on its own, or in a variety of ways. We love it on the side with fresh vegetables to accompany grilled meats. For example, we like a bowl of garlic rice, fresh sliced tomatoes, and grilled chicken or pork.

Garlic rice is also common to eat during breakfast as part of a silog. The word “silog” is short for “sinangag at ilog”, which means garlic rice and egg.

There are different kinds of silog, including longsilog, tapsilog, spamsilog, etc. They refer to the protein with garlic rice and egg (ex. longanisa + silog = longsilog.)

Hope this didn’t confuse anybody, but in short, you should try garlic rice with a fried egg and your choice of meat!

Ingredients

• oil for the pan
• 6 cloves garlic chopped
• 1 cup yellow onion chopped
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 chinese sausage sliced
• 2 cups day old rice
• salt & pepper to taste
• ¼ cup chives or green onions chopped

Recipe

1. Heat a pan or wok to medium/medium-high heat. Add a small amount of oil to the pan.
2. Cook garlic and onion for 3 min or until fragrant.
3. Add chinese sausage. Cook about 3 min or until sausage begins to crisp.
4. Add butter and cook 1 minute. You may lower the heat a little to prevent the butter from burning.

4. Add rice. Mix well and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Allow the butter and fat to absorb and cook into the rice.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Add chives. Mix well. Cook for 1 more minute then remove from heat. Enjoy!

Tips on Cooking Garlic Rice

• There really is no limit to how much garlic you can use! If you’re in love with garlic, you can add more pieces of fresh garlic, garlic powder, and even garnish with fried garlic. We indicated 6 cloves to serve as a starting point for those who would like less garlic breath.
• Depending on your brand of chinese sausage, there will be more or less fat released into the pan. In that case, you may want to adjust the amount of butter or oil in your dish. Or you can simply spoon out any undesired, excess fat.
• Using day old rice is extremely important. Fresh rice won’t result in the right texture, as it will be too soft and stuck together.

Other ways to make garlic rice

Below are some of the other ways we’ve made garlic rice – they’re equally delicious! We wanted to share these as well in case you have a preference or have similar ingredients ready in your pantry.

Garlic rice with bacon – One of our favorite versions of garlic rice! Cook a few pieces of bacon, then remove them from the pan and let rest. While they cool, use the bacon fat instead of oil/butter to cook the fried rice. At the end, you can chop up the bacon into bits and mix it into the rice. So delicious!

Garlic rice with eggs – This is how my grandma likes to cook it. She makes scrambled eggs in a separate pan then mixes it in at the end. Alternatively, we’ve just cracked the eggs straight in with the fried rice and scrambled them as we cooked.

Garlic rice with spam – Cube up some spam (we suggest teriyaki flavor!) and cook in a separate pan. Once it’s all crisp and golden, mix it into the garlic rice.

Garlic rice without meat – This is a great option if you intend to eat this dish on the side of a main protein, or if you just prefer no meat. If you prefer veggies over meat, then spinach or green beans are a great leafy green to add.

Optional garnishes – Fried garlic, fried onions, chicharron, green onions, chili peppers, fried or boiled egg

Final Thoughts

Experience the unforgettable combination of garlic and rice! Make enough for yourself, or multiply the recipe to feed many mouths. Enjoy!

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References & Further Reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinangag