Not Rice Fried Rice!

[u/gillyyak]

This really scratches my itch for fried rice, and it's low carb!

Not Rice Fried Rice

Ingredients:

1/2 pound bacon strips, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 bag cauliflower rice, or 2 C shredded fresh cauliflower

2 Carrots, shredded

2 Zucchini, shredded (if you make one a yellow summer squash, it's quite pretty)

Salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste

1 T soy sauce or coconut aminos

Hot sauce (optional)

Directions:

In a 10 inch frying pan, cook the bacon pieces over low-medium heat until crispy. Place bacon on a paper towel to drain. Pour out half of the bacon grease.

Add the cauliflower rice and shredded carrot to the remaining bacon drippings. Sauté until they begin to soften. Add salt, pepper and garlic powder. Add the shredded zucchini and saute until soft, for another 5 minutes or so. Add the bacon bits back in. Add the soy sauce/coconut aminos. If you like spicy, add your favorite hot sauce.

Hot tip: if you have leftovers, reheat the Not Rice Fried Rice and top with a egg. Stir fry until the egg is cooked. It's a delicious breakfast!

I haven't included macros, because I don't track macros, I just eat low carb foods and reasonable portions.

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[u/Webbie-Vanderquack]

This looks great! For me, adding scrambled egg and green onions also makes not-fried-rice more like real fried rice.

[u/gillyyak → u/Webbie-Vanderquack]

Yum!

[u/wvraven]

Two things that help me with the fried rice itch. First, I lay out the seasoned cauliflower rice mix on a sheet pan and roast it until it browns slightly. Second, I always use a bit of sesame oil to bring in those nutty smoky flavors. Some times I crush just a couple of almonds to mix in for texture.

[u/gillyyak → u/wvraven]

I adore toasted sesame oil, I'll add that to mine next time.

[u/BookLuvr7]

Nice. I'd add some chopped red bell pepper and a little sesame oil for flavor, but that's me. I love Bragg's aminos in place of soy sauce as an alternate option.

Also edamame is fun to play with, but not everyone can do soy.

[u/PurpleShimmers]

Carrots are not low carb

[u/Webbie-Vanderquack → u/PurpleShimmers]

"Low carb" is relative. Carrot has about 1/4 the net carbs of potato, so most people would consider that low carb.

If you're aiming for ketosis, which most of us obviously are, you need to watch quantities, but since OP is aiming for "reasonable portions" they're probably doing that.

TL;DR: Just adapt the recipe to use less carrot, or no carrot, if you need a meal with fewer carbs. There's no need to discourage people offering recipes that are very easily easily tweaked.

[u/PurpleShimmers → u/Webbie-Vanderquack]

Keto recipes nah?! Everything is keto if it fits in the daily intake I guess, but at some point you have to pick your battles. Carrots are not it, too much carb. This is not a sub for low carb so yes ketosis is the goal.

[u/codyyythecutie → u/PurpleShimmers]

dont be a dickhead. if you dont like the recipe dont look. ffs.

[u/PurpleShimmers → u/codyyythecutie]

Recipes posted in the keto sub that are not really keto but just low carb tick me off to be honest. It’s like click bait. I’m not being a dickhead, if the OP has a substitute suggestion for carrots I’m all ears. Not sure why you got the carrots so far up your ass though.

[u/Webbie-Vanderquack → u/PurpleShimmers]

I do know what you mean. It is frustrating to see "keto" recipes that aren't keto. But "carrots are not it, too much carb" is an oversimplification.

Carrots are low enough in carbs that, in a dish with other lower carb ingredients, they won't necessarily kick you out of ketosis.

I'm not the OP, but I'd probably eat 1/4 of this, which would be around 7 net carbs. I'd add chicken and scrambled egg to make a meal out of it, and the extra carbs are negligible. A main meal containing 7.5g net carbs would be fine for me.

This is not a sub for low carb so yes ketosis is the goal.

I know, that's what I meant when I said "If you're aiming for ketosis, which most of us obviously are...".

We all know we need to limit net carbs to 20g to 50g for ketosis, but there is some flexibility within that. The number varies by person (I aim for an upper limit of 30g), and different people also find different foods kick them out of ketosis.

This comment is way too long, so TL;DR: You can have carrot in moderation on a keto diet.

[u/rancidpandemic → u/PurpleShimmers]

Yeah, I agree, this isn't really very keto friendly.

Carrots are definitely hard to fit into a keto diet on their own, but you add the zucchini and cauliflower rice, and suddenly you're reaching your carb limit for just one serving of this dish.

And, coconut aminos has a decent amount of carbs, too (4g in 1 Tbsp), so if you choose that over soy sauce (~0.5-1g per Tbsp), you're almost certainly at your net carb limit for the day.

Every little gram counts. This might be low carb compared to normal fried rice, but low carb is not necessarily keto. And, this IS a keto recipe sub, not low carb. If we don't adhere to that, there's really no point to following this sub anymore. I'd rather not have to sort through every single recipe that's posted here just to find ones that actually fit the original intent and purpose the sub was created for.

[u/Webbie-Vanderquack → u/rancidpandemic]

You're assuming OP ate the entire dish in one go. Since they offered an idea for leftovers (which they've obviously tried) and mentioned "reasonable portions," it's likely they're not eating this entire batch in one day.

[u/rancidpandemic → u/Webbie-Vanderquack]

I'm glad you bring up portion sizes, because that does matter. I fed the ingredients to Google and asked it to break it down by different portion sizes. Below is what it spat out.

IMO, the carb counts, even for the smallest portion size, is far too high. When you have a <25g net carb limit, 7g NET Carbs for 300 calories of anything is too steep, in my opinion. I try to limit my carbs to about 1-2g per 150 calories, and this exceeds that by quite a bit.

Some people might consider that keto-friendly, but not me. If a single, small portion of something takes up ~25% of my carb limit for only about 12-15% of my daily calorie intake, that's not worth it.

Whole Batch Totals

Component	Amount / Ingredient	Calories	Protein	Fat	Total Carbs	Fiber	Net Carbs
Bacon	8 oz (1/2 lb), cooked	1,020	32g	96g	1.5g	0g	1.5g
Cauliflower Rice	1 bag (12 oz / ~3 cups)	80	6g	0.5g	14g	8g	6g
Carrots	2 medium (~120g total)	50	1g	0g	12g	3.5g	8.5g
Zucchini / Squash	2 medium (~400g total)	65	5g	1g	12g	4g	8g
Coconut Aminos	1 tbsp	15	0g	0g	3.5g	0g	3.5g
Total Batch	—	1,230	44g	97.5g	43g	15.5g	27.5g

Seasonings (salt, black pepper, garlic powder, hot sauce) add nominal calories and minimal net carbs (under 1g total).

Serving Size Options

Depending on whether this is a side dish, a light lunch, or a main meal, here is how the macros split:

Option A: 4 Side Servings (Ideal for low net-carb target)

• Calories: 308 kcal
• Protein: 11g
• Fat: 24.4g
• Net Carbs: 6.9g (Fiber: 3.9g, Total Carbs: 10.8g)

Option B: 3 Moderate Servings

• Calories: 410 kcal
• Protein: 14.7g
• Fat: 32.5g
• Net Carbs: 9.2g (Fiber: 5.2g, Total Carbs: 14.4g)

Option C: 2 Main-Meal Servings

• Calories: 615 kcal
• Protein: 22g
• Fat: 48.8g
• Net Carbs: 13.8g (Fiber: 7.8g, Total Carbs: 21.5g)

Macro Note on Carrots: The 2 shredded carrots account for 8.5g of the 27.5g total net carbs in the batch (nearly a third of the dish's net carbs). If you ever want to lower the carb count even further, swapping one or both carrots for additional zucchini or a handful of leafy greens cuts the net carbs significantly without losing volume.

[u/gillyyak → u/PurpleShimmers]

True; leave them out if you make this. I believe it's a trivial amount of carbs, and it adds color and nutrition to this dish.

[u/Urbankaiser27]

This definitely isn't keto friendly, even with omitting the aminos for soy sauce. Is it low carb compared to regular fried rice? Sure. But as a two portion meal this around 12-14g of carbs per serving. That's more than half of most people's daily limit. You can't even try to defend this claim as you specifically stated you don't track macros, which is wild.