Fried rice seems to me one of the most inoffensive meals that exists: rice and vegetables, mildly seasoned. For this reason, I can reliably count on my family to eat it. It’s also extremely flexible: most firm veggies will do, you can take or leave the egg, and pick whatever protein.

I started with a basic recipe and experimented with spices and veggies from there. The most annoying aspect of this meal, quite frankly, is the rice itself. I have an exasperating history with rice. I never got the hang of cooking rice in a pot; it came out too mushy or too crunchy.

Those difficult early years of never knowing if the rice I had spent 30 minutes (or 20?) cooking would be edible gave way to the era of rice cookers. For a while, I had my rice cooker routine down to a science. I always followed the rice cooker instructions, not the rice bag instructions, and things worked out.

Then the rice cooker got destroyed in a freak accident in which I set it down on a hot burner of my flat-top electric stove (the sad fate of so many other plastics in my kitchen). The new rice cooker just didn’t perform. It gave me rice as mushy as the kind I cooked myself.

My rice cooker era concluded around the time Trader Joe’s came to my neck of the woods. TJ’s sold the miracle of packaged prepared foods: frozen rice. I was converted. Not since I bought a box with three bags of frozen rice that needed only three minutes in the microwave have I cooked rice in a pot or cooker.

This fried rice recipe uses all three bags of rice in the box (also available now at most supermarkets in the frozen vegetable section). It does at times seem wasteful to me to use a whole box of frozen rice for one meal, but then I reflect on the misery of cooking rice, and I feel extremely justified in my choice.

My husband suggested putting cashews in this dish, and they do make a delicious addition, but my kids don’t care for them. I have tried this with broccoli florets, diced bell pepper, and onion, but the only things I put in every time are the carrots and peas. If you are averse to tofu, you can omit it or change it to another protein, but I think tofu perfectly complements fried rice.

A word of caution about soy sauce: once you add the soy sauce, you cannot subtract the soy sauce. Therefore, I caution you to start with just two or three tablespoons, taste, and add from there. Same with the fish sauce if you’re using it. The soy sauce gives the rice a Chinese-food flavor, while the fish sauce makes this taste more like Thai fried rice (in this white girl’s opinion). I usually use some of both.

Fried Rice

Servings: 4

Time: 30 minutes

3 bags of frozen rice, cooked, or about 8 cups of cooked rice, preferably cooked a day or two before*

Vegetable oil

1 block of extra-firm tofu, pressed under a heavy weight if you time (20 min) or just patted dry

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon grated ginger

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 carrots, large-shredded or small-diced

1 bell pepper, small-diced (or 2 cups small broccoli florets)

1 cup frozen peas, thawed (just leaving them out while you prepare the dish is fine)

A handful of roasted, unsalted cashews (optional)

2-3 tablespoons soy sauce

1-2 teaspoons fish sauce (optional)

Cut the tofu into 1/2 to 1-inch cubes using whatever kind of tofu geometry you please. Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the tofu, cooking until both sides are golden brown and crisp to your liking. Move them to a plate.

Add the beaten egg to the pan and move around with a spatula until cooked and broken into pieces. Move to the tofu plate.

Add another 2-3 tablespoons of oil to the pan and add the garlic and ginger. Sauté for a minute, until fragrant. Then add the carrots and bell peppers (or broccoli), tossing often, until the veggies have softened slightly, 5-7 minutes.

Add the rice, breaking it up and coating it with the oily veggies. Then add the peas, soy sauce, fish sauce (if using), tofu, egg, and cashews (if using). Stir to distribute the sauces and heat through, about 5 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Add more soy sauce or fish sauce as needed.

Serve with pepper flakes or sriracha for those who like heat.

* If you cook the rice immediately before stir-frying, it can be moist and mushy. Better to put a reminder in your phone to cook the rice the day (or two) before, put it in some Tupperware, and pull it out of the fridge when you’re ready to cook. The rice will be firmer and hold up better to the saucing and frying. Did I not already say that rice is a pain in the @#%?