Tom Yum Pork Fried Rice

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This delicious Tom Yum Pork Fried rice is packed with spicy, sour, sweet, salty and citrusy flavors. With the help of Tom Yum instant paste, the fresh Thai Basil, and the fried egg, this recipe is truly so easy and quick to make. It satisfies our Thai food craving every time.

Tom Yum pork fried rice topped with two fried eggs in a frying pan. — This Tom Yum pork fried rice is packed with flavors, but yet so simple to execute.

What Inspired the Recipe

We got the idea to make Tom Yum fried rice when we noticed a jar of unused Tom Yum instant paste and some leftover steamed white rice in our fridge. We've used the paste once to make Tom Yum soup, but we didn't really think we could use it to make anything else. We enjoy Thai flavors so we experimented and fell in love with this dish. It's so delicious and such an easy and quick dinner that you can whip up that will satisfy your Thai craving!

If you've ever been to the Asian supermarket, you must have skim through aisles with hundreds of different jars. Aren't they so intriguing?! Tom Yum instant paste is definitely one of our favourite. It's actually so versatile and you can get so creative. Those little jars are so convenient when you want to whip up a quick lunch or dinner for the family.

Craving Thai Food? Check out our recipes:

What is Tom Yum?

Tom Yum directly translates to something being boiled and a mix of sweet, sour and spicy, and usually refers to the very famous Tom Yum Soup. It has a hot and sour taste, combined with fragrant spices and a lot of fresh herbs. In this soup, you can find all the most popular ingredients in Thai cuisine, such as lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lime juice, fish sauce, palm sugar, tamarind, and red chili peppers. All these ingredients result in an explosion of spicy, sour, sweet, salty and citrusy flavors.

To make this recipe, we used Tom Yum paste, which is so convenient because you won't need to buy all the ingredients to make it yourself. Our Tom Yum pork fried rice is certainly not authentic, and we highly doubt this is an actual dish you can find in Thailand, but we love the flavors so much that we decided to try it in a fried rice!

A close up on Tom Yum pork fried rice. — A fried egg is the perfect addition to this dish.

Alternatives to Tom Yum Paste

You can use Nam Prik Pao instead, which is a spicy dried shrimp, but you will have to add fresh herbs such as lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal and lime juice to give it the same spicy sour taste.

Tips & Tricks to Perfect your Tom Yum Pork Fried Rice

Use low-sodium soy sauce so you can control the salt content better. We didn't have to add any more salt since we used low-sodium soy sauce (and some oyster sauce). But Premium soy sauce is a lot saltier and we believe it would make the dish a bit too salty.
Cook the ground pork separately and drain off the excess water. Ground pork can be watery when cooked and it's important to drain off the water since it would be your rice soggy. Best thing is to cook the pork beforehand, remove from pan and drain off the water, and set aside. Put it back into the pan before adding the sauce into the rice.
Use leftover white jasmine rice for the texture. If you use freshly cooked rice that's still soft, the dish might become too mushy.
Use Tom Yum instant paste. It will save you a tremendous amount of time and for most average Thai food lovers, it will satisfy your craving.
Don't skip the Thai basil! It adds such freshness and depth to the dish.

FAQ's

Where can I find Tom Yum paste?

The Tom Yum paste we used in this recipe can be found in Asian supermarkets or online. You can also make your own Tom Yum paste, but since fried rice is supposed to be a quick and easy recipe, we figured instant paste is a lot easier and convenient for most readers.

Do I have to use Jasmine rice?

You can use any long-grain white rice.

What kind of pan should I use?

Like any fried rice, the best result will come out of a wok. However, if you don't have a gas range or a wok, you can simply use a frying pan.

Another close up of Tom Yum pork Fried rice with fresh thai basil. — Thai basil adds the right amount of freshness and depth to this dish.

Ingredients

Below are the ingredients that we used for our recipe.

As for the main protein, we chose to use ground pork. It's tasty, easy to cook and retain all the flavor from the sauce. You could easily switch to chicken or shrimp, this is up to your personal preference!

If you can't handle spicy soup, you can also skip the Thai red chilis, as these are actually very spicy and the Tom Yum paste should actually already contain a little kick!

Fried Rice

Cooked white rice
Garlic
Eggs
Thai basil
Green onion
Ground pork
Thai red chilli
Canola oil

Fried Rice Sauce

Tom Yum instant paste
Low-sodium soy sauce
Oyster sauce
Sesame oil
Cane sugar
Water

Instructions

Prep the sauce. In a small bowl, combine the Tom Yum paste, low-sodium soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, cane sugar, and water. Mix well until all the sugar is dissolved and set aside.
Fry the eggs. Pour 3 tbsp of canola oil on a pan and heat over high heat. Add the eggs one at a time and fry for about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes until edges are browned and crispy. Flip the eggs and let cook for another 10 seconds. Remove from heat and set aside.
Cook the fried rice. Heat 1 tbsp of canola oil on a pan over medium high heat. Add the ground pork and separate into smaller bits using a spatula. Cook for 2 minutes or until no longer pink. Remove from heat and drain off excess water. Set aside in a bowl. Heat another tablespoon of oil on a pan. Add the garlic and Thai chillies and stir fry until fragrant and tender. Add the cooked jasmine rice and stir fry for 30 seconds. Combine the cooked ground pork back into the pan and mix. Stir in the sauce and mix well until all the rice is evenly covered. Stir fry for another 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add the green onions and Thai basil, mix well and remove from heat.
Serve and Enjoy! Serve fried rice with fried egg on top.