The 1 Thing You Should Add to Your Fried Rice, According to Benihana

POPSUGAR Photography
POPSUGAR Photography

If you've ever had Benihana's chicken fried rice, you've truly tasted the nectar of the gods. The flavor is incomparable, and it's so addictive that if you don't stop yourself, you'd easily eat an entire flat-top-filled serving (no shame). After making Benihana's fried rice recipe for ourselves, we finally learned the secret ingredient that makes all the difference — and no, it doesn't have anything to do with an onion volcano, although those are impressive too. The secret is garlic butter, and plenty of it.

Instead of sauteing garlic in oil before adding the vegetables and chicken, Benihana adds full-on scoops of butter infused with garlic, and that fatty flavor seeps into every nook and cranny of the rice. The cooks add two tablespoons of garlic butter to the diced chicken breast as it's cooking, and they later add more spoonfuls of garlic butter to the rice as they're mixing everything together toward the end. The garlic butter has a darkened color, so it appears the cooks might even take it a step further by caramelizing the garlic before blending it with butter. Now that you know the trick to making Benihana's fried rice, you can serve your own version at home — no tricks or flips required. Start with a garlic butter recipe, and then make the best copycat Benihana's fried rice you'll ever have.

POPSUGAR Photography