15-Minute Sheet Pan Chicken Fried Rice

Maria makes landfall on Wednesday. Two days from now. The forecast has not changed. It is going to hit Puerto Rico as a Category 4, maybe still Category 5, and there is nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do. The island is in the path and the path is certain and my mother is in the path and my mother is certain — certain that she will stay, certain that the house will hold, certain with the certainty of an eighty-year-old woman who has survived everything and believes she will survive this too.

I worked today. I went to the hospital and I ran my kitchen and I made fifteen hundred meals and every single one was on time and every single one was correct and nobody knew that the woman running the kitchen was falling apart inside because I have spent twenty years training myself to function when the world is ending and today is the test and I am passing and I hate that I am passing because passing means pretending and pretending means smiling and smiling means lying and I am lying to everyone except Eduardo, who sees the truth in my eyes at night when I cannot sleep.

Miguel Jr. called. Rosa called. David called from Brooklyn. They are all watching the weather. They are all scared. We are a family of scared people pretending to be brave, the way all families are when the thing they fear is beyond their control. I told them: whatever happens, we will handle it together. This is what Delgado women say. We will handle it. We always handle it. We handle hurricanes and murders and alcoholism and poverty and the six hundred miles between Hartford and Bayamon, and we handle it by cooking and crying and calling each other and saying we will handle it even when we do not know how.

I am not cooking this week. Not really. I am putting food on the table because Eduardo and Sofia need to eat and I am their mother and their wife and feeding them is the contract I signed when I married and when I gave birth. But the food has no joy in it. The food is mechanical. The sofrito is correct but not inspired. The rice is done but not beautiful. I am cooking with my hands but not with my heart because my heart is in Bayamon, in a concrete block house, with a woman who taught me everything I know and who will not leave, who will not leave, who will not leave. Mami. Please. The roof. Please hold. Please.

This is the rice I made that week. Not arroz con gandules, not my mother’s recipe, not anything that required my heart to show up. Sheet pan chicken fried rice—fifteen minutes, one pan, done. Eduardo and Sofia needed dinner and I needed to not stand at the stove stirring something that would remind me of Mami’s kitchen in Bayamón, so I threw chicken and rice on a sheet pan and let the oven do the work while I checked the Weather Channel for the hundredth time. The rice got done. It always gets done.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 17 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 cups cooked rice, chilled (day-old rice works best)
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sriracha (optional)
1 cup frozen peas and carrots
3 green onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Set oven to 425°F. Line a large sheet pan with parchment paper or lightly grease it.
Season the chicken. In a bowl, toss chicken pieces with 1 tablespoon sesame oil, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, garlic, and ginger. Spread in a single layer on one half of the sheet pan.
Prepare the rice. In the same bowl, toss chilled rice with the remaining 1 tablespoon sesame oil, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Spread on the other half of the sheet pan. Scatter frozen peas and carrots over the rice.
Bake. Place the sheet pan in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, until chicken is cooked through and rice edges are slightly crispy.
Add the eggs. Remove the pan, push everything to the edges, and pour beaten eggs into the center. Return to the oven for 2 minutes until eggs are just set, then use a spatula to break them into pieces and toss everything together.
Finish and serve. Drizzle with sriracha if using, top with sliced green onions, and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

15-Minute Sheet Pan Chicken Fried Rice — The Rice That Gets Done Whether Your Heart Is In It or Not