Sinangag
Filipino garlic fried rice made with plenty of golden garlic and day-old rice, seasoned with salt and pepper.
Photograph credit: 09530jfCuisine Foods Fruits Philippines Baliuag Bulacanfvf 22 by Judgefloro · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Don't Make These Mistakes
Use rice cooked at least 6 hours earlier.
Keep the heat moderate while the garlic cooks.
Add a fried egg on top.
Making Sinangag
Tap a step to highlight it, or turn on Cook Mode for large type and step-by-step focus.
-
Heat the oil in a wok or wide pan over a medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring, until pale gold. Remove half with a slotted spoon.
-
Add the cold rice to the pan, breaking up the clumps. Toss over a medium-high heat for 4 minutes until hot and separate.
-
Season with the salt and pepper. Top with the reserved garlic and the spring onions.
Related guide: Choosing rice.
Something wrong or unclear in this recipe? Report a problem with this recipe.
Why the Method Works
Most home versions come out pale and clumpy, and the fix is rice that has been cooked the day before and plenty of garlic cooked until it is golden, not brown. Sinangag is the Filipino breakfast rice, served with tapa, longganisa or tocino and a fried egg, and the garlic is the whole flavour.
Use eight or more cloves for four servings. It looks like too many and it is not. Slice them thinly or crush and chop them fine, and cook them in oil over a medium-low heat for 2 or 3 minutes, stirring, until they turn pale gold and start to smell sweet. Take the pan off the heat the moment the garlic colours. It carries on cooking in the oil and goes from golden to bitter in seconds.
Remove half the garlic to use as a topping, add the cold rice, and break up the clumps with the back of a spoon. Toss for 4 minutes over medium-high heat until the grains are separate and hot all the way through. Season with salt and pepper and nothing else.
Serve with the crunchy garlic scattered over.
Storage and Reheating
Keeps in the fridge for 1 day. Reheat until piping hot.
If You're Missing Something
- Out of spring onions? A small regular onion, finely sliced, or a few chives stirred in at the end both cover the job.
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
What to Serve Alongside
- Tapa
- Longganisa
- Tocino
- Fried egg
What's in a Serving
Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: a cooked weight is worked out with raw figures, so those lines run high. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
You Might Also Like
More Filipino cooking and quick meals ideas from Weekly Delight.
Kimchi Fried Rice
Cold rice fried hard with sour kimchi and topped with a fried egg. Twenty-five minutes, and better the older the…
Vegetable Fried Rice
Day-old rice fried with egg, peas, carrot and spring onion in soy sauce and sesame oil. Four servings in 20 minutes.
Aloo Palak
Potato cubes simmered in a smooth spinach puree with garlic, ginger, cumin and a squeeze of lemon.
Chakalaka
A South African relish of onions, peppers, carrot and beans cooked hard with curry powder and chilli — served with…
Cilantro Lime Rice
Fluffy long-grain rice cooked in oil and finished with fresh lime juice, zest and a big handful of coriander. The…
Hot and Sour Potato Strips
Thin potato strips stir-fried over a high heat with garlic, dried chilli and vinegar until crisp-tender.