Taiwanese Sticky Rice (You Fan 油飯)

You fan (油飯) is a classic and comforting Taiwanese dish packed with umami and just really satisfying to eat. This recipe is your best bet for successfully making your own at home!

In Taiwan, you fan is commonly eaten at wedding receptions or as a gift from parents to relatives and friends when their newborn baby boy turns one month old. Here in the US, many Chinese people also serve it as Thanksgiving stuffing.

Making a good you fan at home is actually pretty easy. The key is to cook the sticky rice (glutinous rice) properly so it can maintain its QQ (bouncy/ springy/ pleasantly chewy) texture after mixing it with the rest of the ingredients. In this recipe, I will show you two different ways of making perfect sticky rice at home.

Why You Should Try This Recipe

• The recipe is tried and true. It's been tested many times and always come out perfect.
• I will show you two different ways of making sticky rice.
• I used both long grain and short grain sticky rice to create the best texture.
• It freezes and reheats well.

Ingredients You'll Need

note

• Sticky rice - also refers to glutinous rice or sweet rice. I use a combination of long grain and short grain sticky rice to create the best texture.
• Crispy fried shallot - store bought or homemade. Here's how you make your own crispy fried shallot at home.
• Pork belly - both skin on or skin off will work.
• Rock sugar - can be replaced with regular sugar.

How to Make This Recipe

Step 1 - Make sticky rice. Here are two ways to do it:

The first way is cooking in a bamboo steamer. This is the traditional method, which is also the most ideal way to make perfect sticky rice for making you fan, but it requires presoaking the rice for at least 3 hours in warm water (ideally 6 hours to overnight in cold water).

In this method, start by lining a piece of damp kitchen towel in a bamboo steamer. Next, drain your presoaked rice before spreading it out evenly on the towel. Poke some holes in the rice (see picture below) to allow the hot air to flow through. Fold in the edge of the towel before covering with lid.

In a wok or a deep pot, bring 4 cups of water to a boil before setting the steamer on top of the pot. Steam for 25-30 minutes over medium heat. If the rice is not cooked through (which never happened to me), sprinkle some water, turn and flip the rice a bit and cook for another 5 - 10 minutes.

Second way is cooking in a rice cooker. (this method doesn't work with Instant Pot)

If you have a good rice cooker, this is a super easy and convenient way to cook sticky rice. In this method, you don't need to presoak the rice -- all you need to do is to put in sticky rice and water with a 1: ⅔ ratio and cook it the same way that you'd cook white rice.

I made it with my favorite Cuckoo IH rice cooker and it always turns out very well, and I like how it only takes 30 minutes to cook!

Step 2 - Prepare other ingredients.

Cut pork belly into small pieces.

Mince garlic and dried shrimp. Squeeze the excess water from shiitake mushrooms before cutting into slices.

Step 3 - Brown pork belly and stir fry with the aromatic ingredients.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat and render fat from pork belly before adding ginger, garlic, dried shrimp and shiitake mushroom. Stir and cook for 1 minutes.

Step 4 - Add seasoning.

Add soy sauce, sugar, white pepper powder, Chinese five-spice powder, sesame oil and water; cover and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Step 5 - Assemble.

Turn off the heat, mix in cooked sticky rice and crispy fried shallot and that's all!

You can serve it right away, but for the best results, turn on low heat, stir and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Cover and let it sit for 10 minutes before serving. This will allow the flavors to meld and get into the rice s bit more.

In Taiwan, we usually serve it with chopped cilantro and Taiwanese sweet chili sauce like this or this.

This Taiwanese sticky rice is super delicious, make sure you give it a try!

Tips and Tricks

• Cooking sticky rice properly is the key to success for this recipe. You want the sticky rice to be cooked through without becoming mushy or clumping together.
• The surface of the sticky rice that's cooked in a rice cooker will be a little bit stickier than the one cooked in a bamboo steamer, so it requires a bit more patience when mixing it in with other ingredients.
• When mixing the sticky rice with other ingredients, the goal is to coat each grain of rice with sauce without smashing the rice. Use the side of the spatula to "cut" and separate the rice and scoop the bottom to the top so that the sauce can distribute evenly, which in turn helps to separate the rice grains.
• Add a bit more water if the rice is too dry and difficult to incorporate with other ingredients.

Recipe FAQs

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