Will it Quesadilla? Kimchi Fried Rice with Spam

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Yes, it quesadillas!

I bought a 30 pack of flour tortillas from regular Costco and a 5lb bag of shredded Mexican four cheese blend from business Costco. The only way to eat it all is to try to quesadilla everything.

My wife asked me to recreate the kimchi fried rice with spam from Bear’s Ramen House for a bit of nostalgia. I adapted a recipe from slice & swirl.

The quesadilla version of this is also delicious. It adds a toasted tortilla and melted gooey cheese texture to the mix. I think a burrito version would also work. Start a food truck and charge people $15 for lunch downtown.

Ingredients

  • 1 block spam (diced) or 1 block of extra firm tofu
  • 2 cups of kimchi
  • 4 cups cooked rice
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
  • 4 tablespoons sesame oil
  • 2 teaspoons gochujang
  • 2 teaspoons paprika powder
  • 4 green onions (chopped)
  • 1 egg (per serving)
  • Whole sesame seed for garnishing (optional)

Instructions

For the kimchi fried rice:

  • Heat the oil in a pan over high heat and brown the spam or tofu. Add in the kimchi, stir everything for a few more minutes until everything is heated through.
  • Push the ingredients to the edge of the wok and put the rice in the middle. Add the soy sauce, sesame oil, gochujang, and paprika. Stir everything together and fry the rice.
  • Fry the eggs, but keep a runny yolk
  • Scoop the fried rice into a bowl, top with green onion, sesame seed, green onion, and a fried egg.
  • Mix the runny yolk into the rice.

For the tortilla:

  • Place tortilla in a pan, cover the whole tortilla with cheese
  • Scoop the kimchi spam fried rice onto half of the tortilla
  • Heat until the cheese is melted.
  • Fold over the tortilla and slice into pieces.

Notes

  • I scaled the recipe up to use a whole block of spam.
  • The original recipe would have called for 6 tablespoons of soy sauce. We tried that and it was way too salty. Keep in mind the sodium content of the ingredients:
    • 2 cups of Costco kimchi is 112% daily sodium
    • 1 block of spam is 204% daily sodium
    • 6 tablespoons soy sauce (Kikkoman) is 252% sodium
      • If you use 6 tablespoons of regular soy sauce and this makes 4 servings, that’s 142% daily sodium per serving
    • 3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce (Lee Kum Kee) is 66% sodium
      • If you use 3 tablespoons of low-sodium soy sauce and this makes 4 servings, that’s 95.5% daily sodium per serving
    • Even with halving the soy sauce and using low-sodium soy sauce, this is plenty salty.
  • The original recipe called for chili paste. Adjusted this to gochujang.
  • Added the green onions while frying, omitted the sesame seeds.