Of All the Rice Hacks, This Is My Favorite

It’s That Simple is our series about recipes so easy, you can make them with your eyes closed. Think tiny ingredient lists, laid-back techniques, and results so delicious you’ll text home about them.

We all have our carb of choice and mine is rice. I eat it almost every day, plain, as a companion to olive-oil-crisped eggs, stir-fried veggies, slow-roasted salmon, and more. But every so often I want my rice to have a little more personality. My quick fix: season with scallions—a lot of them.

When I was growing up in a Korean household, scallions were used in just about every savory dish. My mother would start countless recipes with pa gireum, a simple scallion oil for soups, stews, and braises. She’d sizzle coarsely chopped scallions in oil on the stovetop until they became fragrant and tender before adding the rest of her ingredients. This method gives Korean dishes their signature allium undertone, a heady flavor I’ve adored for as long as I can remember.

Lately, for me, pa gireum has become a no-brainer way to upgrade a pot of rice. Just one cup of rice is mixed with two whole bunches of scallions. Cooking the pale parts and leaving the green tops raw delivers a full spectrum of flavor—the toasty sweetness of frizzled allium and a sharp herbaceousness, all at once. I like to serve it alongside a seared protein, especially deeply browned chicken thighs. But on a busy night, this rice is special enough to eat on its own.

Scallion-infused oil, or pa gireum in Korean, is a fragrant way to upgrade a pot of rice.

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