Chef Stephanie Izard Shares Her and Her Son’s Favorite Meal When She’s Has to Get Dinner on the Table
The eternal dilemma of figuring out what’s for dinner comes up for everyone — even professional chefs. At least that’s what I gathered when I recently spoke with Stephanie Izard, executive chef and owner of Girl & the Goat, in the SKS showroom during Design Chicago 2026. While raising her 10-year-old son, Ernie, Izard helms six restaurants in Chicago and Los Angeles, so she knows how tricky it can be to put dinner on the table night after night. Luckily, the James Beard Award winner has the perfect solution for busy evenings: “We love fried rice,” she says.
“Fried rice is like, ‘Okay, I don’t have time, and I can just go in my fridge and make everything,’” Izard explains, adding that it’s Ernie’s favorite, so you know it’s kid-approved. Below, she details exactly what goes into her version of this quick dinner, and it sounds so good.
What’s in Stephanie Izard’s Go-To Fried Rice?
The beauty of fried rice is that you can easily make it your own. But if you want to take inspiration from Izard and her very short (yay!) list of ingredients, she says that Ernie loves eggs, so of course they go in, plus just a few other delicious elements. “I’m like, protein, get it on. Protein, pepperoni, and sweet corn fried rice, I just make a platter of it,” she explains.
As someone who strictly thinks “pizza” when it comes to pepperoni, I needed to know a little bit more. “All you need is a little bit of pepperoni and the flavor goes all through the rice when you’re cooking it,” says Izard. She also doesn’t stress if they don’t have all the ingredients on hand, sharing, “I’ll put chickpeas in there sometimes too if I want extra protein and we don’t have any corn.”
How to Make Stephanie Izard’s Fried Rice
Need more guidance before you take on the Top Chef Season 4 winner’s recipe? She’s got you. “We make the eggs, put the cooked rice in with just a little bit of butter, hit it all with soy, and that pepperoni cooks into it, and then finish it with some sweet corn,” Izard explains. “We sit there with two spoons, and we go to town. It’s delicious,” she adds.
Not to mention, you can generally cook a fried rice recipe in as little as 15 minutes from start to finish, and that sounds like a weeknight win.