8 fast Asian dinners for an almost-empty fridge

When the fridge is down to eggs, some rice or noodles, and a few sauce bottles, you still have dinner. These eight dishes are fast (most under 20 minutes), built for one or two, and forgiving about substitutions. Pick whichever matches what you’ve got.

Rice-based

1. Tomato & egg stir-fry — the Chinese home classic. Soft scrambled egg, sweet-savoury tomato, over rice. Cheap and comforting.
2. Nasi goreng — day-old rice fried with kecap manis and a fried egg on top. The blueprint for using up leftover rice.
3. Korean tuna-mayo rice bowl — a tin of tuna, mayo, a fried egg and a drizzle of soy over hot rice. Eight minutes, no real cooking.
4. Oyakodon — chicken and egg simmered in sweet soy and slid over rice. Pure comfort food.

Noodle-based

5. Garlic soy pan-fried noodles — noodles, garlic, soy, a little char. The fastest noodle dish there is.
6. Gochujang butter noodles — spicy-savoury Korean flavours in a glossy butter sauce, with a soft egg on top.

Tofu & vegetable

7. Quick mapo tofu — silky tofu in a spicy bean sauce. Big flavour from a couple of pantry pastes.
8. Sambal kangkung — water spinach flash-fried with chilli sambal; serve over rice to make it a meal.

The one habit that helps

Keep day-old rice and a few eggs around and you’re never really out of dinner. Rice fries better when it’s cold and dry, and an egg turns almost anything into a complete plate. The sauces do the rest — see the 8 sauces worth stocking.

Want the list narrowed to exactly what you have right now? Tell OneToCook what’s in your fridge and it’ll rank dishes by how much you already own.