An easy, healthy idea to pack in your lunchbox. Seasoned rice stuffed with creamy, umami tuna with a nutty-crispy sesame crust. Perfect for picnic parties and for beach trips.
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What is Onigiri?
Onigiri is a Japanese food/snack commonly eaten at lunch and picnics. It's a delicious ball of well-seasoned sushi rice stuffed with an assortment of fillings. The ball is usually shaped like a triangle.
If you've visited Japan, these are those "sushi triangles" in 7/11, FamilyMart, and all other convenience stores! You'll find them stocked in the cold meals section.
This is a great budget meal since it's made with mostly just rice and canned tuna.
What Should I Put In My Onigiri?
The fillings are endless, but the most common are:
- Salmon (鮭, sake): Often seasoned with salt or mixed with mayonnaise.
- Tuna (マグロ, maguro): Usually mixed with mayonnaise or seasoned with soy sauce.
- Umeboshi (梅干し): Pickled plum, offering a tangy and salty flavor.
- Kombu (昆布): Seaweed, often seasoned with soy sauce or wrapped around the rice.
- Salmon roe (いくら, ikura): Fish eggs, providing a burst of flavor.
- Cod roe (たらこ, tarako): Salted cod roe, offering a savory taste.
- Grilled eel (うなぎ, unagi): Cooked eel, usually seasoned with a sweet soy sauce glaze.
- Teriyaki chicken (照り焼きチキン, teriyaki chikin): Grilled chicken with a sweet and savory teriyaki sauce.
Ingredients to Make Onigiri
For this simple recipe, we're going to make a classic Tuna Onigiri. It's pretty much a creamy, Japanese tuna salad stuffed into rice!
Ingredients:
- White sushi rice (or long-grain Jasmine rice)
- Mayo
- Canned tuna
- Green onion
- Soy sauce
- Splash of rice vinegar
How to Make Onigiri
Basically, you cook the rice as usual and make the tuna salad while waiting for the rice. Mix all tuna-filling ingredients in a bowl, ensuring the filling isn't too wet (or else the onigiri won't pack well). When rice is ready and cooled, shape into a triangular ball and add a scoop of tuna in the center. Add more rice on top to complete the "ball".
Optional but highly recommended: coat the rice ball in furikake (振り掛け), a Japanese rice seasoning usually containing sesame seeds, sugar, seaweed, and bonito flakes.
Expert Tips to Make Onigiri Stick Together
- Before shaping every onigiri, lightly wet your hands with clean water. This helps the rice from not sticking. Wearing gloves doesn't really help - I find the water method a lot more effective.
- Use a mold. At Asian grocery stores, it's easy to find onigiri molds that will help you shape the rice balls into uniform triangles. Techncially, you can use any small-sized container or tupperware in a pinch.
- Press the rice firmly when shaping. If you don't press firmly enough, the rice grains doesn't have the chance to stick to each other. The result is it just sticks to your hands. Press like it owes you money.
Can You Make Onigiri With Regular Rice?
Sushi rice tastes the most traditional and provides the best chewy-sticky texture. However, you can still use long-grain white Jasmine rice (regular) if you don't have sushi rice.
I don't recommend using any other rice than these two because it likely won't be sticky enough (e.g. basmati rice, arrobio) and the texture in general will be way off.
How Do You Store Onigiri?
Store in a closed container in the fridge for up to 3 days to maintain freshness. If packing for lunch, I recommend packing it with a small icepack to keep the tuna-filling cool.
For convenience, you can wrap each onigiri in plastic wrap. This does create plastic waste though, so I recommend eating them the day of making them.
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Recipe for Easy Onigiri
Easy Onigiri - Japanese Rice Balls (マグロおにぎり)
Ingredients
- 3 cups sushi rice cooked
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 pinch salt and sugar
Tuna Filling
- 1 can tuna drained
- 2 tablespoon mayo
- ½ teaspoon soy sauce
- 2 tablespoon green onion chopped
Optional Wrap/Toppings
- 1 tablespoon Furikake
- 1 sheet seaweed (nori)
Instructions
- Cook rice according to package instructions. When done cooking, mix in rice vinegar and a pinch of salt and sugar to taste. Don't over salt the rice.
- While letting it completely cool, mix all tuna-filling ingredients in a bowl. Set aside.
- Shaping inigiri with hands: with wet hands, take ~¼ cup of cooled sushi rice and shape into a triangle disk, about an inch wide. Add a tablespoon of tuna filling in the center. Add another ¼ cup of rice on top of the tuna, pressing FIRMLY to create a sticky, triangle shape.
- Optional: sprinkle outside of onigiri with Furikake or sesame seeds. You can also cut a strip of seaweed and wrap it around the onigiri to make it easy to hold.
2 responses to “Easy Onigiri - Japanese Rice Balls (マグロおにぎり)”
really yummy. made it for my kids
loved it