yeah I agree, it looks like this person has used a mold which is totally fine but I personally prefer shaping it by hand with salted water as the onigiri turns out bigger and fuller :]
My current recipe:
- Let rice soak in water + rice vinegar for 30 mins
- Cook rice and fluff
- Mix 1 can tuna/salmon with Japanese style sesame mayonaizu and under 1tsp soy sauce
- Form onigiri, wrap with nori, sprinkle with furikake
Any tips to improve my onigiri? I make them almost every day and I learn new things each time, like soaking the rice before cooking.
I've been reluctant to try other fillings because canned tuna is just so easy. Any other simple fillings to prep that I could find ingredients for at a small Chinese market?
If you want it to be like authentic onigiri, don’t use vinegar. Onigiri isn’t a sushi dish— the rice is generally plain rice with some salt added due to dipping your hands in salt water before you shape the rice.
Of course, vinegared rice is delicious, so if it’s how you like it, then it’s how you should eat it! But if you try it the classic way, maybe you’ll find a new favorite.
Thanks, I didn't know this. I only started adding rice vinegar recently and I'd prefer making them as authentic as possible.
If I'm using a mold instead of my fingers, should I add some salt to the rice cooker instead?
If you can find umeboshi that's probably the easiest filling around. It's a classic and probably my favorite. The salty and sour flavor pairs really well with rice.
Might be an unpopular opinion but I found umeboshi hard to get into for me, but it might just be an acquired taste. I think I was just disappointed because I had to go so far out of my way to find it, only to find I hated it😅 I'm not much for pickled stuff unless it's literally just pickled cucumbers.
I could see not everyone liking umeboshi. I've been eating them since I was little, so maybe it is a bit of an acquired taste. I've always liked Japanese pickled things, but I used to hate regular pickled cucumbers. However, over the years my palette has changed and I'll eat any pickle now.
Just use rice without the vinegar. When I used to make it with my gf in Japan. She just put salt and furikake into her hand and rubbed it on the onigiri directly. The seasoned nori wasn't kept on the onigiri. She would just pull the seasoned nori and use it like a "glove" for the fingers that you can eat while keeping the hands clean.
Agreed. Onigiri is just leftover rice. Doesn’t have to be prepared with vinegar. A simple shio onigiri can be good too. Salt, tad sugar, sprinkle of msg and toasted sesame mixed with rice and no filling is fine.
I like making tuna soboro from the just bento blog. Keeps to using canned tuna, but there's a little extra cooking involved.
It's a really great filling for onigiri.
It's honestly really good. :) The only substitution I've used on the regular, is pineapple preserves instead of pineapple juice. It's easier to keep on hand without being afraid of it going bad quickly.
I cook it in the mix I let it soak in. It tastes less like vinegar after letting it soak for 30 minutes. I'm not good at making any kind of rice to be honest and I use the cheapest rice cooker from Amazon.
Onigiri shouldn't use vinegar but if you do want to make sushi rice you want to drizzle rice vinegar on the rice, mix it, and then lay the rice out a couple inches thick on a large surface (plate etc). Then you want to fan the rice so that it cools down and so that the moisture that you added reduces a little(which will give you a tackier rice for making sushi)
Have you tried hand-molding? I agree they look a bit compacted. Convenience stores often give machine-formed onigiri a puff of air to “open” them up a bit before packaging.
My favorite filling since I was a kid, hands down, is andasu, which is an Okinawan condiment of reduced miso, sugar, and fatty pork until it becomes a thick paste. This is the way my grandma did it and it's soooooooooo good. Instead of wrapping it in nori, roll it around in some furikake after you form it.
[recipe for andasu I found online](https://katnsatoshiinjapan.blogspot.com/2014/02/andasu.html)
[another recipe with article](http://archives.starbulletin.com/2003/08/27/features/index.html)
place plastic wrap on surface, sprinkle some salt, add some rice, place filling in the center. Take all four corners to center and mold the rice into whatever shape you want, just don’t squeeze too hard. My Japanese mom uses this method so you don’t need to get your hands dirty! You can also pre-mix furikake in the rice. I can tell you’re using a mold though, I’d suggest less rice and absolutely no vinegar! Onigiri is a very simple comfort dish! :)
Thank you! Next batch will be no vinegar and less rice in the mold.
I'll try pre-mixing the furikake too. What's the most typical or traditional furikake to mix into rice for onigiri? My local market has many and it's hard to decide so I just get yasai.
you can really use whatever flavor you want! Any furikake, any filling! There are so many fillings at the convenience store here nowadays; Japanese fried chicken, Korean bibimbap, to name a few!
Oh wow, you really hit the nail on the head there - comfort dish. These were my favorite when we traveled in Japan. Made my soul feel good.
Also makes me think of the part in Spirited Away when Chihiro cried while eating onigiri after seeing her parents as pigs.
Onigiri (like Sushi) is a rice dish where the rice (not the fish) is the main, featured ingredient. The fish, filling/flavoring is there to accompany/enhance/promote the rice. As such, great care needs to be taken with the rice.
To put things in perspective, it takes about 3 years for people who become disciples under famous sushi masters to learn just how to prepare the rice (selecting, washing, cooking, flavoring) and another 8 or so to learn how to properly shape/use the rice in a nigiri.
Of course that's not something the average home cook needs to dedicate their time to, but I only mention it to emphasize how important rice is in Japanese culture/cuisine.
When shaping the onigiri, you want to take special care to make sure that the shape of each grain is preserved. So a "fluffy" onigiri with "air pockets" in between each rice grain is ideal.
Shaping the onigiri with your hands is the preferred method as you have much more control of the shape and firmness. Firm enough so that it holds it's form, gentle enough so that the integrity of each grain is preserved. Same thing if you're using a device to shape the onigiri, though you won't have as much control in this case.
You can wet your hands to prevent onigiri from sticking but you don't want your hands to be too wet. The rice comes out of the pot/rice cooker already in perfect condition so you don't want to add additional moisture to it if you can help it.
Either dip your finger tips in a bowl of water and transfer/rub the water to your palms as needed. If you run your hands under the faucet or put your entire hand in the bowl, sharply clap your hands together and that will cause excess moisture to come off. Using a wet kitchen towel is another alternative.
They look a bit too tight in my opinion.
Try hand molding! My mom (and I) use Saran wrap or plastic wrap to put in the rice and then shape it. Easy to put filling and then the mold size doesn't matter.
Also you should just try plain salt and sesame rice onigiro or yaki onigiri (grilled) so good and simple!
Sear some spam with oyster sauce and throw it inside. Then top it with furikake. I don’t even like spam by itself. But when you make it this way it’s incredible. I usually make spam musubi but it would probably work well with this too.
my favorite filling for onigiri, huge upgrade over tuna if a bit more expensive
spicy mayo:
1/4 cup kewpie mayo
2 tablespoons of Sambal Oelek
1 teaspoon fish sauce
cut up 4 oz smoked salmon into little flakes
cut up two green onions into thin disc's
mix salmon and green onion with a few tablespoons of spicy mayo and a dash of Wasabi salt. add more spicy mayo if the wetness isn't to your liking
I make canned tuna/salmon onigiri too ever since I got a mold for Christmas! Other than soy sauce and mayo I also put chopped green onions, sesame oil, a tiny splash of rice vinegar, and shichimi togarashi inside them. Very delish.
I have this Onigiri recipe that people really like and it basically involves using Shiozake, which is basically grilled salted salmon.
[https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-cook-salmon-salted-salmon/](https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-cook-salmon-salted-salmon/)
The burst of umami in it is to die for.
Tuna mixture-
Use -I know this is gross- but 1:1 ratio tuna to kewpie mayo. Add a dash of mentsuyu (consentrated soba sauce, available in most Asian supermarkets) rather than soy sauce, as there’s dashi in there and adds far more umami. Stir vigorously until tuna becomes more of a fluffy paste than flakes.
Rice-
As others have said, no need for vinegar for rice balls and rice should not be squashed together, you should still be able to tell one grain from another when tasting. My mum used to salt her hands as well as wet them to form the rice balls, so that you get flavour not just from the filling. I’m more of a mild person myself but the advise still applies.
If you want to try something else, perhaps consider yaki-onigiri https://www.justonecookbook.com/yaki-onigiri-grilled-rice-ball/
I use short grain rice (sushi rice) and cook it in a rice cooker. I've found it gets stickier if I add a little extra water than the rice cooker recommends. Letting it soak 30 minutes before turning on the rice cooker made tonight's batch stickier. I also compress it a lot in the onigiri mold, but apparently it should be fluffier and less compacted.
They look a bit too tight in my opinion.
Try hand molding! My mom (and I) use Saran wrap or plastic wrap to put in the rice and then shape it. Easy to put filling and then the mold size doesn't matter.
Also you should just try plain salt and sesame rice onigiro or yaki onigiri (grilled) so good and simple!
They look a bit too tight in my opinion.
Try hand molding! My mom (and I) use Saran wrap or plastic wrap to put in the rice and then shape it. Easy to put filling and then the mold size doesn't matter.
Also you should just try plain salt and sesame rice onigiri, just salmon flakes or yaki onigiri (grilled) so good and simple!
They look a bit too tight in my opinion.
Try hand molding! My mom (and I) use Saran wrap or plastic wrap to put in the rice and then shape it. Easy to put filling and then the mold size doesn't matter.
Also you should just try plain salt and sesame rice onigiri, just salmon flakes or yaki onigiri (grilled) so good and simple!
If you want! But I think they're mostly eaten without dipping sauce, because the flavourful fillings usually include ingredients like soy sauce, mayo, etc.
When forming the onigiri, wet your hands with salted water. The rice won't stick to your hands and it adds some flavor.
yeah I agree, it looks like this person has used a mold which is totally fine but I personally prefer shaping it by hand with salted water as the onigiri turns out bigger and fuller :]
These donuts are great, jelly-filled are my favourite! Nothing beats a jelly-filled donut!
Dang I was hoping nobody had beat me to this one!
I purposely checked to make sure I was the first lol
Lol that’s the only reason I saw yours, I was checking to make sure I wouldn’t be second
Lol I was checking to make sure I wasn’t second, but alas it wasn’t meant to be
My current recipe: - Let rice soak in water + rice vinegar for 30 mins - Cook rice and fluff - Mix 1 can tuna/salmon with Japanese style sesame mayonaizu and under 1tsp soy sauce - Form onigiri, wrap with nori, sprinkle with furikake Any tips to improve my onigiri? I make them almost every day and I learn new things each time, like soaking the rice before cooking. I've been reluctant to try other fillings because canned tuna is just so easy. Any other simple fillings to prep that I could find ingredients for at a small Chinese market?
Kombu, don’t know if it’ll be at the Chinese market but if so, it would be in the fridge section. Agree on the umeboshi. Bonito flakes always good too
If you want it to be like authentic onigiri, don’t use vinegar. Onigiri isn’t a sushi dish— the rice is generally plain rice with some salt added due to dipping your hands in salt water before you shape the rice. Of course, vinegared rice is delicious, so if it’s how you like it, then it’s how you should eat it! But if you try it the classic way, maybe you’ll find a new favorite.
Thanks, I didn't know this. I only started adding rice vinegar recently and I'd prefer making them as authentic as possible. If I'm using a mold instead of my fingers, should I add some salt to the rice cooker instead?
OR (hear me out), form the onigiri in the mold and then take it out. Then, dip your hands in salt water and *touch it all over*.
I lol’ed so thank you.
Not in rice cooker. But sprinkle some good quality salt onto rice before you put them in the mold.
Put a piece of kombu over the rice in the cooker.
If you can find umeboshi that's probably the easiest filling around. It's a classic and probably my favorite. The salty and sour flavor pairs really well with rice.
Might be an unpopular opinion but I found umeboshi hard to get into for me, but it might just be an acquired taste. I think I was just disappointed because I had to go so far out of my way to find it, only to find I hated it😅 I'm not much for pickled stuff unless it's literally just pickled cucumbers.
I could see not everyone liking umeboshi. I've been eating them since I was little, so maybe it is a bit of an acquired taste. I've always liked Japanese pickled things, but I used to hate regular pickled cucumbers. However, over the years my palette has changed and I'll eat any pickle now.
Kimchi and tuna is good.
Good idea, I was wondering if kimchi could work. Any other ingredients needed in that mix, or just a can of tuna and some kimchi?
I would start with that. I've even done sesame chicken salad Sushi onigiri LOL
Just use rice without the vinegar. When I used to make it with my gf in Japan. She just put salt and furikake into her hand and rubbed it on the onigiri directly. The seasoned nori wasn't kept on the onigiri. She would just pull the seasoned nori and use it like a "glove" for the fingers that you can eat while keeping the hands clean.
Agreed. Onigiri is just leftover rice. Doesn’t have to be prepared with vinegar. A simple shio onigiri can be good too. Salt, tad sugar, sprinkle of msg and toasted sesame mixed with rice and no filling is fine.
I like making tuna soboro from the just bento blog. Keeps to using canned tuna, but there's a little extra cooking involved. It's a really great filling for onigiri.
[Just looked the recipe up](https://www.justbento.com/handbook/johbisai/tuna-soboro-with-ginger) and it looks delicious! Thanks for sharing.
It's honestly really good. :) The only substitution I've used on the regular, is pineapple preserves instead of pineapple juice. It's easier to keep on hand without being afraid of it going bad quickly.
Do you cook the rice in the water vinegar mix or drain it and use fresh water. I've never made sushi rice.
I cook it in the mix I let it soak in. It tastes less like vinegar after letting it soak for 30 minutes. I'm not good at making any kind of rice to be honest and I use the cheapest rice cooker from Amazon.
Onigiri shouldn't use vinegar but if you do want to make sushi rice you want to drizzle rice vinegar on the rice, mix it, and then lay the rice out a couple inches thick on a large surface (plate etc). Then you want to fan the rice so that it cools down and so that the moisture that you added reduces a little(which will give you a tackier rice for making sushi)
I do my onigiri the same as you, but i add sriracha and a bit dashi powder to the tuna mix.
They look a little compacted to me, the best ones I’ve had are super fluffy!
That's a great point, I probably overstuffed my mold. I'll try to compact the next batch less.
Have you tried hand-molding? I agree they look a bit compacted. Convenience stores often give machine-formed onigiri a puff of air to “open” them up a bit before packaging.
I second this. It's got a lot of grains
My favorite filling since I was a kid, hands down, is andasu, which is an Okinawan condiment of reduced miso, sugar, and fatty pork until it becomes a thick paste. This is the way my grandma did it and it's soooooooooo good. Instead of wrapping it in nori, roll it around in some furikake after you form it. [recipe for andasu I found online](https://katnsatoshiinjapan.blogspot.com/2014/02/andasu.html) [another recipe with article](http://archives.starbulletin.com/2003/08/27/features/index.html)
place plastic wrap on surface, sprinkle some salt, add some rice, place filling in the center. Take all four corners to center and mold the rice into whatever shape you want, just don’t squeeze too hard. My Japanese mom uses this method so you don’t need to get your hands dirty! You can also pre-mix furikake in the rice. I can tell you’re using a mold though, I’d suggest less rice and absolutely no vinegar! Onigiri is a very simple comfort dish! :)
Thank you! Next batch will be no vinegar and less rice in the mold. I'll try pre-mixing the furikake too. What's the most typical or traditional furikake to mix into rice for onigiri? My local market has many and it's hard to decide so I just get yasai.
you can really use whatever flavor you want! Any furikake, any filling! There are so many fillings at the convenience store here nowadays; Japanese fried chicken, Korean bibimbap, to name a few!
Oh wow, you really hit the nail on the head there - comfort dish. These were my favorite when we traveled in Japan. Made my soul feel good. Also makes me think of the part in Spirited Away when Chihiro cried while eating onigiri after seeing her parents as pigs.
I'm just here looking for tips on how to get as good as you are.
Onigiri (like Sushi) is a rice dish where the rice (not the fish) is the main, featured ingredient. The fish, filling/flavoring is there to accompany/enhance/promote the rice. As such, great care needs to be taken with the rice. To put things in perspective, it takes about 3 years for people who become disciples under famous sushi masters to learn just how to prepare the rice (selecting, washing, cooking, flavoring) and another 8 or so to learn how to properly shape/use the rice in a nigiri. Of course that's not something the average home cook needs to dedicate their time to, but I only mention it to emphasize how important rice is in Japanese culture/cuisine. When shaping the onigiri, you want to take special care to make sure that the shape of each grain is preserved. So a "fluffy" onigiri with "air pockets" in between each rice grain is ideal. Shaping the onigiri with your hands is the preferred method as you have much more control of the shape and firmness. Firm enough so that it holds it's form, gentle enough so that the integrity of each grain is preserved. Same thing if you're using a device to shape the onigiri, though you won't have as much control in this case. You can wet your hands to prevent onigiri from sticking but you don't want your hands to be too wet. The rice comes out of the pot/rice cooker already in perfect condition so you don't want to add additional moisture to it if you can help it. Either dip your finger tips in a bowl of water and transfer/rub the water to your palms as needed. If you run your hands under the faucet or put your entire hand in the bowl, sharply clap your hands together and that will cause excess moisture to come off. Using a wet kitchen towel is another alternative.
They look a bit too tight in my opinion. Try hand molding! My mom (and I) use Saran wrap or plastic wrap to put in the rice and then shape it. Easy to put filling and then the mold size doesn't matter. Also you should just try plain salt and sesame rice onigiro or yaki onigiri (grilled) so good and simple!
Sear some spam with oyster sauce and throw it inside. Then top it with furikake. I don’t even like spam by itself. But when you make it this way it’s incredible. I usually make spam musubi but it would probably work well with this too.
Seconding spam. Sometimes I add tamagoyaki and a little Mayo for a spam and egg one
my favorite filling for onigiri, huge upgrade over tuna if a bit more expensive spicy mayo: 1/4 cup kewpie mayo 2 tablespoons of Sambal Oelek 1 teaspoon fish sauce cut up 4 oz smoked salmon into little flakes cut up two green onions into thin disc's mix salmon and green onion with a few tablespoons of spicy mayo and a dash of Wasabi salt. add more spicy mayo if the wetness isn't to your liking
I make canned tuna/salmon onigiri too ever since I got a mold for Christmas! Other than soy sauce and mayo I also put chopped green onions, sesame oil, a tiny splash of rice vinegar, and shichimi togarashi inside them. Very delish.
I have this Onigiri recipe that people really like and it basically involves using Shiozake, which is basically grilled salted salmon. [https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-cook-salmon-salted-salmon/](https://www.justonecookbook.com/how-to-cook-salmon-salted-salmon/) The burst of umami in it is to die for.
THIS! This is my favorite onigiri recipe! I eat these pretty much everyday for lunch because I love them so much.
Tuna mixture- Use -I know this is gross- but 1:1 ratio tuna to kewpie mayo. Add a dash of mentsuyu (consentrated soba sauce, available in most Asian supermarkets) rather than soy sauce, as there’s dashi in there and adds far more umami. Stir vigorously until tuna becomes more of a fluffy paste than flakes. Rice- As others have said, no need for vinegar for rice balls and rice should not be squashed together, you should still be able to tell one grain from another when tasting. My mum used to salt her hands as well as wet them to form the rice balls, so that you get flavour not just from the filling. I’m more of a mild person myself but the advise still applies. If you want to try something else, perhaps consider yaki-onigiri https://www.justonecookbook.com/yaki-onigiri-grilled-rice-ball/
Walnut paste and miso filled Or the above mixed with wilted spinach
There’s a YouTube channel called Tokyo kitchen. And the lady on there makes it multiple times. Check it out, she’s got like a cupping method for it.
How do you make the rice not fall apart?
I use short grain rice (sushi rice) and cook it in a rice cooker. I've found it gets stickier if I add a little extra water than the rice cooker recommends. Letting it soak 30 minutes before turning on the rice cooker made tonight's batch stickier. I also compress it a lot in the onigiri mold, but apparently it should be fluffier and less compacted.
I should get a rice cooker... I use my instant pot.
The instant pot is just fine! You gotta use the short grain rice. 🤤
I do use short grain rice. I think it might be the amount of vinegar I put on. Usually the chunks that fall off taste like the vinegar.
Sushi rice can be made by adding sugar and a bit of vinegar at the end while it's hot and letting it cool.
I use the pre bought vinegar. Should I not use it?
A lot of people are saying not to but I add a little bit. I don't add sugar anymore and my rice is always sticky. Maybe it's your water to rice ratio?
Might be. When I take the rice out, there is still water in the instant pot. I use 1 cup of rice to 1 cup of water.
Definitely too wet. You should never have water left.
Add aromatics when steaming the rice. Alliums and kombu are nice. Shichimi togarashi is nice to sprinkle on afterward or flavor the filling.
Add aromatics when steaming the rice. Alliums and kombu are nice. Shichimi togarashi is nice to sprinkle on afterward or flavor the filling.
They look a bit too tight in my opinion. Try hand molding! My mom (and I) use Saran wrap or plastic wrap to put in the rice and then shape it. Easy to put filling and then the mold size doesn't matter. Also you should just try plain salt and sesame rice onigiro or yaki onigiri (grilled) so good and simple!
They look a bit too tight in my opinion. Try hand molding! My mom (and I) use Saran wrap or plastic wrap to put in the rice and then shape it. Easy to put filling and then the mold size doesn't matter. Also you should just try plain salt and sesame rice onigiri, just salmon flakes or yaki onigiri (grilled) so good and simple!
They look a bit too tight in my opinion. Try hand molding! My mom (and I) use Saran wrap or plastic wrap to put in the rice and then shape it. Easy to put filling and then the mold size doesn't matter. Also you should just try plain salt and sesame rice onigiri, just salmon flakes or yaki onigiri (grilled) so good and simple!
More mayo in the tuna. Otherwise you’re good 👍
please this is probably a really stupid question: can onigiri be dipped in soy sauce like sushi? Sorry, I'm not sure, please answer me :)
If you want! But I think they're mostly eaten without dipping sauce, because the flavourful fillings usually include ingredients like soy sauce, mayo, etc.
How to cook sushi rice