How to make Onigiri
Making onigiri is really easy! All you need is
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* Cooked sushi rice
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* Filling of your choice (tuna salad, salted salmon or even ham& cheese)
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* Ongiri molds
* Nori seaweed sheets
* Onigiri wrappers (if you plan to eat them later, these wrappers help keep the nori seaweed crispy)
1. Cooking Onigiri Rice
Unlike sushi, vinegar is not put into onigiri rice. Onigiri rice is simply plain short grain rice. It is also called sushi rice. When making omusubi or onigiri, it is slightly flavoured with plain salt.
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Sushi rice is the preferred choice of grain for making Japanese rice balls. This type of rice is sticky and creates a bond when cooked with water, which makes it perfect for making rice balls. We prefer to use the steaming method for making onigiri rice as this method is yields perfect rice every time. The rice is first washed, soaked in water and then steamed in a bamboo steamer with the same amount of water. It only takes 20 minutes to make onigiri rice. Make sure to cool the rice before making your onigiri or the nori seaweed might lose its crisp.
2. Filling for Onigiri
Fill your onigiri with flavorful mix of ingredients The most common fillings for onigiri in Japan are
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sha-ke (salted salmon)
umeboshi (Japanese pickled plum)
okaka (bonito flakes moistened with soy sauce
kombu (simmered kombu seaweed)
tuna mayo (canned tuna with Japanese mayonnaise)
tarako (salted cod roe)
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But who says we need to stick to just these ? Use your imagination and fill your onigiri with anything, from chicken teriyaki to ham & cheese to beef bulgogi. Or you can even use your leftover dinner stew to fill up some onigiri for tomorrow’s lunch. Just remember whatever filling you use, there shouldn’t be too much sauce in your filling, otherwise your onigiri might get too soggy and sauce leaks out!
3. Onigiri Molds
You can shape the rice into a triangle using just your hands. But the the hardest part about making onigiri is getting the right size to fit in your nori seaweed wrapper. Rice can be tricky to work with, but molds makes it easy to shape, which is why we recommend using an onigiri mold!
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Onigiri molds help shape the rice perfectly. The rice balls can then be wrapped easily with with our onigiri wrappers. Your rice balls will be perfectly shaped and sized for a seaweed wrapper, which is typically what's used to wrap these sushi balls.
4.Nori Seaweed and Onigiri Wrappers
Onigiri are usually prepared ahead of time and eaten as a takeaway, snack or meal on the go. Losing the crunchiness of the seaweed is one of the most common complaints when eating onigiri. To combat this problem, an intelligent wrapping was invented that allowed the nori seaweed to stay crunchy until the onigiri was eaten. These ingenious wrappers have made onigiris one of the most popular convenient and tasty meals on the go WITHOUT losing the crunch!
If you don’t have the wrappers, don’t worry, you can order here. Follow the instructions to use wrappers for a tasty onigiri on the go!
