Spam Musubi

June 13, 2007 Other Recipes

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Spam musubi isn’t exactly sushi, although it is very similar. It is a popular Hawaiian snack using spam, regular rice (not sumeshi), and nori. I find it to be really yummy and not too hard to make. The marinated/fried spam tastes almost like unagi, in an odd roundabout way, but trust me, it’s good! (Hehe that’s to all of you who turn your noses up at the idea of spam (the food) – it’s actually pretty good! Try it scrambled in eggs too 🙂 )

If I haven’t seemed quite here this past week, it’s because I’m in the middle of finals. Yeah, I know, my university finishes the year quite a bit later than most others, but that’s okay, because we get to start a lot later too! We don’t start until the end of September! 😛 Wish me luck – one more final this quarter, and then only a year left in school! I can’t wait to be out of here!

Makes 10 pieces.

Ingredients
Cooking Directions
  1. Cook the rice, using equal parts rice and water. I use a rice cooker, but you can also cook it on the stove if you don’t have a rice cooker.
  2. Mix the shoyu, oyster sauce, and sugar in a bowl until the sugar is completely dissolved.
  3. Cut the spam into about 10 pieces, horizontally (like you are slicing the top off each time). Keep the can!
  4. Place the span in the shoyu mix, marinate for about 5 minutes.
  5. Put the oil in a frying pan, heat over medium heat.
  6. Fry the marinated spam until brown, about 2 minutes on each side.
  7. Cut the nori into strips about 2.5 inches wide.
  8. Wash the can that the spam was in very well.
  9. Fill the can loosely with rice, then pack the rice into the can very tightly. It should end up about an inch or so thick. Update: To get the rice out of the can, I slammed the can upside down on the cutting board until the rice came out. You might also try to line the can with plastic wrap before you pack the rice, so it’s easy to pull it out.
  10. Place the rice on one end of the nori, so that they are perpendicular.
  11. Place a slice of spam on the rice.
  12. Wrap the nori around the spam/rice stack. Hold closed for a few seconds, it should stick. If it doesn’t stay closed, use a drop of water to close it.

Serving Size: 1 piece

  • Calories: 186
  • Fat: 8g, 12% DV
  • Saturated Fat: 3g, 14% DV
  • Cholesterol: 20mg, 7% DV
  • Sodium: 1444mg 60% DV
  • Total Carbohydrates: 24g, 8% DV
  • Dietary Fiber: 0g, 1% DV
  • Sugars: 18g
  • Protein: 5g, 11% DV
  • Vitamin A: 1%
  • Vitamin C: 1%
  • Calcium: 1%
  • Iron: 3%
  • Magnesium: 2%
  • Potassium: 3%

Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. These values are only estimates based on the individual ingredients, and not meant to replace the advice of a medical professional.

More Pictures

Spam MusubiSpam MusubiSpam MusubiSpam MusubiSpam Musubi

21 thoughts on “Spam Musubi”

  1. Laureen -

    mmm spam musubi… how do you shape the rice so cleanly? That’s always been a challenge for me whenever i make one of these.

  3. Josh -

    Laureen: I think she has a sushi mold of some sort 🙂

    but as for spam sushi, it’s kinda funny since I saw the recipe on another site, then I come here to see it as the latest recipe 😀

  4. Laureen -

    Josh: I think this sushi mold of some sort that you’re referring to is the spam can. (See last pic)

    Allison, if you’re using the spam can, you’re sneaky. I’ve never thought of that. I personally like eating this with ketchup 🙂 yum

  5. Son -

    Laureen, yup she did use the spam can for a sushi mold. It was quite clever I thought.

    Allison just added the last picture showing the spam can being used as a mold a few hours ago and didn’t get the chance to comment on it. Therefore, that might have caused some confusion in the earlier comments. 😀

  6. Robert-Gilles Martineau -

    Now this a novel way of making musubi!
    LOL
    Incidentally, did you know that the word “spam”, as for unwanted e-mails, actually comes from this food?
    Now, I wonder if we could use the term “spam sushi” for unwanted sushi?
    Joke, of course!

  7. Yvo -

    Hehe… funny thing is, “Spam” connotated something gross as a kid growing up, right? (for me anyway) So in HS or older, people talked about it positively so I decided I should give it a try, and went to look for it in stores… n dude, that stuff is expensive! I thought it’d be like a buck or two like corned beef or those Vienna sausages (canned meats, basically) but it was $4-5 a can! So I have never tried it. Plus I don’t like spicy things. Neither do you! Guess it’s not spicy…. (Um, I had way too much caffeine. Sorry.)

  8. Allison -

    Laureen – 😀 yeah, I used the spam can to shape the rice. Hehe I had forgotten to put the picture up when I first posted this, and then when Son saw your comment he was like, where’s the picture??? Oops! 😛 Mmmmm ketchup! I hadn’t thought of that, I’ll have to try that next time I make this!

    rachel – Hehe definitely… it’s good! 🙂

    Josh – Yep – the spam can! Where did you see the recipe?? I would definitely like to check that out!

    Son – Thanks for taking over for me while I was busy studying for finals! Which by the way, I am finally done with! Yay!

    Robert-Gilles – Yeah, kinda sad because it gives such a bad connotation to spam (the food) when it’s actually quite good! Hehe I trust you’ll let me know if any of my sushi is “spam sushi”!

    Yvo – Yeah I remember people always being like, “ewwwww… spam!”, but then I tried it in spam musubi that my great aunts made (my Japanese ones 🙂 ) and in scrambled eggs that my dad made for Christmas (I think it’s supposed to be similar to something called treat and eggs, which my dad had as a child but I have never had). Believe me, it’s not so bad at all! …and definitely not at all spicy or else I wouldn’t be eating it hehe. To give you an idea of how it is, just fried up it tastes kind of like ham, and when you marinate it for the spam musubi it tastes like a mix of ham and unagi. Is it really that expensive? I have had this can for a while (it lasts forever), so I really don’t remember how much I paid for it. Eeesh! 😛

  11. brian -

    i love SPAM musubi and i love this site!!! thanks for creating it. when i lived in hawaii i would always get SPAM musubi from the 7-11 hehe…no such luck here on the east coast…=/ but when i found this site i had hope again! thanks.

  13. Rina -

    Cool! Thanks for putting up a recipe for Spam Musubi. 😀 I first learned about spam sushi the other day on TV. It looked really cool and I totally had to try it so I googled it and found your site! I grew up on Spam, it was a food my Grandma enjoyed (None of us are Hawaiian that I know of) and so we ate it a lot. It’s the absolute BEST when it’s raw and straight out of the can! Yum yum! When I cook my Spam I usually can’t help myself and end up eating half of it raw! I think it has better flavor when its raw. More salty. =) Anyway, Thanks again for the recipe! I hope I can try this sometime soon! ^_^

  15. Bill Murphy -

    Hi, regarding “treat and eggs”, I suspect what your father may have been thinking of is Treet, which is made by Armour. It’s not too similar to Spam, having a rather different flavor, but is usually quite inexpensive (a can about twice the size of the one you used for the rice molds here is 99 cents some places in NYC). I would say I prefer Spam overall, but for stocking the cabinet it’s much cheaper. Just the trick for waking up hellahungry after sleeping for 19 hours after a double shift (I like to chop it up and toss it in with a package of instant mashed potatoes (the Idahoan ones that don’t need anything but boiling water)) at which point I naturally go back to sleep =-D I’ll go back to thinking about sushi at 0653h here in Queens (have learned the rumored location of a 24hr sushi place in Koreatown in Manhattan but haven’t gotten the urge just that bad yet, a Dr Pepper and a Twix from the soda/candy machine at the station will hold me over for now).

  16. Allison -

    Ah hah! That’s it. 🙂 I just asked my dad, and he confirmed that that’s what he was talking about. I’ll have to try it sometime… maybe in mashed potatoes! That sounds really good. 🙂

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