Category: Maki Recipes

This roll is my sushi version of the classic BLT sandwich. I used to love BLT sandwiches, except that I don’t like tomato – so mine always ended up being BL_ sandwiches. 😛 This roll turned out tasting pretty darn good! I think it’s even better tasting than the sandwich… but then of course, I’m also a bit biased. 😉

By the way, if you haven’t voted yet, head on over to the Well Fed Network and vote for SushiDay! Thanks to everyone who has already voted – I really appreciate it! 😀

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 slices.

Ingredients

• 6 sheets nori
• 3 cups sumeshi
• 12 strips uncooked bacon
• 1 head lettuce
• 1 medium tomato

Cooking Directions

1. Cook sushi rice.
2. Slice the uncooked bacon in half, so the strips are half as long as they originally were. This makes the bacon easier to cook, but if you prefer to cook whole slices of bacon, that’s fine too.
3. Fry the bacon. You don’t need to use any oil or butter or anything, because the fat in the bacon is more than enough to fry the bacon. I prefer to fry my bacon until it’s really crispy, but that of course, is completely up to you! 🙂
4. Place the cooked bacon on some paper towels to soak up the remaining grease.
5. Wash the lettuce.
6. Separate 6 or so leaves from the head of lettuce.
7. Cut the tomato into thin strips
8. Roll the sushi. For your fillings, place a lettuce leaf on the sumeshi-covered nori, then place the tomato strips and about 4 pieces of bacon on top of the lettuce – then roll the sushi as you normally would.
9. Serve with mayonnaise. Enjoy!

How was everyone’s New Year Celebration? Mine was pretty quiet – I spent New Year’s Eve with my family eating lots and lots of food like we do everywhere (I’m not much of a party girl… I prefer to stay home… and eat! 🙂 ) We stayed up late eating (spinach dip, shrimp, stuffed mushrooms, bacon wrapped asparagus – my mom made all this from scratch! My amazing mom 🙂 ) and drinking Martinelli’s sparkling cider.

Unfortunately, I had to get up early the next day to make sushi for our New Year’s celebration before we headed to my uncle’s house. You might remember me writing about this earlier, but if not, here’s a quick recap: Every year it is a tradition for us as a somewhat Japanese family to eat sushi on New Year’s. Typically, we buy all of our sushi, but this year, since the creation of SushiDay, it was a little different. We still bought California Rolls, Inari-Zushi and Futomaki (a vegetarian roll), but my family also requested that I make a few rolls.

I ended up making 9 of the Crunchy Shrimp Rolls (about 72 pieces) and 5 of the Kappa Maki Rolls (about 40 pieces). The Crunchy Shrimp Rolls were a HUGE hit with my extended family – they ate as much as they possibly could and then took the rest home for the next day’s lunch! I was very happy about that. 😀

This roll is amazingly delicious! I love tempura shrimp, avocado, and unagi, and together they taste so good! In addition, the roll ends up looking very nice, so it seems even more mouth watering. 🙂 I’m really not sure how the roll got its name, and I have never before heard of the roll, but according to the Sushi Chart, this is another of the popular rolls (that nobody really knows about 😉 )!

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 slices.

Ingredients

• 6 sheets nori
• 3 cups sumeshi
• 12 pieces tempura shrimp
• 2 avocados
• 1 small cucumber
• 1 piece frozen unagi

Cooking Directions

1. Cook sushi rice.
2. Bake tempura shrimp as directed on the package. (I haven’t had time to make homemade tempura shrimp so I can get you a good recipe for that… don’t worry, it will come as soon as I can try it!) You can also fry the tempura shrimp if you choose, but baking it is healthier, and you can prepare other things (such as the sumeshi) while it’s baking.
3. Cut tails off the tempura shrimp.
4. Cook the unagi as directed on the package.
5. Cut the unagi into 1-1.5 inch wide by 2.5 inch long slices.
6. Cut the avocados in half, discarding the pit.
7. Cut off the hard skin and discard.
8. Slice the first avocado into thin sticks.
9. Slice the second avocado into thin slices, although not so thin that they easily tear if you try to pick them up.
10. Cut the cucumber into thin strips.
11. Roll the sushi inside-out, using several avocado sticks, 2 pieces of tempura shrimp and a stick of cucumber as your fillings.
12. Lay alternating pieces of unagi and avocado on top of the inside-out roll.
13. Use your plastic wrap-covered rolling mat to squeeze the unagi and avocado into the roll so they won’t fall off.
14. Carefully cut the roll, trying to keep the toppings from falling off the sushi.
15. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Enjoy!

This is one of the more well known rolls which can be found in a lot of sushi restaurants.

This roll is very similar to the Unagi Roll. It’s so tasty! I absolutely love this roll. This (along with the Crunchy Shrimp Roll) is one of my favorite rolls that I have made thus far.

Don’t worry if your rolls don’t turn out looking very good. Believe me, my first few rolls had rice and avocado falling off of the rolls and making a HUGE mess! It takes some practice, but it’s worth it as the end result turns out looking absolutely beautiful. 🙂 So just keep trying and let me know how it turns out!

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 pieces.

Ingredients

• 6 sheets nori
• 3 cups sumeshi
• 1 small cucumber
• 1 package frozen unagi
• 3 small avocados

Cooking Directions

1. Cook sushi rice.
2. Cook the unagi according to the package.
3. Wash the cucumber and slice into long thin strips.
4. Slice the avocado into very thin (but still thick enough so they don’t tear when you put them on your sushi) slices.
5. Slice the unagi into long thin strips.
6. Roll the sushi inside-out, using cucumber and unagi as your fillings.
7. Place the avocado slices overlapping on the sushi as described in the How to Roll Inside-Out Maki post.
8. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Enjoy!

Unagi (eel) is a great way for non-fish eaters to make the transition to trying fish. It is eaten cooked and usually teriyaki flavored, and has a subtle fish flavor.

This is one of the more traditional rolls that can be found in most sushi restaurants. Unagi can be found frozen at Japanese supermarkets.

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 pieces.

Ingredients

• 6 sheets nori
• 3 cups sumeshi
• 1 small cucumber
• 1 package frozen unagi

Cooking Directions

1. Cook sushi rice.
2. Cook the unagi according to the package.
3. Wash the cucumber and slice into long thin strips.
4. Slice the unagi into long thin strips.
5. Roll the sushi, using cucumber and unagi as your fillings.
6. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Enjoy!

This roll is pretty much a California Roll with the addition of shrimp. (Because obviously California plus shrimp equals America. Who knows how they came up with that one? I have no idea… I just make the sushi!)

This makes the roll seem a little more elegant(something you can serve to “polite company”?)

I got this roll from the Sushi Chart.

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 pieces.

Ingredients

• 6 sheets nori
• 3 cups sumeshi
• 1 small avocado
• 1 small cucumber
• 1 cup imitation crab
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 36 small shrimp, with the tails cut off

Cooking Directions

1. Cook sushi rice.
2. Slice the avocado and cucumber into long, thin slices.
3. Mix the imitation crab and mayonnaise, separating the crab pieces into flakes.
4. Roll the sushi, using avocado, cucumber, imitation crab, and shrimp as your fillings.
5. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Even better, serve with cocktail sauce as you would a shrimp cocktail!

This roll is called a stoplight roll because wouldn’t you know it… it looks like a stoplight! The reddish color of the imitation crab, the yellow of the tamago, and the green of the avocado stack up nicely to look like a stoplight (not to mention having an ever so delicious taste!)

Speaking of which, everyone please be very careful driving now that (at least here) the wet winter season has started! Actually, be careful driving all the time… believe me, car accidents are no fun! I most certainly wouldn’t want to hear of anything bad happening to any of my dear readers!

I found this roll on the Sushi Chart website.

Makes 6 rolls, or 36-48 pieces.

Stoplight Roll

Ingredients

• 6 sheets nori
• 3 cups sumeshi
• 1 small avocado
• 1 batch tamago (optional)
• 1 cup imitation crab

Cooking Directions

1. Cook sushi rice and tamago.
2. Slice the tamago into thin strips, about 1/2 inch wide.
3. Cut avocado into thin sticks, about 1/2 cm wide.
4. Roll the sushi, using avocado, tamago, and imitation crab as your fillings. Place the avocado on the bottom, then the tamago, then the imitation crab on the top (like a traffic light).
5. Alternately, you could roll the sushi inside-out with the same fillings, then wrap it with a layer of tamago.
6. Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Enjoy!