Category: Nigiri Recipes

Nigiri sushi consists of a small ball of rice with a slice of fish, shrimp, egg, or other topping on top of it. At times, it may be wrapped with a small strip of nori, in order to keep the topping from falling off.

Nigiri Recipes Sushi

Spooky Halloween Sushi

I recently realized that in all the six years that Sushi Day has been around, I’ve never once done a single Halloween post.

Not a single one!

Obviously, that needed to change.

I wanted to do something with black and orange fillings, so first I had to find myself some black rice. All I could find at the grocery store was wild rice (which likely wouldn’t work too well for sushi), so I ordered a bag of Chinese black rice from Amazon.

Not only do I love uni and ikura, but they’re also perfect for Halloween – both orange-colored, uni can pass for a slug or a tongue, and ikura kind of looks like eyeballs. Combine that with the black rice (which in the right light, looks just like a mass of little black bugs!) and you’ve got some perfectly creepy Halloween sushi.

I love playing around with the Rice Cube I got earlier this year (Disclaimer: the Rice Cube was a gift, and all Amazon links in this post are affiliate links), plus it’s SO easy to make sushi cubes with it, so I decided to use that to play around for this year’s Halloween sushi.

Check out our Halloween tag on Fridgg for more fun and spooky Halloween treats!

Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups sumeshi, made with Chinese black rice
1 tray uni
1/4 cup ikura
1 tsp paprika
1 tbsp black sesame seeds

Cooking Directions

Use a Rice Cube to form the sumeshi into squares (or use your hands, dampened with water, to form the sumeshi into balls. Or you can use plastic wrap, or a small mold). You can layer the rice with ikura, if you’d like
Top your cube or ball of rice with one lobe of uni (or two if they’re small) or a small scoop of ikura.
Sprinkle with a little paprika and black sesame seeds, if desired.
Enjoy!

Nigiri Recipes

Uni Nigiri Cubes

uni rice cube

When I first tried uni, at a little sushi restaurant in Honolulu in the summer of 2008, I was not a fan. Something about the texture, the saltiness, and how exotic it seems just put me off. For the next three years, I was convinced that I just plain didn’t like uni.

In spring of 2011, I was at a fellow food blogger’s house, filming some sustainable sushi videos for a friend with a couple of other friends of mine who are also food bloggers. Among the types of seafood we had to work with was some fresh golden uni.

Since this was my first time meeting Rachael and Greg, and at the time I had only met Cathy and Martin once… I sure as heck wasn’t about to admit that I, a sushi blogger, didn’t like uni. Especially since everyone else was raving about it so much.

So I tried the uni temarizushi that Rachael made… and they were actually pretty good. Then I ventured to try the fresh uni straight from the tray… suffice to say that since then, I’ve become a full-on uni lover.

Lucky for me, uni is pretty sustainable, not to mention good for you as well (and also an aphrodisiac… oh la la! ~_^)

If you want to know more about uni, why not listen to the uni episode of my Miso Hungry Podcast?

uni

A few weeks ago, Rachael gave me a cool little kitchen toy called a Rice Cube. (Disclaimer: I got this as a gift, and Rice Cube also donated several Rice Cubes for us to give away on our podcast.) So when I bought a tray of uni for the uni episode, I wanted to find a way to use the rice cube with it.

I tried compressing the uni into a cube with the rice… but that just looked ugly (though still delicious). So instead I made a cube with the sushi rice, laid a lobe of uni over it, then sprinkled it with paprika and topped it with a sliver of green onion. I actually liked this better than normal nigiri, because not only was it ridiculously easy to make, the ratio of rice to uni was also perfect.

If you want a Rice Cube for yourself, you can buy one through their campaign to fight childhood obesity on IndieGoGo at a discount and have the proceeds go towards fighting childhood obesity. OR… you can head over to the Tako Episode of my podcast, where we’re giving away three of them!

uni rice cube

Recipe
Nutrition Info

Ingredients

2 cups sumeshi
1 tray uni
1 tsp paprika
4 stalks of green onion, white part discarded

Cooking Directions

Use a Rice Cube to form the sumeshi into squares (or use your hands, dampened with water, to form the sumeshi into balls. Or you can use plastic wrap, or a small mold)
Top your cube or ball of rice with one lobe of uni (or two if they’re small).
Sprinkle with a little paprika, and top with a sliver of green onion.
Enjoy!

Coming Soon!

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.

Nigiri Recipes

Faux-Nagi

Congratulations to Katharine for her suggestion that Jell-O would NOT go well in wontons (can you imagine even trying? What an impossible mess that would be!) and to Cathy for her delicious-sounding suggestion of matcha pastry cream in a wonton, topped with a cherry sauce. They were the winners of our latest Sushi Day contest!

Thanks so much to everybody who entered!

If you’ve been reading Sushi Day for at least a year, or know anything about which seafood are sustainable and which aren’t, then you’re probably aware that unagi is on the list of very unsustainable seafood.

Which sucks. Because a lot of people really love unagi. Ourselves included.

So a year ago, I came up with my own version of a sustainable replacement for unagi, using catfish. Personally, I really love this, because the taste and texture are very similar to unagi.

But there’s been another recipe that’s been out there for a while too – I was aware of it when I came up with my version, although I didn’t use it. But after dining at Tataki and receiving some absolutely beautiful black cod as a gift from the guys at I Love Blue Sea, I knew I had to finally try Tataki’s recipe for faux-nagi.

The verdict? Well, I knew it was going to be good. And if you have access to all the ingredients, it’s definitely worth it.

(But if you can’t find good black cod, or some of the more exotic ingredients… I still think my version is pretty darn good too.)

Recipe originally from here.

Recipe
Nutrition Info

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs black cod fillet
1 large sheet konbu (kelp)
1/4 c water
1/4 c shoyu
1/4 c sugar
1 1/2 tbsp mirin
1 1/2 tbsp sake
handful katsuobushi (skipjack flakes)
1 tbsp potato starch
sea salt
sesame seeds
extra sake

Cooking Directions

Sprinkle both sides of the black cod fillets with salt. Cover the fillets with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15–20 minutes.
Rinse the fillets with very cold water. Blot dry with a paper towel.
Tear the konbu into pieces the size of your fillets. Wet a new paper towel with sake and use it to moisten the konbu. Sandwich the black cod between pieces of sake-moistened konbu. Cover the fillet in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30–40 minutes. Remove the konbu and return the fillet to the refrigerator.
Mix the shoyu, sugar, mirin, and katsuobushi with 1 1/2 tbsp of sake and 1 1/2 tbsp of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Drain and remove the katsuobushi, then set the sauce aside.
In a small bowl, combine 4 tbsp of cold water with 1 tablespoons of potato starch to create a thickener. Return the sauce to a boil then lower heat to a simmer. If desired, gradually add the potato starch thickener to the sauce, until the desired consistency is reached. (You may not use the entire batch of thickener.) Remove from heat and let cool.
Slice black cod into portions into pieces approximately 1″x2″. Lightly char one side of the fish with a small butane torch or sear it very briefly in a hot saucepan. Drizzle with the sauce and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve nigiri style, or with a bowl of rice.

Coming Soon!

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.

Nigiri Recipes

Yellowtail Nigiri

I first tried yellowtail sashimi late last year, and it was love at first bite. Now, if you held a gun to my head and forced me to choose (please don’t, by the way) yellowtail would be my sashimi of choice, even over tuna and salmon! It has such light flavor and just melts between your teeth – it’s not chewy at all! There’s nothing not to love about yellowtail!

A little background information about yellowtail: A lot of people think that yellowtail is a type of tuna. This is a huge misconception… Yellowtail is actually a type of Jack Fish, but is also called yellowtail kingfish in Australia and New Zealand. It’s called yellowtail because… you guessed it – it’s tail is yellow! The yellowtail is a super duper powerful swimmer and has a very aerodynamic… er… aquadynamic? (edit: one of my readers, Lodewijk, has informed me it’s actually hydrodynamic 😀 ) body, shaped like a torpedo. This makes it very fast and a popular game fish. It is one of the top three game fish in Southern California – I’ve even found it at my farmers market! It is generally found in the tropical waters of the Southern Hemisphere and in the northern Pacific. (California, Baja California, Japan!)

Ingredients

1 cup sumeshi
1 oz yellowtail sashimi

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Using either your hands or a rice mold, form the rice into 5 or 6 small oblong balls.
Cut the yellowtail into slices larger than your rice balls.
Place each slice of yellowtail on top of a rice ball. You may place a small dab of wasabi on the underside of the yellowtail if you wish.
Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired.

Nigiri Recipes

Tuna Nigiri

So simple, and yet so good. This is definitely the most basic type of sushi, and the most common one seen in media, sushi bars, and anywhere else sushi or pictures of sushi might be found. Not surprisingly this is what most people thing of when they think of sushi.

Tuna (maguro) nigiri is something I get at almost every sushi restaurant/bar I go to, just because it is so darn delicious! However I wouldn’t recommend serving this to people who are grossed out by the idea of eating raw fish… a little too much of a fishy flavor for that. Personally, I think it would be better to start out with yellowtail (hamachi) or white tuna (ono)… they have much subtler flavors, and are much softer to bite into!

We were so lucky to receive this tuna. Over Thanksgiving weekend last year, we spent Thanksgiving day with my family, and then went home. Later, that Saturday, we went back out to my parents’ to go with the family to an annual Christmas party that I hadn’t been to in years. Coming home, we found out that a neighbor of my parents had gone fishing that day (he owns his own boat) and caught some fantastic yellowfin tuna. He cleaned, filleted, and vacuum-packed the fish on his boat, so it was all ready for us to take home! All I had to do was slice the fillet and roll it in sushi! Are you hungry yet? 🙂

Ingredients

1 cup sumeshi
1 oz sashimi-grade tuna

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Using either your hands or a rice mold, form the rice into 5 or 6 small oblong balls.
Cut the tuna into slices larger than your rice balls.
Place each slice of tuna on top of a rice ball. You may place a small dab of wasabi on the underside of the tuna if you wish.
Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired.

Nigiri Recipes

Ham Nigiri

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I know Easter was over a week ago so most of you probably don’t have any ham left, but if you do this is a great way to use it! (Or you could go out and buy some right now! :D) This is a simple version of nigiri, and doesn’t go bad nearly as quickly as fish does, plus it’s a great option for kids or those who prefer to avoid fish! You can eat this like normal sushi with wasabi and shoyu, but a really yummy alternative is to dip it in deli style horseradish mustard. I am OBSESSED with this mustard… I first tried it on some of the delicious steak Son’s dad makes (he’s an amazing cook!), and have since become obsessed with it… I put it on steak, ham, those little English muffin pizzas with chicken apple meatballs on top… mmmmmm so good! 😀

I would also like to offer my thoughts and prayers to the victims and everyone involved in the Virginia Tech shootings. This is such a horrible tragedy, and I really hope that none of you were victims! It’s sobering to realize that everyone is vulnerable, since we tend to think of school and college campuses as safe havens for learning. I’m just thankful that we haven’t had any incidents like this at the university I attend, and hopefully we won’t see any other incidents like this anytime soon!

Please be safe my friends and readers, and enjoy your sushi!

Makes about 5-6 pieces.

Recipe
Nutrition Info

Ingredients

1 cup sumeshi
1 large slice of honey baked ham (if you still have leftover Easter ham, this is a great way to use it!)

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Using either your hands or a rice mold, form the rice into 5 or 6 small oblong balls.
Cut the ham into 1.5″ x 2.5″ pieces.
Place the piece of ham on top of the rice ball. You may place a small dab of wasabi on the underside of the ham if you wish.
Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Something I really liked was dipping it in deli style mustard with horseradish. Yum!

Serving Size: 1 piece

Calories: 41
Fat: -g, 0% DV
Saturated Fat: 0g, 0% DV
Cholesterol: 1mg, 0% DV
Sodium: 219mg 9% DV
Total Carbohydrates: 9g, 3% DV
Dietary Fiber: 0g, 1% DV
Sugars: 5g
Protein: 1g, 2% DV
Vitamin A: 0%
Vitamin C: 0%
Calcium: 0%
Iron: 0%
Magnesium: 0%
Potassium: 0%

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

Nigiri Recipes

Tamago Nigiri

Tamago nigiri may not be the fanciest sushi out there, but it can be found at most sushi places.

It’s so easy to make, you could fry up some bacon and eat tamago nigiri for breakfast! (I bet we all know what I’m making for breakfast tomorrow!)

Makes about 5-6 pieces.

Ingredients

1 cup sumeshi
1 batch tamago
1 sheet nori

Cooking Directions

Cook sushi rice.
Cook the tamago.
Using either your hands or a rice mold, form the rice into 5 or 6 small oblong balls.
Cut the tamago into 1/2″ slices.
Place the piece of tamago on top of the rice ball. You may place a small dab of wasabi on the underside of the tamago if you wish.
Cut nori into 1 cm wide strips.
Wrap 1 strip of nori around each piece of nigiri, cutting it to fit. Wrap it tightly enough that the nigiri won’t fall apart, but not so tight as to tear the tamago or cause the rice ball to come apart.
Serve with shoyu, wasabi, and ginger if desired. Enjoy!