Onigiri (Japanese Rice Balls)

• portions: 9 servings
• temps actif: 30 minutes
• temps total: 1 hour

Ingrédients

For the Steamed Rice

2¼ cups uncooked Japanese short-grain white rice (3 rice cooker cups; 540 ml) 3 540

2½ cups water (600 ml)

For the Onigiri

Kosher salt

3 sheets nori (dried laver seaweed)

furikake (rice seasoning)(optional)

Salmon Filling

1–2 fillet salmon

Kosher Salt

Tuna Mayo Filling

1 (5-ounce) can albacore tuna (preferably packed in olive oil)

2 Tbsp Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise

½ Tbsp soy sauce

Instructions

To Prepare the Steamed Rice

To measure 2¼ cups uncooked Japanese short-grain white rice, overfill a US cup measure (a ¾-cup measure works well for this) or a rice cooker cup with uncooked short-grain rice and level it off. Put the rice in a large bowl. Repeat until you have the amount of rice you need. Tip: Please note that 2¼ cups (450 g, 3 rice cooker cups) of uncooked Japanese short-grain rice yield 6⅔ cups (990 g) of cooked white rice. This is enough for 9 onigiri rice balls (typically 110 g each). One cup of cooked white rice weighs about 5.3 oz (150 g).

Next, rinse and wash the short-grain white rice and cook it with a rice cooker, pot over a stove, Instant Pot, or donabe. Please follow the detailed instructions in any one of these posts for how to rinse and cook the rice. Here, I‘m adding 2½ cups water to the drained rice in a rice cooker. Tip: The rice-to-water ratio is 1 to 1.1 (or 1.2) for Japanese short-grain white rice. This rice requires a soaking time of 20–30 minutes. Please read this blog post for a detailed explanation.

To Prepare the Onigiri Fillings

Japanese Salted Salmon Filling: Place 1–2 fillet salmon on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil (for broiling) or parchment paper (for baking). Sprinkle Diamond Crystal kosher salt on both sides. Tip: This is a quick version of salted salmon; for the traditional method, see my Japanese Salted Salmon recipe.

Broil or bake at 425ºF (218ºC) in a toaster oven or standard oven for 10–20 minutes. Japanese salted salmon is cooked until well done (you want it dry and flaky). Break the cooked salmon into flakes and set aside.

Tuna Mayo Filling: Put 1 (5-ounce) can albacore tuna (preferably packed in olive oil), drained, in a bowl. Add 2 Tbsp Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise and ½ Tbsp soy sauce. Mix to combine.

If you‘d like to pack Onigiri for your lunch, keep it cool and consume it within 6 hours. Onigiri (or any rice dish) gets hard when you refrigerate it. The cold air makes the rice dry and hard. I don‘t recommend making onigiri too far ahead of time. But if you really need to, my trick is to wrap the onigiri with thick kitchen towels and store it in the fridge. The onigiri will be cool and safe but should not get cold.

If your onigiri has dried out a bit, you can grill it in a frying pan and baste it with soy sauce to make Yaki Onigiri.

Nutrition

• Calories: 174 kcal
• Lipides Totaux: 3 g
• Lipides Saturés: 1 g
• Lipides Insaturés: 2 g
• Acides Gras Trans: 1 g
• Cholestérol: 11 mg
• Sodium: 341 mg
• Glucides Totaux: 29 g
• Fibres Diététiques: 1 g
• Sucres Totaux: 1 g
• Protéines: 7 g