Onigiri (Rice Ball) Recipe

Rice balls don’t really need a recipe to make.  Anybody, including someone who has never cooked before, can start making it right away if you have cooked rice.  It’s just like making a mud ball when you were a kid.  You press rice firmly in your hands and make it into a ball or some other kind of shape.  The difference is, you actually can eat Onigiri.

You can fill the center of Onigiri rice balls with many different things.  Basic fillings are pickled plum(Umeboshi), dried bonito flakes with soy sauce (Okaka), or salted salmon.  But you can put in anything you want, really.  I have seen fried chicken in there.  Onigiri is usually covered with a sheet of roasted seaweed (Nori). The seaweed functions as a wrapper so your hand doesn’t get messy, as well as for flavor.  A rice ball with filling is like a complete meal that can be eaten in one hand.  Therefore, Onigiri rice ball is perfect portable food for lunch and picnics.

If you have never made an Onigiri rice ball before and would like to make a triangle one, please watch our video and practice once or twice.  If you don’t care about shapes,  just start making a ball in your hands.  They will taste the same 🙂

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5 from 1 vote

Rice Ball (Onigiri) Recipe

Steamed rice shaped into triangles or round balls stuffed with various fillings

Course: Appetizer, Main Course, Side Dish

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: bento, rice

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Ingredients

• 2 cups Steamed rice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup Katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes)
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 4 sheets Nori (roasted seaweed) small

US Customary – Metric

Instructions

• Put some rice in a rice bowl.
• Wet hands with water and add salt. Place rice in one hand, press and form into a triangle shape.
• Make a well in the middle of the rice ball and put in Katsuobushi mixture. Close the well.
• Reshape and wrap with a sheet of roasted seaweed.

Video