Make Your Own Sushi

Did you know that making sushi doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated? Our kids love rolling up their sleeves (and their lunch) and I mean there are worse things in the world than a few bits of stray sticky rice around your kitchen right? We even whip this up fresh before school some mornings, to be honest it’s usually the morning after we have chicken schnitzel for dinner, because that’s my kids sushi go to – but you can load it with many versatile and easy fillings!

Check it out – add a few ingredients to your next shopping list and get stuck in with the kids this World Sushi Day, or any day. Fill the lunch boxes or the dinner table. Got a train set? You could even make your very own sushi train. For the super health conscious, you could even use brown rice – but yeah, my kids are not eating that.

OR if you have no idea why you have landed on this page, you might prefer to check out our favourite places to buy Sushi HERE

To make enough sushi for four kids lunch boxes you’ll need:

1 cup sushi rice

3 sheets sushi nori (seaweed paper)

1 sushi mat (or you might like to use a sushi press)

2 table spoons sushi seasoning (or make sushi su with 2 table spoons rice vinegar, 2 teaspoons sugar + pinch salt)

Suggested fillings:

Panko crumbed chicken schnitzel, avocado slices, kewpie mayonnaise, tinned tuna, cooked prawn, cucumber sticks, capsicum sticks, left over roast chicken, smoked salmon, cream cheese, sesame seeds, pretty much any thing you feel like putting in and rolling up……

Steps:

Cook your rice (can be done ahead, but warm rice is also fine). You can use a rice cooker or use the stove top absorption method. Follow your packet instructions or this is what we do:

Absorption: 1 cup rinsed uncooked rice and 1+ 1/2 cups of cold water into a saucepan with a lid on it. Bring to the boil, turn down to a slow simmer and leave it for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let it cool (lid off) for 10 minutes.

Mix in 2 tablespoons of sushi rice seasoning, or your home made vinegar sushi su (give it a taste, some people like 3 tablespoons – less is more for us.)

While your rice is cooking, prep your sushi fillings. Think veggie strips, and maybe a protein.

We like to panko crumb strips of chicken breast. You could buy chicken schnitzel already crumbed. Even better, plan your dinner the night before to include left over sushi fillings. Some kids like it as simple as a strip of cucumber or avocado only.

Place a sushi mat on your clean bench – sticks running horizontal. Place a sheet of nori shiny side down.

Using wet hands, press a thin layer of cooked cooled rice all over the sheet, leaving a 3cm wide strip along the edge furthest from you.

Place your fillings along the middle of the rice in a line. Stack them on top of each other, or keep them close together. Don’t forget to add a generous line of mayo – if you are that way inclined.

Now we roll!!!! Hold filing in place while you roll the mat over to envelope the rice and filling. Roll it up with gentle pressure, imagine you are rolling wrapping paper back onto the roll.

Unroll the matt and use a sharp knife to slice sushi into 1.5cm rounds or larger rolls.

Our tip if you are sending in school lunchboxes, leave them as long rolls and tightly glad wrap them to keep the rice soft and fresh, slice when packing lunch boxes, or simply cut the long sushi into two 10cm lengths and send bigger.

Don’t forget to serve with your favourite dipping sauce, some pickled ginger, soy or perhaps wasabi for the brave, and then stuff that sushi into your head flat out!

(We like to eat these with in 24 hours for freshness, we also like to wash our drink bottles out every day, but now I’m just bragging honestly.)