I have loved onigiri since I was 7, when my neighbour gave one to me as an afternoon snack. As we grew older, she would bring it for our other friends and me when we would go to the beach, on hiking trips, and on camping trips. It is the perfect snack/dinner/lunch, because it is tasty, satisfying, and easy to transport. A few months ago, an onigiri shop opened up near my parents house and my close friend and I have visited many times!
A few weeks ago, my roommate suggested that we try making it ourselves – and I was immediately on board!
The ingredients were easy to find – just rice, salmon, seaweed sheets, kewpie mayo, and furikake seasoning.
We started by cooking our rice in our rice cooker and our salmon in our air fryer – and then mashed the salmon with kewpie mayo and got to sculpting!
The process took a bit of practice, however thankfully my roommate knew the important strategies (wet your hands and cover them with salt to add flavour and keep the rice from sticking to you).
My first attempts were a little bit funky:
*the burrito is interesting looking, but it made for a delicious mid-cooking snack*
While not everything went according to plan (we ended up with a copious amount of leftover salmon), we had so much fun making them! It took about 2 hours, but the time flew by. After we got a hang of things, we were able to make a whole bunch to keep in the fridge and grab on the go!
My Personal Ratings:
The Flavour – 10/10
These were absolutely perfect. I LOVE onigiri and these lived up to my expectations. I am thinking about grabbing one from the fridge as I write this. I would honestly change nothing if I were to make them again!
The Process – 9/10
Now, this did take a decent amount of time (roughly 2 hours). However, no part of it was particularly difficult. Despite the learning curve – even the funky looking ones (like the burrito) were delicious, which is the end goal. It definitely also helped that I made them with my friend – because it made the time fly by! The ingredients were not too expensive, and they were easy to find. I would absolutely make these again – and recommend them to literally everyone (especially as a fun activity to do with friends!).