Japanese rice balls, called onigiri or omusubi, are compact triangles of cooked rice stuffed with a tasty filling and often wrapped in a sheet of toasted nori. Cute, portable and healthy, they're one of our favorite ways to eat lunch on the go.
In Japan, onigiri can be purchased at any convenience store or supermarket, but they're also often a homemade treat tucked into lunch boxes. Hot rice is salted, shaped into a ball or triangle, and usually stuffed with a bit of fish, meat or pickled plum (umeboshi). The rice can also be mixed with a flavorful add-in like furikake and left unstuffed. Store-bought onigiri is wrapped in such a way that the nori doesn't touch the rice until it is unwrapped so it stays crisp, but we rather like the homeyness of plainly-wrapped rice balls with chewy nori.
Common onigiri fillings include flaked salmon, gingery chicken, spicy fish roe, bonito flakes moistened with soy sauce, and tiny clams cooked in a sweet soy glaze. But the possibilities are endless — how about smoked trout, canned tuna, chopped pickles, marinated tofu or even cheddar cheese? (Don't knock it till you've tried it!)
Thanks to the salt in the rice, onigiri can remain unrefrigerated for up to 6 hours (8 hours if stuffed with umeboshi, a natural preservative) and should be eaten at room temperature or slightly warm.
Want to try your hand at making onigiri? Check out Just Hungry's step-by-step tutorial:
• An easier way to make Japanese rice balls, step by step - Just Hungry
Do you ever eat onigiri for lunch?
Related: Three Styles Of Bento Lunchboxes
(Image: Flickr member janice^chan licensed under Creative Commons)
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I make these all the time with tuna mixed with hummus for the filling. It is delicious and extremely filling.
I never know what to do with these - do they keep well in room temperature, even with fish? For some reason, leaving fish out until lunchtime weirds me out...
I'll be honest with you right now...I make these with peanut butter & jelly innards. Before you freak out, you gotta try one. They're awesome. Eggs scrambled with a bit of soy sauce rocks, too. Used to make them this way at Japanese Culture Club in college.
Never thought about cheese...obviously I'll have to try that. ;)
We eat them all the time. They are also great for traveling. It's especially excellent with Japanese cured seaweed that I think is called "pine needles" (because of the shape) or matsu nori or something like that, that has a salty-tart-umami flavor. Anybody know what I'm talking about?
I made these after Spilled Milk Podcast did an episode on them: http://www.spilledmilkpodcast.com/2010/05/20/episode-12-rice-balls/
They're awesome. I did ones with rice seasoning and without, with tuna, and with tuna and heinz pickle relish (totes authentic, I know) ohmnomnomnom soooo yum.
Think I'll make some more for next week's lunches. If they make it that long.
I always make these for my daughter's lunch boxes... Her classmates make fun of the seaweed in the furikake or the salmon flakes but she does not seem to mind...She just loves them!
had to laugh--my daughter went through a period of obsession w/ these. she go pretty good at making them, too! it helps to have molds to press the rice in.
I used to get these from a sushi restaurant in Dallas. They came studded with yellow and pink pickled veggies. They were sooooo amazing. I wish I knew what veggies they were using, as I'd love to make my own.
anything curry is fantastic inside, too! oh, wow, i know what i'm making this weekend!
When in Tokyo I'd grab a couple of onigiris stuffed with spicy fresh tuna mayo for lunch. So good. At home, I make them by mixing the rice with furikake and/or canned tuna.
One of my friends, who is from Japan, used to make these, stuffed with tuna. Mmm... I sometimes make them with smoked salmon and avocado too.
@manjar it's called 'hijiki'
My favorite is stuffed with about a tablespoon of salted salmon. If you're lucky enough to live close to a real Japanese market, they will have pre-salted salmon. All you have to do is cook it thoroughly using a broiler, shred it, and stuff the onigiri.
Musubi (or omusubi) are a different shape, and very popular in Hawaii. You'll usually find them with spam on top, and I highly recommend them :)
@radleyas, the vegetables are usually pickled radish (called takuan, it's available in most asian markets) and the pink is probably ume, or plum.
My aunt is Japanese and used to make onigiri with hot dogs and meatballs in the middle! So don't worry about unconventional fillings. My favorite is tuna mayo also.
we lived in Tokyo for a couple of years and my kids loved to eat Onigiri! We would go to the convenience stores and buy them but unfortunately we could not always tell what kind we were getting.
Onigiri/omusubi aren't always triangles. Sometimes they're round or oblong.
My favorite is a piece of lettuce and kara-age (flavored chicken nugget )in the middle.
@Ambitious, you can leave them out in room temperature for several hours. If you refrigerate them it'll dry out the rice and mess up the texture, so don't do that.
@jenn_y, make sure you're using the right kind of rice (Japanese rice/short, sticky kind). You could also try keeping them individually wrapped in saran wrap.