Just Hungry

You're very welcome and thanks for stopping by my site!

Yes, you use basic non-flavored rice for onigiri. (Actually when Japanese people say "sushi", they mean anything that uses sushi rice, not necessarily the sushi with piece of fish on top.)

Oh, my link died. What I meant was that they speak Japanese to me even when I indicate my ignorance!

Happened to find your site via TypePad, and became hooked! I have quite an obsession with food myself, and reading your posts (especially those about washoku) make me drool!

I have an onigiri recipe linked to my site, but I don't think it's nearly as good as yours in its explanation. It's been quite a while since I've had one, so my memory of its preparation was rather vague.

I enjoy reading your blog-- thanks for making it available!

konnichiwa~
Watashiwa Miyuki Sohma desu!
hajimemashite...=^^=
Onigiri wa oishii~
jaa ne~
going to a picnic...guess mai job~ i make neko and nezumi onigiris~

hehe cool im gonna make some now!!^_^

i'm makeing rice balls for my mothers day apetizer. i have always wanted to make them.

also for the rice can use sticky rice?

Whoa, wonderful recipes! They all look so delicious! I am going to make some Onigiri soon...even though I am not Japanese I would love to see Japan and visit everything there. I love everything about Japan! (esp. the food! ^_^)
Great job, and keep it up!

Uhmm I'm 12 and I have no pickle plums, I was wondering if I could use something else.

For all you folks who are having a hard time finding Japanese ingredients, just remember, the Internet loves you and wants you to be happy! (And also spend money.)

http://www.ethnicgrocer.com/

http://www.koamart.com/

._. Wow.. your onigiri looks.. PERFECT.. T___T i made it funny looking lol.. -___-;;

I liked the list of non-traditional ingredients, I first started making Onigiri, when I heard about it in a manga, called Fruits Basket. My firt one was triangluar, but I soon sound it easeir to make them round. I tried with some polish sausage, i do not recommend this. lol. So far, tuna and pickles seems to be the best taste for me, and I normally wrap the nori completely around till the whole onigiri is covers. I have a hard time finding any umeboshi in the us, even online. We have an anime club at school, and I made some and took it to them, I can not tell you how amazed they were at these! Very delicious! I also use Jasmine Rice instead of white rice, it has a different flavor, but doesnt tend to stick as well, so I press harder. lol. Try it out sometime!

I have very fond memories of onigiri when I lived in Japan: After blowing six or seven thousand yen ($60 - $70) at the clubs in Roppongi, all you have okane left for in the morning is the train ticket home, a can of hot Morinaga coffee and a couple of 7-11 onigiri. I actually prefer the convenience store onigiri to home-made... sad, huh?

Because onigiri is cheap and perishable, the only place you would ever really know about it or find it routinely is in Asia... Korean and Japanese convenience stores have an ever-changing variety of onigiri flavors (and other yummy snacks). Because of its short shelf life you'll never be able to order it over the internet, until some enterprising Japanese manufacturer decides to start exporting it, or making it here in the US. Even then, it's only really good when fresh (off the shelf).

The best rule of thumb when making onigiri is that it is a snack of convenience: use what you like and what you have on hand. Vegetarian onigiri is -totally- possible! A filling that is neither very oily nor too wet is best, because rice cannot stick if the filling is too greasy. To ensure a crispy nori wrapping, apply it last, since dry seaweed drinks up all available moisture and becomes soggy, while simultaneously making your rice dry. Wrapping your rice balls in plastic is perfectly fine for transporting or overnight storage, and keeps the rice fairly moist (unwrapped rice dries out very quickly in the refrigerator).

Finally, if you would like to try to make a traditional onigiri, you can order umeboshi (pickled plum) or tsubozuke (pickled radish) over the internet. Both make nice, salty fillings for onigiri. To ensure that the onigiri is a convenient snack, you might want to throw an onigiri party, where everyone pitches in to make two or three of their own onigiri using a shared pot of rice, shared nori seaweed and shared fillings/toppings.

I agree with Misao, your onigiri does look PERFECT. I just read your recipe and it describes it really well. I'm asian (vietnamese) so I have lots of rice in my home. I'm only 12, but I can still take a crack at making my own onigiri. I first found an onigiri in an anime i watched (i'm a HUGE otaku). by the way, that black paper thing on ur onigiri, is that the seaweed or somethin? somebody please clue me in!

i realy want to try onigiri and i'm inviting all of my friends to try too...
but i have too problens:
1. one of my frinds is vegeterin
2. i want to make it with chicken but i dont know how

I think I have found a way to keep them in the fridge (at least for a day, then use them for lunch). Wrap them in waxpaper when they're still warm (do NOT use mayo filling for this type) and put them into sealed zip-lock sammich baggies. It seems to keep them decently fresh and the rice is still semi-gooey/chewy goodness. You have to make them when they're pretty HOT to make this work, apparently the steam/nori-cover/waxpaper makes the nori stick more to the rice and less to the plastic.

[I just caution against mayo/semi-cooked stuffings as you seal the buggers warm and they may make a nice bacteria home if not refridgerated promptly and properly.]

I'd like to know of some better sauces/bitter or salty fillings (vinegar or non-fishsauce for bitter please, my kid's apparently picky about this but will eat fisheggs. Hmmph.) Or what sort of pickle things to have with them?

O_O I love you... Im gonna try this out sometime with chicken. =D!!

really nice! it worked great for my little shop i have in the summer! i also own a n anime shop in town, and it made a great snack for all of the kids who come in and out! thanx bunchezzz!!!^_^

onigiri is so cool, when I first saw it in anime I didn't know what it was. Hey got any other suggestions for fillings, other than the ones listed? It would be so cool if you could...like.. put jelly in it or somethin' (I like sweet stuff)

thanx

excellent job! my shop has been blazing w/ customers. if you ever get any new ones send me some! my shop is a great success now. thanks again!!!!!

I like cats, kitties are yummie :-B. Can I make it with Kitties

I love onigiri! Thanx for the recipe! ^_^

Hi Maki,

Thanks so much for the recipie. I tried it last night because I had people over and my guests were very happy-- but at the end of the night I had 6 left over and I put them on a plate in the fridge. In the morning now [the next day] they taste a bit funny\hard.

It may be a common-sense question, but is there a proper way to store onigiri for later use? Do you wrap them in something?

Thanks,

-Michael

Ano... is it ok if I don't use seaweed? it's hard to find any good ones here. the onigiri will still be delicious without seaweed, nee?

Sylvia, I'm not familiar with "Ume Nameshi" itself, but if it's like the packets featured on that page, it's a type of something called furikake. Furikake is basically dried or semi-dried little savory bits - can be nori seaweed, dried umeboshi, bonito flakes, sesame seeds, etc - and it's usually eaten by sprinkling it on to plain white rice and mixing it in. It's usually quite salty, so go easy on it and add more as you taste. You can mix it in well and then form rice balls from the mix too.

I was researching what kind of things to put in obento, and I came across your site. I made some onigiri and now I'm hooked! I can't wait to try other fillings! (I didn't have tuna, so I ended up using immitation crab - it turned out well to an unexperienced eater).

Thanks!

BANZAI! You posted an onigiri recipe! Thank you sooo much! I used to have a recipe, from an old Highlights for kids magazine, but I could never find it. I'm happy I found this page ^^ Ano... I guess we probably DON'T have to use seaweed... I don't even know if I have any. I'm gonna need to bring my lunch to school more often just so I can have onigiri everyday now XD

Maki, thanks so much for your comment. I do use furikake (mainly seaweed and sesame seeds in what I have) to sprinkle on top of rice, so it gave me an idea what to expect. I made the onigiri without filling (although the triangles eluded me) to get the full flavour of the packet I bought and they were a hit. Thanks again!

for anyone looking for a non-traditional filling, try this recipe. it's a tweaked version of a filling for chicken wonton.

12 oz. chopped cooked chicken - 1 tbs. soy sauce - 1 tsp. grated fresh ginger - 1 garlic clove, crushed - 2 tsp. sherry or chicken broth - 1 or 2 spring onions, chopped - 1 tsp. sesame oil - mix all together and enjoy!

I couldn't seem to find any onigiri at my local asian stores, so I decided to look for a recipe online and came to yours. Just to say, I tried it for the first time and it's wonderful! I really have to make this stuff often.

hey i cant find any seaweed places here in Utah
if anyone knows any stores then please tell me
oh and can we use something different for the seaweed? like a substitute?

This was fun. =D

I decided to experiment with this recipe. I’ve been recently getting quite into Japanese food (I’m loving miso soup!), so I figured I should learn to make Onigiri, too — so that I can put in my packed lunch for going to University (because buying food on campus can be kind of expensive. XD; ) along with a sachet of miso soup paste.

I made two balls just to experiment. They’re currently sitting in my fridge, wrapped in clingfilm. It was so much fun to make and I’m very proud of my first attempts. XD

I also used your other recipe for making easier onigiri (saran wrap in a cup or bowl) as a guide while making them. I didn’t have saran wrap, so I used cling film. It burst a little on my first ball, so I put some extra clingfilm around it to hold in place while making the triangular shape. I found while making a second ball that if you just double up your clingfilm before use, it doesn’t burst. =)

Thank you for posting this. I had so much fun making the Onigiri. I’m looking forward to eating them. =)

~Fif

I chanced upon your site and enjoyed your humour… (No offense if that is not your intention!) I’m planning a Japanese-themed picnic soon and am thankful for the simpler onigiri recipe you put up. I will try it and feedback to you, if I have any. Thank you! :)

Well can i use things like salmon and shrimp? Also, from what i’ve read im pretty sure im going to have to make them the morning of the day i bring them to school. I think i will be in that class by atleast 10, so do you think that if i make them around 5-6 ish in the morning they will still be moist by that time? What can help? Please tell! ^__^

E mail me at pPygmyfFay [at] aim [dot] com

I’m still mourning the closing of the Toraya tea shop on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. They had amazing, addictive, soy-sauce glazed onigiri.

Thanks so much for the onigiri recipe! I made it for a potluck lunch and everyone loved it! They made me promise to make it again at the next lunch! ^^ Mine weren’t as perfectly shaped as yours, and my hands were stinging and deep red when I was done with the rice, but it was worth it! Thanks!

Btw, I used the tuna filling. It was delicious…but I really wish I had an Asian Market that sold umeboshi. The Japanese market that I usually shopped in had closed down and so I used the tuna. Is there another filling I oculd get at ANY Asian Market? Thanks and please reply soon! I’ll be checking back here later!

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

hey I just made and ate them (with canned tuna)
thank you so much for this recipe i have always wanted to eat this ever since i saw it on tv (i was 6 orr something)
but i come from holland and i know what umeboshi means in english but i don’t under stand what the english means in dutch…
I’m from holland and i understand what the fruit is but pickled?
is it dried or like salted to dry it?
and what does bonito flakes and cod roe mean?
also the pickles you talk about you mean those in jars with sourish water in it right?
Sorry for the stupid questiond normally my english isnt this bad but i just dont know much about food in english

I love this website it taught me something new and i appreciate it. ^_^ keep up the good work.

I have a question If you microwave an onigiri will it do anything i might nto want it to do..? (such as explode or lose taste etc…) I would really like to know this.

Domo Arigatoo.

This looks like a fun alternative snack or comfort food and I’d really love to have a try at making it but I’m having trouble finding the ingredients, in particular the rice (yes I’m hopeless).

Anyone know of a reasonably priced market place or shop for these kind of things in Birmingham UK or somewhere nearby in the midlands? I’d heard onigiri is cheap and convenient but so far all I’ve had the luck to find was Nori, and that was about £5 for a few sheets.

Any help greatly appreciated(heres hoping someone in the UK more knowledgeable than me frequents this site :D).

I love making onigiri with my grandma because Im a really big fan of the Japanese culture, but I was wondering could I put jelly in my onigiri?

i have been looking on how to make onigiri EVERYWHERE! and this makes it super easy! now i can make them for my friends!

Two fillings that i have had good success with (meaning: they were eaten by other people and requested again) were:

-strong green olives, not the kind with pimento, cut up and either used alone or mixed with tinned salmon

-hot peppers.

The hot peppers were an idea after a wasabi-tuna mixture was well received. This has proven to be a excellent way to get my friends to start liking rice!

Thanks very much for the recipe! I recently had some health troubles and have been looking into moving to a slightly more Japanese style diet.

I just wanted to let people know- if you don’t like seafood fillings, you can try a little shredded chicken or pork mixed with a bit of soy sauce or sesame-oil with a bit of salt, and that tastes pretty good. Mixing in some finely diced bean sprouts or bok choy is good too.

Hmm, it’s funny, I actually had this in Japan, and here in Guam too, but I didn’t think of any relation to these rice balls my aunts and grandmas used to make when I was a kid until I saw this post! Perhaps because I’ve only had them triangle shaped? Anyway, these rice balls I had were slightly different, in that they were bigger than onigiri, but only just big enough to hold in your hand, and the filling in the ones I had always consisted of just this Chinese/Taiwanese, shredded, dried pork.

I’m not sure if it’s a Chinese food in general, or if it’s just a Taiwanese snack influenced by Japanese cuisine, b/c I also remember my aunt making (and I never knew the name of it then, but discovered it to be a Japanese food on another blog recently as well) mochi with kinako! I was actually really happy to discover what kinako was, since I’ve really missed these foods for a while.

Anyway, that’s kind of off topic, but I’ll probably be buying some onigiri tomorrow now! =)

This page has been quite helpful.

That being said, I’m something of an anomaly here… I like onigiri, but I haven’t been making the “Stuffed” kind. Rather, I like to use some form of furikake and stir it into the rice, sort of a seasoned ball if you will.

I’ve become especially fond of something called Oomuriya Omusubi Tei Umino Megumi, which is a pouch containing four pouches of various flaky stuff for mising into the rice. One sub-pouch flavors and preserves 160 G of rice, enough to make two small onigiri (Which is what they seem to be shooting for). You get one bonito flavored packet, one cod-roe, and two salmon.

Don’t suppose Maki-san — or anyone else— can tell me what Oomuriya Omusubi Tei Umino Megumi means in eigo? ^_^

I tried making onigiri for the first time today. I was quite scared at first since I’m not that skilled in cooking and I might mess up with the rice. But I think everything went well. I plan to make more for my younger brother next time. Thanks for the recipe! ^_^

I tried making these just two days ago and liked them so much I had to look them up on the net.
I’ve tried smoked salmon and okaka, and I think I’m almost addicted to okaka filling.
I’ve made a batch for my lunch and snacks tomorrow, consisting of okaka, smoked salmon+shoga and tuna/sesame oil/chili paste/soy sauce/wasabi.
The tuna mix sounds like bit of a mishmash, but tastes quite fine.
Also, I’d like to share a tip with you all.
When forming triangular onigiri, i use the fingertips on both hands to try to form a corner, then turn and do it again.
Works fast for me ;)

thank you so much for your detailed explanations on how to make onigiri. I laughed at your reference to Fruits Basket too. I knew abt onigiri long before Furuba and their onigiri motif in Furuba just seemed natural to me lol. I have never tried to make onigiri but now I def want to. my biggest task will be finding the correct rice. Its going to be very hard where I live, we dont have any of the stores ppl mentioned in their comments and everyone here rly just uses long grain parboiled rice. but I will search! I am determined to make and eat and enjoy my own onigiri ^_^ thanks again.

What a great recipe! I love the peas in the picture - just looking at them is making me hungry!

We—the Warlock and I—posted about onigiri recently, too, so I’ve linked to this, too.

What are some non-traditional vegetarian fillings? I can make the onigiri just fine, but I am never sure what to fill them with. Traditional fillings are hard to get a hold of for me, and I'd rather make my own fillings than order them. Plus, I'm vegetarian (not necessarily vegan.) Does anyone have any ideas? Maki-san? I've heard of avocado...
Please respond,
Onegai shimasu!

They go very well with homemade Buffalo chicken O_o

Hi! I was wondering if I could get pre-made umeboshi at a Japanese food store, like in chinatown perhaps... Thanks:P

when i cook long grain rice, it comes out the same stickiness as the short grain rice used for sushi. i dont need to mash up the rice or anything to get it sticky. can I still use it for onigiri? and if I can or cant, whats the difference?
thanks!!!!

Thank you for the WONDERFULL instructions~ I tried making them today, and it worked like a charm due to your walkthroughs. :3
Though mine had octopus and avacado in them, instead of the traditional stuff; it turned out wonderful, though, and I plan on making more and experimenting with the fillers. Thanks again for the recipe!

Hello from Finland,

I love your sites, JustHungry and JustBento! I'mma try cooking the rice and making onigiri based on your "handbook", wish me luck! ;)

I wanted to commment about umeboshi, so called "pickled plums." Isn't a better translation "japanese apricots", because they are not really plums? Why can't it be translated "pickled apricots"? Sounds way more delicious in my ears. :D

Thank you very much for the great sites, I am deffo a regular visitor.

I love how you made your Onigiri. I love the kitty. ^^
I live in the crappy state of Indiana and we don't have any down here T_T. They look so good.
I looked almost at every dish you've made and they are amazing. ^^ Japanese food is my favorite food. I just found your site and I love it.
I'm gonna start trying to cook Japanese food. I just hope it comes out as good as yours looks. ^_^

Hello, I bought toasted seaweed from the store. I am wondering, do I have to get it wet before I wrap the rice ball? Also is toasted seaweed that different from nori seaweed? Thanks!

Just finished making them, they look great :) waiting for them to cool down enough for me to try one...
Do you usually eat them just cooled down or chilled?

My first onigiri:
http://pics.livejournal.com/soljarka/pic/0003kdec
They are filled with homemade salmon flakes. It is hard to find mirin and sake in my country, so i used "Blue Dragon" teriyaki for flakes.
Result: very tasty, and my beloved girl is happy!
Thanks for your useful articles and tips:)

This recipe I accidentally came across. I live in isolated reservation(north of canada) so theirs short supply and expensive. Rice is one of the less expensive and lot of it. I can't use the original recipe I have to make alternatives and I used my traditional methods. I only made with the original once. it was good!

Thank you

I was away for an exchange programme for a few months and my japanese friends got us all making japanese omusubis. I was completely hooked, they tasted so good and making them was a real joy!

My boyfriend and I have been making them ever since I came home (your website was so helpful!) and we always have so much fun with it. I've put together a box and called it the omusubi kit, I'm going to give it him later on! I bought some cute plastic wraps, sachets of furikake, tiny seasoning bottles, rice molds and adorable nori punches.

Thank you so much for putting together the onigiri recipe and all the other lovely ideas! :)

My one issue is when to make the Onigiri. Do you follow through with the entire resting period of the resting of the rice or skip half of it o.O?

Also, when I see cup, I think mug. Ten giant sized onigiri later... a video might be really helpful. It is interesting to note that the rice balls still fall apart later after cooking/storing for a while. Not heavily as such but I'm not sure how much compression is needed.

Video clips regarding making the triangle ones might be useful...although maybe my hands are just really odd shaped. I'm not interested in using plastic, as I'm on a budget...getting the rice was tricky enough T_T;

I used Tuna Mayonnaise for my fillings and I might make some Yaki next time. Is there a follow up recipe for Daifuku or is it fuki..o.O it's a rice ball sweet.

[quI think I have This type of rice because every time I cook with it it always stick together . I'm young so I'm still learning to cook.