Easy Onigiri – Japanese Rice Balls
Our EASY onigiri recipe is flavoured with delicious Japanese seasonings, wrapped up in cute nori strips. Perfect as a snack or bento box treat with step-by-step guide, video and packed with filling ideas.
“So, so good!! My husband rarely gives 10/10 for a recipe, but that is what he gives this one. Easy steps and absolutely addictive. We love it and I will definitely be making these again soon!“
Angelica
In this post you’ll learn
Why We Love This
These are the cutest little rice ball snacks! We love onigiri because they are so easy to adapt to your own flavour combinations, and a great way to use up leftover ingredients.
You can enjoy onigiri warm, cold or at room temperature, so they’re perfect in your lunchbox or as a portable snack on the go. You can even plate them up as a tasty appetiser!
Related: How to Cook Sushi Rice / Mochi
Onigiri (Japanese Rice Balls)
Also known as o-musubi or nigirimeshi, onigiri are Japanese rice ball snacks made from cooked or steamed sushi rice with either furikake seasonings or tasty hidden fillings, wrapped in nori seaweed.
In Japan, they’re either made at home in the morning or purchased from a nearby conbini (convenience store), then taken to work or school as a tasty snack or quick lunch. PS if they’re store-bought, here’s how to open the onigiri wrappers.
Onigiri are similar yet different to sushi rolls or temaki sushi. The biggest difference is that regular sushi is seasoned with sushi vinegar while onigiri starts from a base of plain, unseasoned sushi rice. We also think they are so much easier to make than regular sushi!
Where We Learned This Recipe
We were lucky enough to be taught onigiri many times while living in Japan, though there were a couple of stand out sessions.
One was during a sakura celebration in Miyoshi, Japan. After spending the morning making udon noodles with our feet (yep), the ladies from the community took us into the kitchen and showed us step-by-step how to make onigiri by hand. They taught us that ideally, you want to end up with one face of the onigiri having a small indentation from your fingers, so you can see that it’s handmade – what a cute touch!
Another lesson we had was staying with a mum and daughter duo at a traditional ryokan in Ikuno. Her light hand movements had the onigiri look like it was almost floating in the air as she molded it quick – bop, bop, bop – done!
Ingredients and substitutes
Just three ingredients are all you need for these easy onigiri rice balls!
- Rice – We recommend koshihikari rice for the best texture. Cook it in a rice cooker, a multi-cooker, or on the stove using the absorption method. Here’s a great guide on how to cook sushi rice.
- Furikake – This is a type of Japanese seasoning usually sprinkled over cooked rice. It’s made from a blend of ingredients like dried bonito flakes, sesame seeds, seaweed, egg, salt, sugar and various spices. There are so many furikake flavours out there, so look for packets of assorted furikake flavours and experiment to find your favourite! You can get them from your nearby Asian grocer or online, or make your own furikake. We’ve also included some optional ideas below to customise your onigiri with different seasonings and fillings. You can buy the furikake pictured below online here.
- Nori – This is the flat seaweed wrapper also used to wrap sushi. You can find it at supermarkets these days, at Asian grocers or online either in full size squares or in mini pre-cut strips. It’s not essential, but does make for a great little hand hold for your homemade onigiri.
- Salt + Water – The salt and water is to lightly season your rice balls while preventing the rice from sticking to your hands. Re-dip only when the balls start sticking, a few stray grains are fine. We dip every few or so.
Let’s make Onigiri!
- Pop your cooked sushi rice into a nice mixing bowl. Add the furikake or rice seasoning and mix through evenly. Separate the rice into equal portions, big enough to be a large handful each.
- Wet your hands with water and rub together with a pinch of salt. This stops the rice sticking to your hands and helps keep it fresher for longer. (Repeat when it starts sticking to you too much!)
- Take up one portion of rice in your hands.
- If you are hiding some fillings inside, here is where you make an indent, place the ingredients inside and fold the rice over, then lightly press into a ball.
- Using mainly your fingertips while resting the rice on your palm, start to press and squeeze the rice into a triangular shape, rotating as you go so it’s even.
- Place a slice of nori on the bottom of the onigiri (the rough side should face the rice) and fold it up towards to the middle of the onigiri.
Onigiri Filling & Seasoning Ideas
Our favourite method to make onigiri is to use furikake – aka rice seasoning – which is mixed through the rice itself. Here are some of our favourite seasonings, which you might be able make yourself, find online or from supermarkets and Asian grocers.
- Gomashio – black sesame salt
- Ume Goma Shio – plum sesame salt (our favourite! The Marumiya brand is delicious and also includes the cute little decorative flowers you can see in our photos)
- Katsuo Fumi – bonito flakes with seaweed and spices
And here are some delicious filling ideas you can hide inside the rice ball itself:
- Shredded chicken and Kewpie mayo
- Canned tuna and mayonnaise with a spicy chilli seasoning
- Pickled plum – also known as umeboshi
- Simmered kombu seaweed
- Salted salmon or salted cod roe
Quick Tips
Storage
Best eaten fresh, or stored for no more than a day in the fridge in an airtight container. We don’t recommend freezing.
FAQs & Troubleshooting
We recommend using koshihikari
sushi rice which is stickier and will hold its shape better. Medium grain rice or short grain rice works best for onigiri as the grains tend to stick to each other better than long grain rice (such as jasmine rice).
Onigiri are best enjoyed fresh. If you need to store them overnight, we recommend popping them in a small airtight container before storing them in the refrigerator. Doing this will help retain moisture in the rice and stop the surface from drying out. You can also wrap them in an extra layer (such as paper towel or a regular towel) to stop the rice getting too cold and hard.
If your onigiri have dried out a bit but are still good on the inside, you can bring them back to life as yaki-onigiri – also known as grilled onigiri. Baste them in a little soy sauce, then fry them in a pan with sesame oil. The heat will crisp up the outside leaving the inside tender and moist. Yum!
Toppings, Serving Ideas & Variations
- Use Leftovers as Fillings – How about fried karaage chicken, canned tuna or pickled vegetables like takuan.
- Get Creative with Shapes – Instead of triangles, try making them into squares or animals! If you’re feeling creative, use thin slices of nori to create faces or patterns on top of the rice. Careful note: In some areas of Hawaii and Japan, it is considered bad luck to serve circular or round onigiri, as this shape can be reserved for funerals.
P.S. Heaps of our lovely readers have been asking about the cute little flowers in the furikake we used to decorate our onigiri!
It’s part of a gorgeous Japanese rice seasoning we LOVED in Japan, called Ume Goma Shio (plum sesame salt), and it’s made by the brand Marumiya. You can easily find Marumiya Brand Ume Goma Shio online, or occasionally in the seasoning section of Asian import stores. Just look for the cute little white seal cartoon.
It’s super fun to use and has a lovely salty sesame flavour with a hint of plum. If you give it a try, let us know what you think or make your own gomashio at home!
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Easy Onigiri – Japanese Rice Balls
Ingredients
- 3 cups sushi rice cooked
- 50 g rice seasoning 1.76 oz, aka furikake
- water as needed
- salt as needed
- nori sheets / seaweed sheets cut into small rectangles
Instructions
- Pop your cooked sushi rice into a large mixing bowl. Add the furikake rice seasoning and mix through evenly. Note: if you feel like hiding something tasty inside instead, you can skip this step.3 cups sushi rice, 50 g rice seasoning
- Separate the rice into equal portions, approximately one large handful for each onigiri.
- Wet your hands with water and rub together with a pinch of salt. This stops the rice sticking to your hands and helps keep it fresher for longer. Add more water as needed when grains start sticking.water, salt
- Pick up one handful/portion of rice. If you are hiding some fillings inside, here is where you make an indent, place the ingredients inside and fold the rice over, then lightly press into a ball.
- Using mainly your fingertips while resting the rice on your palm, start to press and squeeze the rice into a triangular shape, rotating as you go so it’s even. According to our Japanese friends, you want to end up with one face of the onigiri having a small indentation from your fingers.
- Place a slice of nori on the bottom of the onigiri, rough side in towards the rice. Then fold it up towards to the middle of the onigiri.nori sheets / seaweed sheets
- Repeat for the remaining rice portions.
Video
Notes
Nutrition Disclaimer: Nutritional information is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. For accurate results, it is recommended that the nutritional information be calculated based on the ingredients and brands you use.
This recipe was originally published in April, 2015. It has since been republished with new content and photos. Recipe is adapted from our travels through Japan, shout outs to the ladies in Miyoshi and Ikuno in particular!
It looks like a dish I will make 😋
Great to hear Doreen!
receitas muito saborosas.
Aww thanks!
Can I use seaweed thins if I can’t find Nori? and also will sticky rice work as it is the closest I can find in the supermarkets? Will it also work as a meal other than a snack? Thankyou!
Seaweed thins are a great alternative. They may have a little more flavouring on them, but that will just add to the dish.
With the rice, there really is no alternative to sushi rice. Especially when it comes to forming the onigiri. I’d try tracking down sushi rice online or from an Asian supermarket in the first instance, but if you really can’t find it in your location, then I would try with sticky rice as a last attempt. This has not been tested though, so I’m not sure it would hold together as it should!
Finally, onigiri can definitely be a meal. We’d often pack them for long trips on the shinkansen (bullet trains!) when we were in Japan as an easy lunch. 🙂