Japanese Seasoned Rice Balls

You guys this is kind of silly…but this next post is the REASON we started blogging in the first place. It was three years ago and Jenn and I were surfing the net and found a bento box blog. We then proceeded to look at a billion more bento box blogs, yeah we were kind of obsessed. They were just so adorable and little and there were pandas…

Onigiri is like the sandwich of Japan. They’re cute little packages made of sticky rice and filled with various things like meat, veg or even pickled plums! They’re usually shaped as a ball or triangle and sometimes sprinkled with sesame seeds or wrapped in seaweed.

For the rice the best kind to use is sushi rice. Just cook it based on the instructions and put it onto a cutting board or into bowl, until it gets to room temperature.

Add salt, vinegar, and sugar if desired, like regular sushi rice, (we only used salt). You could also add sesame seeds if you like!

We chose to stuff our onigiri with chicken salad made with leftover chicken, veggies, mayo, smoked chipotle powder, garlic, lemon juice and tamari (soy sauce).

Filling options:
Mashed yams w/ soy sauce
Sauteed shrimp
Umeboshi plum (traditional)
Leftover chicken
Peanut Satay chicken
Salmon
Tuna salad
Guacamole and cukes

Once you have the fillings and your rice, you can commence the assembly:
Wet your hands, take a 1/4 cup of rice and form into a patty, add 1 tsp of filling in the middle, fold patty in half like a pierogi, then shape into a ball.

We topped ours with sesame seeds and a japanese chili pepper seasoning!

Makes at least 12 balls.