Onigiri: Japanese Rice Balls

Onigiri: Japanese Rice Balls!! If you are a rice lover, you need to try this recipe! Onigiri is the perfect snack or easy lunch. These are also great to take to the beach! 

Click here for my Amazon storefront! I’ve linked everything you need to make these, including the mold! 

My kids are huge rice lovers. They always have been. As a Korean kid, I grew up eating rice. Rice with meat, or Korean bulgogi, rice with gim or roasted seaweed, and when I got older and could handle the heat, rice with kimchi.

Some Of Our Favorite Recipes

There are so many Asian food recipes that we love using rice! Kimbap, spam musubi, kimchi fried rice, sushi and the list goes on and on. Today, I’m adding Onigiri Japanese Rice Balls to the list.

Now, I’m no Japanese food expert and I’m not claiming to be. For Japanese food recipes, my go to source is Just One Cookbook.

Onigiri: Japanese Rice Balls

We recently vacationed with a Japanese family and I learned how to make Onigiri. The recipe is so easy and delicious, I had to share it here with you all. There are so many variations and now you can even buy Onigiri molds online to help you shape them. 

We kept this recipe very simple. This is the basic way to make Japanese rice balls. Check out this post to read all about Onigiri and to see different variations. We hope you give these a try!

Print Recipe

Onigiri Japanese Rice Balls

This recipe calls for freshly cooked rice. You can cook your rice in your rice cooker or pressure cooker. This is the most basic way to make Onigiri. You can also add egg, spam, tuna and/or your own flavorings and seasonings. Here's a video to show you how I made mine.

Prep Time30 mins

Cook Time15 mins

Total Time45 mins

Course: Snack or Light Meal

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: Japanese rice balls, onigiri

Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3 cups cooked rice freshly cooked and cooled just slightly*
• 2 tablespoons furikake + more if desired
• water just to wet your hands
• kosher salt to sprinkle on your hands
• 2 sheets roasted nori cut into small strips
• sesame seeds

Instructions

• Place the cooked rice into a mixing bowl and sprinkle on the furikake. You can use as little or as much as you'd like. Mix together.
• To Make the Onigiri: wet your hands in the water; this is just to keep the rice from sticking to your hands. Next, sprinkle on some kosher (or sea salt) salt onto your hands. The salt helps to flavor the onigiri. Start with just a little salt, make one and adjust as needed.
• Scoop about a 1/2 cup of the cooked, warm rice (1/3 cup if you want to make them smaller) and, using both hands, form and shape the onigiri into a triangle. Don't use too much pressure but just enough to form and shape the rice. It doesn't have to be perfect. I also like to have a cutting board, or flat surface near by and will gently press the onigiri on the sides to help make a more distinct triangle shape. You can also buy Onigiri molds online.
• Place one piece of the nori on the bottom (as shown in the photos) and sprinkle on some sesame seeds if desired. Continue until all of the rice balls are complete. Enjoy immediately or wrap each one individually with plastic wrap. These can be made in the morning and eaten later in the day. They are best eaten day of! Enjoy!

Notes

*you are using freshly cooked rice for this recipe but let it cool slightly since you are using your hands to shape the rice. You don't want to rice to be too hot. 

I also like using Nishiki Medium Grain Rice but others will recommend Japanese short grain rice. Both will work; jasmine, long grain or other rice will not work in this recipe.