How To Make Easy Homemade Sushi

Jacque Heaton
Jul 24, 2020
3 min read

Recently I have fallen in love with making sushi, and in the process have learned a lot about it. For instance the word sushi is often thought to mean 'raw fish' when it actually means vinegar rice. Another fun fact, unless you go to an authentic Japanese sushi restaurant, you are actually getting American sushi. American sushi can be much easier to make, unlike the years of training to become an authentic Sushi chef. There is alway the beautifully done designs and sauces to prove what I just said wrong, but you get the picture I hope.

First, the most overlooked star of the dish is the sushi, aka: the vinegar rice. We love rice in my house so I always make way more than what I use to make sushi with, so for the sake of not flooding you with rice I have shrunk my recipe down to 8 servings which will make you 8 rolls.

Instant Pot Sushi Rice

Click here for printable recipe card

Prep Time: 2 minutes Cook Time: 12 minutes Total Time: 14 minutes Servings: 8

Ingredients:

2 cups sushi rice
1/2 cup rice vinegar
4 tablespoons Sesame oil
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt

Instructions:

Wash all the starch out of the rice using a bowl and a strainer. Measure the rice, pour it into the bowl, add at least 2x as much cold water, using your hand or wooden spoon gently stir the rice releasing the residual starch. Pour out the water and repeat until water is clear.
Pour out the water, pour rice into the inner pot, insert inner pot in the IP.
Add 2 cups of water
Close and seal the lid. Set valve to pressure.

Push rice button for rice setting. Let it cook.
While the rice is cooking, get a small saucepan, set stove to medium heat.
Add in the vinegar, sugar and salt. Stir until sugar is melted.
Remove from heat, add oil.
When the IP is done cooking the rice, release the pressure, remove lit, fluff the rice with a fork.
Transfer rice to a large bowl, let cool.
Add the vinegar mix (taste as you go) using a bamboo or silicone spatula making sure there are no clumps and all the rice is evenly coated.

Note: If I do a large batch, I will grab a smaller bowl and mix smaller amounts of rice and vinegar as I make my rolls. This helps the rice not be as sticky while I am spreading it on the nori.

Sushi Rolls

There are so many types and varieties of sushi rolls that what it comes to making them you just can't go wrong. So for the recipes I am listing 5 of my family's favorites.

California Roll

Cooked sushi rice
Nori Sheets
Imitation crab
Avocado
Cucumber

Philadelphia Roll

Cooked sushi rice
Nori Sheets
Salmon
Cream cheese

Dragon Roll

Cooked sushi rice
Nori Sheets
Smoked freshwater eel
Crab
Cucumber
Avocado

Shrimp Tempura Roll

Cooked sushi rice
Nori Sheets
Shrimp tempura
Crab stick
Avocado
Cucumber
Eel sauce

Assembling The Sushi Rolls

Tools needed:

Bamboo mat covered in seran wrap
Bamboo/wood/silicone spatula
Extra seran wrap
Sharp knife
Hand towel for putting oil on to clean the knife

Prep Work:

Get all your ingredients together, chopped, cut and organized for assembly

Assembly

There are 2 popular ways to make a roll, nori on the outside or rice on the outside.

1. Nori on the outside

Make sure the rice is nice and loose and not too wet or clumpy
I leave room on to with no rice so I don't ad too much rice
Add the ingredients
Using the mat, roll the end with ingredients so they are nice and pretty in the middle of the roll.
Finish rolling it, put it aside until you are ready to cut

2. Rice on the outside

I like to cut off about an inch off the nori so the rolls come out smaller making them easy to enjoy in one bite.
Next I lay the rice down first then the nori on top
Lay the inner ingredients down same as before
Roll the mat with the sushi
I like to add rice seasoning or black sesame seeds, by sprinkling it onto the mat and rolling the roll and using the mat to press it into the rice so it sticks
Wrap the roll in seran wrap and set aside until you are ready to cut

Cutting The Sushi

Use a sharp knife, a hand towel to pour oil into it and a your serving trays/platters
When cutting the rolls with rice on the outside keep the saran wrap on while cutting. This helps keep the rice from sticking to you and coming off the roll.
Cut the rolls in half, then cut those in half, and again those in half. This process helps your pieces be as even as possible.
Once the saran wrapped rolls are cut, carefully peel the saran wrap off