Sushi is a delicacy best prepared by a highly trained chef working in a controlled restaurant or commercial kitchen environment. Right?
Not so fast. Yes, most Americans rightly consider sushi a delicacy, notwithstanding the fact that they can find it in most grocery stores at this point. This is largely down to the cost of the high-quality proteins, like fish or mollusks, that aren’t readily available in many grocery stores.
Labor costs also influence the relatively high price people pay for the finished product. Making sushi takes time and requires skill to do consistently and efficiently, hence the substantial training requirements. Sushi chefs don’t come cheap.
Yet it’s easier than you’d imagine to make sushi at home. You just have to be willing to procure the right ingredients and put in the work. Here’s how to get started.
Homemade Sushi Ingredients
Sushi is a deceptively simple cuisine. So simple, in fact, that even those who eat it regularly assume it’s fine to make it with any old ingredients.
That’s not quite right. To make great sushi at home, you’ll need two critical ingredients: sushi-grade rice and sushi-grade seaweed, also known as nori.
Your local grocery store probably has sushi-grade rice on hand. It’s often found in smaller bags (2 pounds or less). To prepare it, you’ll need to follow a specific process, preferably using a rice cooker. Be sure to add rice vinegar at the end; this is an underappreciated component of that distinctive sushi flavor.
Nori is not as common in regular North American grocery stores, but your local Asian grocery store or food outlet should carry it. In a pinch, you can use snack-style seaweed, but beware of overly salted varieties that drown out the natural flavor of the seaweed (another vital component of sushi flavor).
As for your filling, the sky’s the limit. Simple, affordable preparations might include julienned cucumber, carrot, and sweet radish alongside imitation crab meat or avocado, while more ambitious (and potentially expensive) versions could include sushi-quality salmon, tuna or yellow tail (never frozen, preferably) or fish roe, eel, or egg cake. If you’re after a true sushi restaurant experience, visit your local seafood store for the broadest possible selection of high-quality proteins.
One (possible) pro tip about sushi rice seasoning: Many home sushi chefs prefer to use preseasoned rice vinegar with salt and sugar added. You can use standard rice vinegar if you don’t want to add another seldom-used bottle to your pantry, but the sushi might end up tasting a bit underseasoned if you don't manually add salt and sugar once it’s cooked. That manual seasoning process leaves more room for error; remember, you can’t dial back on seasoning once it’s added.
Making Sushi at Home (Process)
Here’s the basic process for making sushi at home:
Cook the rice in a rice cooker. Yes, a real rice cooker, or a pressure cooker with a proper rice setting. You can get away with stovetop cooking for standard side-dish rice, but not for sushi rice. The link above has a more detailed, step-by-step guide to the process.
Prepare your filling. Attentive knifework is critical here. Think back to how the ingredients looked and tasted the last time you had sushi at a restaurant, and watch a YouTube video or two if you’re not feeling super confident. You want each piece of each ingredient to be as similar in size and shape as possible. When cutting fish, use a sharp knife and try to limit each cut to a single, long stroke at a descending angle.
Prepare the wrapping. Lay out your nori wrapper on a bamboo mat (or parchment paper in a pinch, but bamboo is better) and evenly plaster the cooked sushi rice on the side facing you. Make the bedding as even as possible before neatly placing the filling in the center.
Make the roll. Roll the whole thing as tightly as you can, applying even pressure as you go. This is where the bamboo mat shines; parchment paper can’t roll as tight and often results in lumpy rolls.
Cut the roll. Finally, use a sharp knife to cut the roll into smaller, evenly sized pieces. You should be able to get six out of a standard-size nori sheet, with smaller end pieces left over for post-prep snacking.
That’s it. Dig in with your favorite sushi sides — ginger, wasabi, soy sauce, or whenever else strikes your fancy.
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