Vegan sushi balls

Worrying about the perfecting sushi rolls? Forget it, check out this cool and easy way to enjoy a perfectly good sushi with little effort. Moreover, it is vegan, lunchbox friendly,  fresh and loaded with veggies.

I like a lot of vegan Japanese recipes. One of the best Japanese style lunch box recipes was taught to me by my daughter. Her school had a few weeks of cooking lessons where she picked up this skill. The ease of making it plus the exact flavours of sushi blew my mind. We have been going over and over again on this recipe as our lunchbox staple.

Some reasons you will like this sushi recipe

• Perfect summer recipe
• Not complicated like rolling the sushi
• Mild flavours
• Perfect lunch boxes(that get eaten)
• Variations possible easily
• Picnic and camp friendly

How could I have not shared this hack with you!
Here we go

Ingredients for Sushi balls

Rice: sushi rice is a short grain starchy rice that is used in Japanese cooking. This is slightly glutinous and stickier than short grain rice that you normally encounter. You can buy them from Asian stores or some supermarket chains. I prefer the ones from Asian store as they have a different texture than the one from regular stores. If they are koshihikari, they taste far better.

Veggies: I have kept it simple with veggies in this recipe. Carrots and cucumbers are our favorites. You can choose either regular orange carrots or have a variety of coloured one. For cucumber use the firmer Lebanese ones. Don’t miss to core out the seeds as they make the sushi balls soggy with excess water. You can add grated broccoli,minced cabbage, finely chopped spinach etc too to the mix,

Seaweed: plain roasted nori sheet is easy to crush or trim and add into the rice. If you have the basic nori sheets they shred well you could mince them to easily

Seasoning: this is not much but provides a good flavour to the rice and veggie mix. To the rice I add some rice wine vinegar (mirin) and a pinch of salt.you could add finely chopped pickled ginger or swap it with Furikake that has yuzu powder, sechuan peppercorns, red chilli powder, seaweed and sesame seeds. If adding furikake you can avoid the seaweed and the sesame being added separately.

Sesame seeds: the sesame seeds not just look nice but are tasty too. They add a bit of a crunchy to the recipe. You can choose black ones or white ones, there is no difference in flavour.

Let’s make sushi balls

• Cooking the rice: sushi rice can be tricky to cook the first time. The water to rice ratio is 1:1. Wash the rice toll water runs clear, then cook it on absorption method. Do not drain. Once cooked, ensure to spread out the rice in a bowl to cool it down. While cooking the rice you can use seaweed broth for extra flavor.
• Prepping the veggies: grate the vegetables of choice I have used carrots and cucumbers. The carrot and cucumbers grated . To add flavor I have added chopped pickled ginger.
• Making the sushi balls: to the cooked rice add vinegar to flavor and mix well. Add the veggies, crushed seaweed and sesame seeds. Mix well , take care not to mash the rice while mixing. Roll into smaller than lime sized balls. Keep covered and chilled to consume.

We have made a quick video format of this recipe to see how easy it is to put together. Hope you like it.

Variations we have tried.

• Wasabi infused: for the spice lovers, add some wasabi paste to the rice mix for a spicy kick. Tastes brilliant.
• Other veggies: grated cucumber, avocado, grated zucchini steamed pumpkin are all lovely to add to this recipe. You can colour the balls naturally using beet juice, spinach juice or carrot juice.
• Nuts and seeds : coarsely powdered almonds, cashews or pecans taste so good in this recipe as long as you have no nut allergies.  Try pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds or melon seeds. Along with sesame seeds you can use flax and chia too.

Can I used long grain rice to make the recipe?

Long grain rice like Basmathi has a fragrance of its own.this discourages me from using it for making sushi. However it won’t be the end of the world, so go ahead. While cooking the rice you need to ensure that it is a bit softer than the fluffier rice that you make for general eating. It is best to use absorption method than cooking and draining to achieve this texture.

Can I make this recipe will millets or quinoa?

Yes cooked millets or quinoa are suitable to make this recipe. However they tend to be  drier hence is harder to get together to form a ball. Add half more cup of water to the millet or quinoa while cooking and this will be a bit more mushier. This helps you to hold the balls together.

Meal prep and lunchboxes

The sushi balls are easy to prep on a weekend and enjoy got up to 4 days cold, making it a summer staple. You could either cook the rice and then add the veggies later to make balls or do the complete recipe and refrigerate. I like the latter idea. Always remember to keep the sushi covered so it doesn’t dry up.

I have not frozen these so I am unsure if they will be good enough. If you happen to have a positive experience do share.
For the lunchbox we love to have this with steamed broccoli and  stir fried tofu. You can alternate it with a broth based soup or some salad as per your tastes.

Other Japanese recipe on this blog

As we love to explore flavours, we enjoy a few Japanese recipes. Hope you like some as you click on each to try.
Sunomono – cucumber salad
Hiyyayako- soft tofu salad
Onigiri- triangular stuffed rice ball.

Stay connected

Making some easy but unique recipes keeps the interest in the lunch box and prompts it to be eaten. Hope you can give this idea a try. This is not just a fun idea, buy have tons of variations that you can play with. When you try this recipe, share the experiences with us in comments with the rating. We would absolutely love to hear from you.
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See you at the next post.