🦀 Crab nigiri
Crab nigiri, or kani nigiri, is a small hand-pressed block of vinegared sushi rice topped with sweet crab meat and a touch of wasabi. The crab is delicate and slightly briny, balanced by the tangy, gently sweet rice. It is eaten in one or two bites, usually as part of a mixed sushi set, and is a mild choice for people new to seafood sushi.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 200 g Japanese short-grain rice
- 240 ml water
- 3 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 150 g crab meat, in neat pieces
- 1 tsp wasabi paste
Method
- Rinse the rice until the water runs clear, then cook it with the water and let it rest covered for 10 minutes.
- Warm the vinegar with the sugar and salt until dissolved, fold it into the hot rice with a cutting motion and let it cool to body temperature.
- Pick over the crab meat for shell fragments and divide it into 10 neat portions.
- With wet hands, shape about 20 g of rice into a small oblong, dab a little wasabi on the underside of the topping and press it gently onto the rice.
- Serve right away, 2 pieces per person as a snack or 8–10 as a meal.
How to make it lighter
- Count pieces: the rice makes up most of the calories, so 2–4 pieces alongside a salad is lighter than a full sushi platter.
- Crab meat is lean, so a piece of crab nigiri is one of the lighter options on a sushi menu.
- Ask for smaller rice balls or order the same topping as sashimi to skip the rice entirely.
History
Nigiri is the hand-pressed style of sushi that took shape in Edo, today's Tokyo, in the early 19th century, when street stalls sold quick bites of vinegared rice topped with fish from Edo Bay. Its invention is usually credited to the sushi maker Hanaya Yohei, though the story is hard to verify. Before refrigeration, many toppings were cured, simmered or marinated, and raw toppings became common only in the 20th century. Crab is a long-standing topping at Japanese sushi counters, especially in the snow-crab regions along the Sea of Japan.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →