🍙 Salmon onigiri (shake onigiri)
Shake onigiri is one of the most popular rice balls in Japan: plain short-grain rice shaped around salted, grilled salmon and wrapped in nori. The salmon is flaked so its salty, slightly smoky flavour runs through the soft, compact rice, while the seaweed adds a crisp, savoury edge. It is sold in every convenience store and packed into lunch boxes.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 300 g Japanese short-grain rice
- 150 g salmon fillet
- 2 sheets nori, cut into strips
- 1 tsp salt plus extra for the hands
- 400 ml water
Method
- Rinse and cook the rice, then let it steam covered for 10 minutes.
- Rub the salmon with salt and grill it for 8–10 minutes until cooked through, then flake it.
- Mix half the salmon into the rice if you like, keeping the rest for the centre.
- With wet, salted hands shape about 70 g of rice around a spoonful of salmon into a triangle.
- Wrap with nori just before eating so it stays crisp.
How to make it lighter
- Use an equal mix of salmon and rice in the centre to raise the protein share.
- Make the balls smaller, around 60 g of rice each.
- Serve with cucumber or a leafy salad to add volume.
History
Rice balls have been eaten in Japan for many centuries as portable food for travellers, farmers and soldiers. Wrapping them in sheets of nori became widespread later, and since the late twentieth century onigiri have been a staple of Japanese convenience stores.
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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 →