What Is Onigiri?

I tried making onigiri at home and it turned out really good, I'm happy! I read several different recipes to compare them and all the recipes are pretty much the same. You just have to make the rice balls correctly and putting in the filling you want is the easy part.

My suggestions for those wanting to make onigiri at home would be to first get Japanese rice. My roommate tried making it with basmati rice and that was a failure. I think only Japanese rice sticks together, so trying other kinds of rice won't work.

My other suggestion is to start shaping the onigiri at the right time. It shouldn't be cold, or again, it doesn't form the right shape. My hands are kind of sensitive and even though I let the rice cool down for about five minutes, it was still very hot. So I used saran wrap to help form the balls. I put the rice on the wrap and held it that way.

If you can get the hang of shaping the rice, the rest is easy. You can add some water and salt on your hands to make it stick together better. If you don't like seaweed (nori), you don't have to put it on the onigiri. Sometimes I put seaweed, but sometimes I don't. It tastes just as good without it.

Onigiri with fish or pickled veggie fillings are the classics but there are many new flavors and fillings out there these days. My favorite fillings are chicken, salmon and mayonnaise and breaded shrimp. There are many other fillings though and I think they are coming up with new flavors and combinations to boost sales. I don't mind! I like trying different kinds of onigiri. It's kind of exciting to see what a new one is like.

I do always go back to original onigiris with plain rice and veggie fillings though. It's sort of my comfort food. When I'm sick, I only want to have some onigiri.

Oh and if you are wondering how fresh they are since they are sold packaged at the store, they are very fresh. No one would eat stale or old onigiri anyway, so stores have to make sure that they are stocked fresh. I think they have them delivered in small amounts throughout the day to make sure it won't go to waste.

It's great, you can always find fresh onigiri and in tens of different flavors to try.

I think onigiri is the most popular snack food in Japan. When I was in Japan, I saw it everywhere, literally! It was sold in the street and all grocery stores. Some large stores had an isle full of onigiri. I actually think that this is great, because onigiri is really a healthy food. If we ate onigiri as a regular snack food / junk food instead of fried and processed foods, we would be much better off.

The other interesting thing I saw in Japan with onigiri was the different shapes they came in. A lot of them were shaped as a triangle or a round ball. But some of them had really unique and cute shapes. Some were shapes like stars, hearts and teddy bears. I even saw one that looked like Hello Kitty! I think kids especially loved those.

I was not very familiar with Japanese food when I went to Japan and I must say that onigiri became my favorite because it's a very simple food but also very tasty. I think everyone in our group loved onigiri, we had it as a snack every single day we were there.