Hosomaki is the easiest sushi you’ll ever make. Great for a portable lunch or dinner!
Thin sushi rolls, called “hosomaki” in Japanese, are delicious and super convenient to eat. The bite sized pieces make eating sushi cleaner and easier. These are perfect to take for lunch, especially when you don’t have a lot of time and need to eat on the go!
You can also pack these hosomaki for children’s lunches, because they’re easy for them to eat and they’re a great change from a regular sandwich. You can even get the children to help you prepare them because they’re fun to make and fill with your favourite ingredients.
My favourite ingredients to put in these mini sushi rolls are cucumber, tuna, and pickled daikon. The tuna rolls are often made with sashimi tuna, rather than canned tuna, but I prefer the canned version, and this is also what you can often find at sushi shops.
In Japanese, the tuna rolls are called “tekka maki”, the cucumber rolls are called “kappa maki”, and the pickled daikon rolls are called “shinko maki”. These are the classic flavours of hosomaki, but you could also put egg or chicken as well.
To make them small and thin you need to use smaller pieces of seaweed and put less rice than you would for regular sushi. I always like to order hosomaki when I go out to a sushi restaurant because they’re less messy and you can eat the whole piece in one go, unlike regular sushi rolls where you have to bite into it, which can make rice fall out everywhere. Hosomaki are also cleaner because you can properly eat them with chopsticks, so you don’t have to get the hands, nor the sushi, dirty. You can make these for lunch or dinner and serve with some miso soup and enjoy a delicious, simple, and homemade Japanese meal!
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Hosomaki Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups Sushi Rice Prepared
- 1 strip Japanese Pickled Daikon Radish
- 1/2 Cucumber
- 5-ounce can Tuna
- 1/2 tablespoon Japanese Mayonnaise
- 3 sheets Nori
Instructions
- Prepare the sushi rice by following the recipe link.
- Cut the pickled daikon and cucumber into long sticks and set aside.
- Prepare the tuna by draining the liquid out of the tuna tin and scoop the tuna into a bowl. Add mayonnaise to the tuna and mix well.
- Lay a nori sheet onto a sushi mat and place 1/3 of sushi rice on top and spread it out about 5mm thick.
- Lay the fillings on the centre of the rice.
- Place a little water on to the larger edge of the seaweed then roll the other side towards it and press down on the fillings as you roll then squeeze tightly.
- Repeat for the remaining amount of rice and fillings.
- Cut the sushi roll into smaller sizes and serve!