How to Make Japanese Musubi

Some of you have probably heard, seen, or eaten the popular Japanese snack called Onigiri which is basically a triangle of rice with some kind of "stuffing" in the middle, whether that be a meat, vegetable, combination of the two, etc.

There is also another form of this called Musubi which is more like a tiny rice sandwhich and much easier to make in my opinion. This post I'll go over how to make it (spoiler, its nothing fancy and super easy). It is a really simple and quick way to put together a healthy snack (I make it a whole meal usually since I make 3 or 4 of them at a time) and you can

put whatever you want inside or on top of it.

So to make it, you just need three things really:

1. White sticky rice (like sushi rice)
2. A Musubi Press (a mold for shaping it)
3. Something to put in the middle, the good stuff
4. (optional) Something to put on top.

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Prerequisites

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Buy a Musubi Press on Amazon or elsewhere. You can get them as just for Musubi, or a combo with presses for Musubi and Onigiri. It should also include a little spatula which is used to pack the ingredients in the press. These are really cheap. You can get all three for like $7 in a kit.

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Step 1

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Cook the rice. Just a cup of dried rice will do for just you, and maybe one other person depending on how much you eat.

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Step 2

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Mix up your ingredients. A very common recipe would be the one I use which is:

1. A can of chicken breast (or tuna)
2. 1-2 TBsp mayonaisse or to your liking
3. Pepper
4. Mustard

Just mash them all together in a bowl.

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Step 3

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Pack the press by doing the following:

1. Use the mini spatula to scoop a little bit of rice into the mold. Just enough so after pushing it down it is maybe 1/4 inch thick once it fills the bottom of the mold.
2. Use the mini spatula to scoop some of your mixture into the mold so that it is maybe 1/2" thick.
3. Repeat step 1, but this will be the top layer of the sandwich.
4. Take the "Presser" and push the mixture down until it is nice and compact.
5. While still holding the presser down, take your other hand, grab the sides of the mold, and pull it upwards to reveal the sandwich being held down by the presser.
6. Remove both the presser and the mold and voila, rice brick tasty sammy!
7. Repeat until the mixture is all gone.

NOTE: You can play with the layer thicknesses to your liking and how much of an appetite you have. You can also then put hot sauce on the top (that is what I do), or drizzle something else on top, whatever you want.

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VARIANTS

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There are all sorts of things you can do to mix things up with Musubi and there are a lot of different styles of it. For example, Hawaiians love to put spam on the top of the rice (instead of a sandwich) and wrap it together with a strip of nori (seaweed). Some Japanese put scrambled egg (tamago) on the top, and also wrap it with a strip of seaweed. The cool thing about this snack is its easy to make, healthy (well not Spam so much), and you can be creative with what you put in it.

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THE MUSUBI PRESS

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         MUSUBI PRESS                     MINI SPATULA                     

              ________                                                    
      -------|       ||--------             _________    
     /       |_______||       /|         3 /         \   
    /   1    |_______|/      / /          / ######### \  
   /________________________/ /           |           |  
   |________________________|/            | ######### | 
                                          |           | 
      -------------------------            \ ####### /  
     /|                       /|            \       /   
    / |  2                   / |             |     |    
   /__+_____________________/  |             |     |    
   |                        |  |             |     |    
   |                        |  /             |     |    
   |                        | /              |     |    
   |________________________|/               `-----'    

[1 = The Presser]

This has a little handle on top that you use to push/press the ingredients downward into the Mold (2).

[2 = The Mold]

This holds the ingredients and allows you to make a sandwich, and compress it all down to pack it tightly without it turning into a pancake and everything squishing out the sides. It just has the four "walls" and no top or bottom. After compacting the ingredients, you
grip the sides of the mold and pull up to then reveal the compacted "brick sandwich" looking rice treat.

[3 = The mini spatula]

This is shaped in a way to scoop the ingredients into the mold layer by layer prior to compacting everything with the press. You also use it to push the ingredients downward so that they spread out to fill the mold.