Recipe: "Yaki-Onigiris" - Baked Japanese rice balls dipped in a delicious soy sauce mix.

Number of steps:  6 super easy steps
Time taken: 10 min prep, 20 min in oven.
Approx. 90 kcal per mini yaki-onigiri

About This Dish:
Onigiris (rice balls) are delicious even when they are not baked, but when the rice is dipped in soy sauce and are baked on both sides, making the onigiri crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, it's becomes a dish you will start craving for! They're called Yaki-onigiris. In Japan, my mom used to make these for lunch as it is easy and goes well with various side dishes such as chicken. It is also eaten at Izakayas along with some sake and yakitori. It's just a fun twist to your regular onigiri, please give it a try! 


You don't have to use fresh cooked rice. You could even use left over rice in your freezer or fridge to whip this up quickly for lunch! Just make sure you warm the rice up before you dip it into the sauce.

What You Need:
(Makes 11 mini yaki-onigiris)

• 2 cups of uncooked rice (Around 300g or 3 cups cooked)

The Sauce

• 1 tsp of Hondashi diluted in water (If you don't have this, don't worry about it, skip it)
• 2 - 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 - 1.5 tsp mirin
• 1 - 1.5 tsp sesame oil
• (Optional) sesame seeds

1. Cook the rice if you haven't done so already. Once the rice is cooked, pre heat the oven to 400F.

4. Using saran wrap, place a however much rice you want per onigiri. I like making mini onigiris so I use around 1/4 cup of cooked rice per onigiri. Wrap up the saran wrap and shape the rice into a triangular form. Photographs on how to do this are here. 

2. Mix the ingredients for the sauce (soy sauce, dashi, mirin, sesame oil, sesame seeds)

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5. Take it out from the saran wrap and put it on an oven safe pan. Re use the saran wrap to make more onigiris. Once you're done, place it in the oven for 10 minutes each side! 

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3. Mix warm rice into the sauce. Mix well so that the rice soaks up the delicious sauce.

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6. You can re-wrap the cooked onigiris in saran wrap and freeze them up! Re hear using the microwave as needed :) Enjoy!

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