Basic Sushi Rice Recipe

Once you know how to make sushi rice, you can stuff maki with whatever strikes your fancy. sushi rice
Jess Kapadia•

When training to be a master sushi chef...wait, wait don't click out yet, I promise this sushi rice recipe doesn't require five years of sifting through grain and kissing butt. You can do it in five easy steps. If you can make rice (which, thanks to this handy guide, you can), then light, tangy sushi rice is on your immediate horizon. Once you've successfully made it a couple of times, artfully or not-so-artfully arrange pieces of our soy miso tuna sashimi on top for out-of-this-world homemade tekka don. Or you can break out the bamboo rolling mat and get your maki on.

One tip: wash your rice in several changes of water until no longer cloudy. Removing the extra starch this way helps the rice grains stay separate and not clump together.

Basic Sushi Rice Recipe
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Prep Time
35
minutes
Cook Time
30
minutes
Servings
4
Once you know how to make sushi rice, you can stuff maki with whatever strikes your fancy.
Total time: 1 hour, 5 minutes
Ingredients
  • 3 cups Japanese short-grain rice
  • 1/3 cup rice vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
Directions
  1. Add rinsed rice to 3 1/4 cups of water in a large pot and allow to soak for 30 minutes.
  2. Bring rice to a boil, then lower heat, cover and cook for 15 minutes. 
  3. Remove from heat and allow rice to steam, covered, for an additional 15 minutes.
  4. In a small pot, bring rice vinegar, sugar and salt to a boil, then stir well, remove from heat and allow to cool.
  5. Spread the hot rice over a baking sheet in an even layer, then gradually sprinkle on vinegar mixture, folding gently with a large plastic or rubber spatula until all the vinegar is used. Take care not to mash the grains together.
 
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