Homemade Sushi Rolls – Kid Friendly Recipe

While flipping through a magazine last week, my daughter saw a picture of sushi in an ad and said, “I want to make this!” I thought it was a great idea and a few days later we did.

We are fortunate to have a great Asian food store just a few blocks from our home. Shopping for your ingredients at an actual Asian market vs. your local grocer will likely save you a couple dollars per item. It is ridiculous how much your chain retailer will up charge each item.

Here is what you will need to make sushi at home:

• A bamboo mat for rolling up the sushi (A 2 pack should be about $1.50 or less)
• Sushi rice
• Nori AKA seaweed sheets
• Rice vinegar
• Whatever ingredients you want in the roll – We used 1 avocado, 1/2 bag of raw frozen large shrimp, 1/2 cucumber and 1 carrot.
• Sushi soy sauce
• Wasabi
• Pickled ginger
• Optional: For shrimp – Olive oil and garlic powder (for sauteing), sweet and spicy chili sauce, sriracha sauce and mayo.

Directions:

Cook your sushi rice according to the directions on the bag. We cooked our rice on the stove top and 1.5 cups of dry rice was enough to make 5 sushi rolls.

While rice is cooking, prep your other ingredients. We cut up an avocado, 1 carrot and 1/2 a cucumber. Carrots and cucumbers should both be peeled and cut into thin strips. Then we sauteed shrimp with olive oil and a little garlic powder. Cook shrimp about 2 minutes on each side or until the grayish color turns into a pink/white one. We rough chopped the shrimp and divided it into 3 piles. One pile we left as it was, the 2nd pile we tossed with a sweet and spicy chili sauce and the 3rd pile we tossed with a sriracha and mayo sauce.

Once the rice is done you can start assembling the sushi rolls.  Pour a little bowl of rice vinegar to keep next to your sushi rice. Dip your fingers and spoon into the vinegar before picking up rice and this will help keep the rice from sticking all over your fingers.

Get your sushi mat out and place one sheet of Nori over the mat, shiny side down. Put a layer of rice on the Nori, leaving about 2″ of the Nori free of rice, giving the seaweed a spot to steal together.

Place a row of ingredients on the rice and then begin rolling your sushi up by using the bamboo mat. Unfortunately I could not get a picture of myself doing this part since it takes two hands, but just apply consistent pressure while rotating. Once you reach the end of the roll, dip your finger in the rice vinegar and wet the remaining Nori to create a wet seal and finish rolling up the roll.

Once finished, wrap the sushi rolls up in plastic wrap and place the sushi in the fridge until they are cold (this makes them easier to cut). When you are ready to eat, use a very sharp knife and cut each roll into 6-8 pieces, depending on desired size.

Serve with wasabi, sushi soy sauce and pickled ginger.

My daughter enjoyed eating them even more than she liked making them!