Currently spending over a year in Japan, learning the language and culture. I've made some onigiri today. Kimchi flavor, chili garlic flavor, and mango jelly flavor.

by Gingertiger94

10 Comments

  1. Pikopiko_director

    As a Japanese person, I’m so impressed by your beautiful onigiri! 🍙 The shapes are perfect. I’ve never heard of ‘mango jelly’ flavor before, but your creativity is amazing! Enjoy your stay in Japan! ✨

  2. MistakeBorn4413

    As another Japanese person, I think “perfect” might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s pretty good for a first timer. Based on the uneven shapes, I assume you didn’t use a mold? I make onigiri all the time, but I still use a mold to get the rough shape and uniform size, and then finish it by hand. Something you might consider.

    Those are some interesting filling choices – all very unorthodox. Any reason you didn’t go for more traditional Japanese flavors like ume, sake or okaka? Not a criticism, just asking since you said you wanted to learn the culture.

  3. Calm-Driver-3800

    The title and picture made me hope you didnt cut your hand making these.

  4. ooOJuicyOoo

    The only thing wrong here is that I’m not there with you to inhale it all!

    Bravo OP I hope you enjoyed your stay there.

  5. Looks pretty good! Those are some wild flavors that sound pretty amazing lol.

    I think you might be squeezing too hard a bit though.

    I’m Japanese and I’ve been making onigiri for a while for various school events for my daughter.

    The roundish triangle shape comes from the way your hands come together when cupped, so you don’t want to get more rice than you can hold in your cupped hands.

    The way i do it is I scoop rice into a rinsed rice bowl (the slight wetness prevents the rice from sticking to the bowl and also wets your hand in the process which helps the salt stick to your hands), then grab four fingers worth of salt which I spread across my hands, then grab the rice from the bowl, shape it a tad, add the ingredients in the middle, close it up, and shape it in my cupped hands by squeezing it lightly and rotating it 1/3 rotation every squeeze so the triangle forms.

    In your case you’d mix the ingredients in the bowl with the rice and then grab it out and shape it.

    Using the bowl helps you get about the same amount of rice each time.

  6. Minute_Owl_7321

    I’m trying to open Onigiri cafe at anywhere people want.

  7. uno_novaterra

    Yum! I’m a tuna mayo guy myself, but you do you. About once a year I get a craving for onigiri and make 30 or so and try not to eat them in one day