Is laziness a constraint? Yes, I think it is and I have to admit that I suffer from kitchen laziness at times. Sometimes we are tired, stressed or just plain lazy! It is the lazy gene within me that came up with the idea for sushi salad.
I love sushi, but I sometimes don’t want to go through the effort to roll it. I try to coerce my husband into doing it because he’s better at rolling sushi than me (wink wink). But there are times when the lazy gene travels from my body to his and he doesn’t want to do it either.
Try making sushi salad!
Sushi salad
Last week, I was entertaining vegans. I spent most of my week being very creative with recipes that would satisfy the vegans and carnivores at my mixed dinner table. I did a great job, but by the end of the week, with all of our other activities, I was getting kind of tired. I decided to make sushi salad because it provides all the great taste of sushi, without the effort of rolling. It is vegan at its essence, but also lends itself to adding tuna, poke, sashimi, tempura shrimp or any other fish you normally like in sushi.
Give this dish a try. You can modify the vegetables to what you have, what you like and what is available seasonally in your local farmers market. You can also make this for your kid’s lunch, a picnic or your own lunch at work. I like serving it with poke and also some scallion pancakes and potstickers for dinner. I served an Austrian Gruner Vetliner wine with this and it paired beautifully!
Watch my live demonstration of sushi salad at the Napa Farmers Market:
Deconstructed Sushi Salad
servings=6
prep_time=30M
cook_time=20M
total_time=1H30M
difficulty=Easy
Ingredients for salad
1 cucumber cut in half, seeds removed, thinly sliced
3 carrots, shredded
6 green onions, thinly sliced
1 avocado, diced
1 red pepper, thinly sliced (optional)
1 cup edamame
1 nori sheet, cut into bize-size strips with scissor
2 cups sushi rice
1 teaspoon salt
Soy sauce
Wasabi (optional)
Sesame seeds
Ingredients for sushi rice dressing (su)
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1/8 cup mirin
1/4 cup sugar
Make su: Slowly heat vinegar, mirin and sugar until very hot but not boiling. Fold in su with the hot rice, adding enough so rice has a tart/sweet taste. The rice should be shiny, not mushy. Make salad: Rinse the sushi rice until water runs clear. Soak rice in 3 cups of water for 30 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil. Stir once. Cover with a lid. Reduce heat to low for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand in covered pot for 10 minutes. Pour sushi rice dressing over the top and use when rice comes to room temperature or refrigerate. Place rice at the bottom of the plate. Place carrot, cucumber, avocado, and red pepper in vertical lines on top of sushi rice (let rice be seen on edges). Drizzle with soy sauce or soy sauce mixed with wasabi (my preference). Sprinkle with nori, green onion, edamame and top with sesame seeds. Make sure that the nori is on top of the sauce, not below, so that it does not get soggy.
