Are “sushi bakes” the future of sushi-making?
For at-home chefs, the answer might be yes. The viral recipe, which makes it extremely easy to prepare a lot of sushi at once, originally blew up in the early days of quarantine.
Since then TikTokers have been posting their own, increasingly delicious takes on it.
According to Mashed, sushi bakes likely began in Hawaii and offer a variation on flavors and ingredients popular in Japan, the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia.
The recipe’s greatest appeal, besides its incredible flavor, seems to be convenience. Preparing sushi at home can be a bit of a struggle, but this concept makes it no harder than baking a casserole.
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But should we really start baking our sushi? To find out, In The Know producer Poppy Shen tested the recipe herself. To see how it went, keep reading below or watch the video above.
How to make a ‘sushi bake’ at home
Here’s what you’ll need to make this:
- 1 small casserole dish
- 2 cups of sushi rice
- Tuna
- Imitation crab
- Soy sauce
- Mirin (rice wine for cooking)
- Sugar
- Kewpie (Japanese-style) mayonnaise
- Sriracha
- Eel sauce
- Nori (seaweed strips for wrapping sushi)
- Additional sushi toppings of your choice (we used avocado and cucumber)
To start, cook the sushi rice, then press it down into the bottom of your casserole dish. Cut small, cubed pieces out of your tuna, and season it with soy sauce, mirin and a bit of sugar. Cube the imitation crab too, then add Sriracha and Kewpie mayo.
Next, add both proteins as the second layer of your casserole. Top everything with some eel sauce and even more Kewpie mayo. Bake the whole thing at 200 degrees for 15 minutes.
While that bakes, prepare your other toppings. We went with sliced cucumber and avocado, to add a bit of freshness to our rolls.
When the bake is ready, add a spoonful of your casserole to a strip of nori, then dig in! There’s no need to wrap the rolls or to try to make them look perfect — it’s all about flavor here.
And for Poppy, the flavor was absolutely worth it. She said this was the best TikTok recipe she’s ever tried, and the preparation wasn’t difficult at all. Ultimately, it’s a great way to replicate a lot of the flavor of a sushi roll with minimal effort.
Finding the ingredients is a bit of a hurdle, but if you have a good Asian grocery store in your area, it’s definitely worth giving this a try.
If you liked this story, check out our video on how to make fried grasshoppers at home.
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