Ultimate Sushi Sandwich Recipe Using Smoked Salmon

Author: Joost Nusselder, author of The Essential Japanese meal planner cookbook Updated May 20, 2022

The sushi sandwich is an increasingly popular hybrid between the Western “sandwich”, a Japanese dish called onigirazu, and sushi.

People love this fun dish because it mixes popular ingredients with the flavors of sushi. It’s easy to make this dish at home or buy it from gourmet grocery shops.

In this article, I’ll take a look at what it is and how to make it!

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In this post we'll cover:

• 1 Sushi sandwich with smoked salmon and fried tofu
  • 1.1 Ingredients  1x2x3x
  • 1.2 Instructions 
  • 1.3 Notes
  • 1.4 Nutrition
• 2 Sushi sandwiches around the world
• 3 Make your own tasty sushi sandwich

Sushi sandwich with smoked salmon and fried tofu

Joost Nusselder

In this recipe, you'll learn to make a delicious smoked salmon and tofu sandwich. Tofu and salmon are easy-to-find ingredients and are healthy for you too! Tofu is naturally gluten-free and a great source of calcium and iron. 125g of tofu has only 95 calories. Smoked salmon contains lots of vitamin D, vitamin B-6, and magnesium.

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Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 40 minutes mins

Course Breakfast

Cuisine Japanese

Servings 4 people

Calories 250 kcal

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 4 cups short-grain rice
• 4 large nori sheets
• 4½ ounces smoked salmon
• 2 blocks tofu
• 1 avocado
• 1 egg
• 1 cucumber
• 1 cup rice vinegar
• 1½ ounces sugar
• 2 tbsp salt
• 2¼ ounces cream cheese
• 1 ounce cornstarch
• 3¼ ounces all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 180 ml cold water
• 1 handful of chopped chives
• Teriyaki sauce
• Soy sauce

Instructions

 

Preparing the rice

• Before you start putting your sandwich together, you must cook the rice. Cook your sushi rice for about 20 minutes in a pressure cooker. The rice should be firm. Once the water evaporates completely, your rice is ready.
• In a large bowl, mix 1 tbsp salt, sugar, and vinegar, and heat up the mixture in the microwave for 1 minute, or until the sugar melts.
• Pour this mixture over the cooked rice and mix well.
• Allow sushi rice to cool to room temperature. It's much easier to mold the rice once it's cooler.

Preparing the fillings

• In a bowl, whisk together the egg, flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and 1 tbsp salt.
• Slowly mix in the cold water and stir.
• Slice the tofu into small strips and marinate it in this batter.
• Heat the canola oil and fry for a few minutes on each side until crispy and golden.
• Cut up all your filling ingredients and put them in small bowls.

Assembling the sushi sandwich

• Lay down your plastic wrap on the flat surface you're using and place 4 nori sheets in a square shape.
• Place ½ a cup of your cooked rice in the center of the seaweed and lay it out in a diamond shape. Use moist hands or a moist rice paddle to make sure the rice isn't sticky.
• Spread out the cream cheese onto your rice evenly, as this is your base layer.
• Add all of your fillings in layers in this order: tofu, salmon, avocado, cucumber, and chives. Make sure that you don't overstuff your sandwich, as it can lose its shape.
• Add another ½ cup of rice on top of your fillings and maintain that diamond shape to cover all the fillings. Make sure to pat lightly and avoid thick chunks of rice.
• Use the plastic wrap to pull 1 edge of the nori sheet towards the middle of the rice and press down hard to make the seaweed and rice stick together.
• Repeat the same step for the opposite corner.
• Now fold the other 2 corners towards the middle and seal them using the plastic wrap.
• Press lightly to seal the nori sheet and rice.
• Your finished sandwich should look like a square package that can be cut into two triangles.

Notes

1 serving of this sandwich contains about 250 calories, so it’s a healthy option for sandwich lovers looking to skip out on bread.

For this recipe, you need some plastic wrap to lay down on your cutting board or flat surface.

The sandwich will be made and wrapped with the help of this plastic wrap.

If you want to make your work easier, try a special sushi sandwich–making device that’ll help you fold the sandwich just right every time.

Nutrition

Calories: 250kcal

Keyword Sushi

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Before serving, let the sandwich cool in the fridge for 1 hour or overnight if you’re taking it to work the next day.

If you want to make a more accessible version of this dish, try using a large pan.

Cover the whole pan with nori sheets, followed by a layer of sushi rice and your fillings. Then cover in another layer of rice and a final layer of nori sheets.

Cut into small bite-sized chunks. It’ll be like a sushi sandwich pie!

Try this delicious dish today and savor all the flavors of seafood sushi rolls in convenient handheld sandwiches.

Here’s Cooking with Chef Dai with a great explanation:

Also read: brown rice for sushi? Yes, it can be done!

Sushi sandwiches around the world

You’re probably wondering what kinds of ingredients you can make sushi sandwiches with.

Typical fillings include:

• Avocado
• spicy tuna
• Salmon
• Crab/fake crab meat
• Vegetables
• Pickled vegetables
• Tofu

There are also specialty sandwiches that use unique ingredients such as Japanese sweet potato, spinach, radishes, daikon, mushrooms, oysters, and sashimi.

Did you know that different countries have their own versions of sushi sandwiches that are inspired by local cuisine?

For example, in the United States, the BLT (bacon, lettuce, and tomato) sandwich is very popular and has been adapted for the sushi sandwich. Instead of adding fish, tofu, and pickled veggies, the American sushi sandwich includes hot sriracha sauce, smoked bacon, small pieces of tomato, and iceberg lettuce.

Or you can use the red sauce often found on top of sushi (in our list of all of the sushi sauce names).

Australians enjoy adding canned tuna, capers, and mayonnaise (I talk about my favorite Kewpie here!) to their sushi sandwich. This recipe is like the famous tuna and mayo sourdough Subway sandwich.

In Western European countries, people enjoy stuffing their sushi sandwiches with luncheon meat, poached eggs, and lettuce or cilantro. You can also use pork, beef, and chicken instead of luncheon meat.

In Vietnam, there’s a popular gluten-free sushi sandwich with chicken cooked in teriyaki sauce, Dijon mustard, carrots, and butter lettuce.

Vegans in Japan prefer tofu katsu onigirazu, which is made of sushi rice, fried katsu tofu, lettuce, carrots, pickled radish, pickled burdock root, and teriyaki sauce.

You can make much in the same way as this vegan tofu sushi recipe we wrote about here.

Make your own tasty sushi sandwich

Now you know about onigirazu and sushi sandwich. The beauty is, you can make yours according to your personal tastes, so the world’s your oyster. You can keep things interesting by switching up ingredients so it never gets old!

Check out our new cookbook

Bitemybun's family recipes with complete meal planner and recipe guide.

Try it out for free with Kindle Unlimited:

Read for free

Joost Nusselder, the founder of Bite My Bun is a content marketer, dad and loves trying out new food with Japanese food at the heart of his passion, and together with his team he's been creating in-depth blog articles since 2016 to help loyal readers with recipes and cooking tips.