You have just seen your parents transformed into pigs. A new friend offers you an onigiri. You take a bite. Tears.
So unfolds a scene from Hayao Miyazaki’sSpirited Away, a movie that won an Oscar in 2003 for best animated feature. One bite of onigiri moves the main character, Chihiro, to tears: proof that this comforting snack has real emotional sway. But the fact that a friend proffered Chihiro the onigiri is crucial.“Onigiri taste best when made for you by someone else,” says Mika Hatsushima, the owner of the Brooklyn-based onigiri shopRice & Miso.
Onigiri are elemental—short-grain rice, such as sushi rice, compressed by hand into portable shapes (triangles are most common, but onigiri can also be round). They’re the original finger food in a society that was built on rice. Archaeologists have uncovered remnants of onigiri-like formsfrom 300 BC to 300 AD, and they remain an ever-popular mainstay in Japan.
There is a comfort factor to onigiri that perhaps stems from a collective memory. Folktales invariably include a line about aprotagonist toting onigiri to a forest, while today’s children grow up carrying onigiri to field trips and swim meets. These children then become adults who bring onigiri topicnics and office meals and pack onigiri for their own children’s lunch boxes. While onigiri can be a stand-alone meal, they are also good for quelling smaller appetites. Hatsushima explains that many of her customers buy onigiri as a snack for their kids.
Once upon a time, the English translation of Pokémon’s original animated series convertedonigiri into jelly doughnuts, but onigiri are now globally recognized as emojis and line storefronts next to baguettes and bagels in Paris and New York. “Onigiri are a classic Japanese food everyone loves,” says Brooklyn-based Sawako Okochi, chef-owner of Jewish Japanese restaurantShalom Japan alongside her husband, Aaron Israel. Okochi and Israel include a recipe for salted salmon onigiri, which Okochi says showcases the ideal pairing of rice and salmon, in their upcoming cookbook,Love Japan.
In addition to salmon (usually salted and grilled), there are a number of other classic onigiri flavors to know.Umeboshi (salted plum), okaka (katsuobushi, a.k.a. bonito flakes, withsoy sauce), kombu tsukudani (sweet and savory kelp simmered with soy sauce and mirin), and tarako (salted cod roe) are all well-loved variations. Tuna mayo (canned tuna with mayonnaise) is a more recent addition to this lineup that captures how perfectly an onigiri recipe can meld with more Western tastes. Indeed, tuna mayo is a bestseller at Rice & Miso, while Paris-based Ai Watanabe and Samuel Trifot sell this variation at their onigiri shop,Gili-Gili. Watanabe and Trifot also feature a tuna mayo onigiri recipe in their 2022 book,Onigiri.
While classics remain classics for a reason, there is no need to limit yourself to traditional onigiri fillings. Okochi notes that she has seen onigiri with fillings like sausage, bacon, corn, kimchi, and eggs. Konbini (convenience stores) and grocery stores throughout Japan offer anever-changing roster of onigiri fillings like roast pork or with a base of egg fried rice. Onigiri also adapt to local tastes as they move abroad, with Hawaii’s Spam musubi being one of the more well known variants.
