How to Make Homemade Sushi Rice: Perfect Sushi Rice Recipe

Sushi rice is plain short-grain Japanese rice that has been steamed and flavored with vinegar, salt, and sugar. Sushi can feature all different types of fish and vegetables, but it always contains sticky, chewy sushi rice. In fact, the word sushi, which means “sour-tasting,” originally referred to the fermented rice used in sushi-making. Nowadays, the subtle sourness of seasoned sushi rice typically comes from rice vinegar.

Sushi rice should be made with short-grain white rice, which is clingy and remains tender at room temperature. Since Japanese rice is rarely exported, use Japanese varieties grown in California, such as kokuho, calrose, or anything labeled “sushi rice.”

Sushi rice is seasoned with “sushi vinegar,” a combination of rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and sometimes kombu, an umami-rich type of seaweed. (The kombu can also be added straight to the cooking pot, or left out entirely.) You can purchase pre-made sushi vinegar, but making your own allows you to control the flavor. If you make homemade sushi rice a lot, consider whipping up a big batch of sushi vinegar to season future pots of rice. Once you have the vinegar, you’ll need to carefully incorporate it into the rice by slashing and flipping with a sushi paddle, rather than stirring, which can smash the grains of rice.

Perfect sushi rice consists of separate grains that are chewy—not mushy—and yet stick together, making it easy to form the rice into balls and rolls. Sushi rice should form nice clumps when picked up with chopsticks, and should taste well seasoned but not overpower the delicate flavor of raw fish within a sushi roll.