Stop Overstuffing Your Homemade Sushi With This Simple Filling Ratio

The first type of sushi that most home cooks take on is a simple maki roll. These are the archetypal rolls that pop up in your head when you imagine sushi: some sort of filling (likely fish and/or vegetables) surrounded by a layer of rice and tightly wrapped in nori. While they are fairly simple to make, and the essential homemade sushi ingredients are fairly easy to come by, the act of rolling up a perfect maki roll can take a bit of practice. All too often these rolls come out lumpy or loose, nothing like the perfect cylinders you see delivered by master sushi chefs.

To address this particular woe, we went to the experts, asking celebrity chef Masaharu Morimoto for advice on the best filling ratio for sushi. "I always recommend a 1:1 ratio of rice to other ingredients," he suggests, adding that "the quantity of ingredients inside a maki roll is crucial to maintain balance." As with so much of Japanese cuisine, perfecting your homemade sushi begins with restraint and balance. Using equal quantities of rice and filling not only makes it easy to roll your sushi into a beautiful, even cylinder, it also ensures that the rice and filling play together in harmony, neither one dominating the presentation or flavor of the finished dish. When you are first learning, there will always be a temptation to pack in just a little bit more filling, but the result is often an ugly roll with discordant flavor.

Beyond nailing the right ratio of rice to filling in your maki rolls, there are a number of other tips that will improve your homemade sushi. For starters, it is best to begin with a proper recipe when you don't know what you're doing. With something as simple as sushi, it may be tempting to just buy some fish, rice, and nori and wing it, but that's a recipe for disappointment. This California roll recipe is a great place to start — a sushi restaurant classic — or you could try our spicy crab salad sushi recipe for another simple option with ingredients you can find at most grocery stores. If you don't eat fish, check out this vegetarian sushi recipe for a place to begin your maki odyssey.

Any good sushi recipe will give you easy-to-follow instructions, but with such a simple food, much of the quality of the finished product comes down to technique. Having the right kitchen tools for homemade sushi can make a huge difference, particularly when you are first learning. A sharp knife means a clean cut, a bamboo mat gives you extra control in your rolling, and a rice cooker can save you years of apprenticeship. Okay, just kidding about the last one, but having perfectly cooked rice will make your job a whole lot easier. Beyond that, all you have to do is follow the recipe. Even if it doesn't work great the first time, every roll you make is another learning opportunity.

All that said, rolling sushi isn't easy. Still, we suggest at least giving it a try. You may surprise yourself, but if you try it and still hate it, well, there are other options out there. When folks think of sushi, what generally comes to mind are maki and uramaki sushi rolls (uramaki are the rolls with the rice on the outside). But there are lots of different types of sushi out there, and many require either no rolling or simpler rolling than a maki roll.

For starters, you have the kinds of things you'd probably recognize from your local sushi joint, even if they aren't your go-to. Nigiri is a simple way to make homemade sushi; just form a rice ball with your hands and plop a lovely piece of sashimi on top. Or you can try making cone-shaped temaki, also called "hand rolls," which are a bit easier to assemble. You can see just how easy it is in this charred avocado hand rolls recipe. The assembly of chirashi sushi, or "scattered" sushi, is as low-effort as it gets, just a bowl of sushi rice topped with all the goodies you might otherwise tuck inside a roll — like in this California roll bowl recipe.

If you're willing to break with tradition, there are even more options out there for you. You can try something fun and different, like cucumber sushi boats. Making sushi in a casserole dish doesn't deliver exactly the same experience, but there is a reason that these salmon sushi bakes are super popular.