A favorite at Izakaya restaurants, Yaki Onigiri are Japanese grilled rice balls covered in savory soy sauce. With a crispy crust on the outside and soft sticky rice on the inside, these rice balls are simply irresistible and easy to make at home!

Yaki Onigiri (Grilled Rice Ball)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 rice cooker cups uncooked Japanese short-grain rice (360ml; 1 rice cooker cup (180ml) of uncooked rice will make 3 rice balls.)
• Water
• kosher/sea salt (I use Diamond Crystal; Use half for table salt)
• neutral-flavored oil (vegetable, canola, etc)
• soy sauce (I used homemade Unagi Sauce, see Notes for recipe)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Gather all the ingredients. Cook the rice in the rice cooker, pot over the stove top or pressure cooker.
   
2. Let the cooked rice cool a little bit until you can hold rice without burning your hands. Do not let the rice completely cool down.
3. Make Onigiri into triangle shapes. First wet both of your hands with water so rice won't stick.
4. Then put some salt in your hands and rub to spread all around.
5. Scoop about a half cup of rice onto your palm.
6. Cover the rice with the other hand and gently form the rice into a triangle.
7. Make sure covering hand (my right hand) should be forming a triangle shape. When forming the onigiri shape, your hands should be just firm enough so the onigiri doesn't fall apart. You don't want to squeeze the rice too tight.
8. I use three fingers (thumb, index finger, middle finger) to cover the area to make a nice triangle shape. Then rotate onigiri to make a perfect triangle.
9. While you squeeze onigiri firmly with both hands, one of your hand (my left hand) has to press onigiri to keep a nice form. Left photo is before squeezing and right photo is after.
10. Gently squeeze the center of triangle on both sides so there is a slight indentation (for grilling onigiri). Now onigiri is ready! You can tell I’m not a good onigiri maker – no matter how many years I have been practicing.
11. Lightly oil a cast iron skillet and put it on medium heat.
12. Grill onigiri until all sides are crispy and lightly browned. Don't turn it around. Just work on one side at a time and avoid turning over frequently.
13. Lower heat to medium low and brush all sides with soy sauce (unagi sauce). Rotate to make sure all sides become crispy. Be careful not to burn onigiri after you brush it with the sauce.

https://www.justonecookbook.com/yaki-onigiri-grilled-rice-ball/