Tofu musubi, a plant-based spin on the Hawaiian classic, will make your heart sing. In this dish, we swap marinated tofu in for traditional spam. Our tofu is sautéed until caramelized and wrapped with nori over sushi rice. These tasty morsels are ideal for your lunchbox, appetizer tray, or potluck. They are also a perfect game-day snack!
How To Make This Recipe
We start by assembling our ingredients for the marinated tofu, sushi rice, and finishing. Our sweet and salty tofu marinade pulls soy sauce together with maple syrup, mirin, ginger, garlic, and scallions. We season our sushi with vinegar, sugar, and salt. Our sushi bundles would not be complete without that nori wrapper.
Marinade Tofu
We like to press our tofu before we begin. Once pressed, we slice our tofu into quarter inch strips and place them on a flat plate with raise edges. Next, we mix up our marinade by whisking those ingredients together in a bowl. We pour our marinade over our tofu slices. We marinate our tofu for a minimum of 15 minutes, or as long as 24 hours, flipping occasionally. While the tofu rests, we prepare the rice.
Tofu slices in marinade.
Prepare Rice
We want to reduce the amount of starch in our final product, so we rinse our dry sushi rice at least three times at the outset. Then, we cook our rice on the stovetop in a small saucepan with water over medium heat. Once it starts to boil, we reduce our heat and allow it to simmer until rice absorbs the water. This usually takes around 15 minutes. From there, we let it rest for another 10 minutes while we prepare the tofu.
While traditional Hawaiian Spam musubi doesn’t use seasoned sushi rice, we love it in our tofu musubi. We whisk together our rice vinegar with sugar and salt in a small bowl until the sugar dissolves. Transferring our rice to a bowl, we pour over our vinegar mixture and fluff it all together with a fork.
Fluffy rice is ready for seasoning.
Cook Tofu
To cook our tofu, we first remove our tofu slices from the marinade. We wipe off and discard any remaining scallions, garlic and ginger slices. From there, we bring a non-stick skillet up to temperature over medium heat with a little bit of oil. We sauté our tofu until those slices are brown and caramelized. This usually takes around three minutes per side. If you prefer, you can also bake or grill the tofu.
Caramelize that tofu.
Assemble Tofu Musubi
Now, it’s time to assemble our tofu musubi. We start by slipping our rice into 8-9 equal parts depending on how many tofu slices we prepared during our first step. We wet our hands and press each part into rectangles. Each rectangle shares roughly the same dimensions as the tofu slices with about double the thickness.
Sometimes we use the tofu package as a mold, and other times we just use our hands. Our goal is to pack our rice firmly enough to become one piece. We use just enough pressure to prevent it from falling apart, but not so much that the rice gets too dense.
Press and shape the rice.
Next, we top each one of our rice rectangles with our cooked tofu. We finish our little bundles by wrapping each sushi morsel with one nori strip.
Stack the rice with tofu & wrap with seaweed.
We serve our tofu musubi with a little extra cup of soy sauce or liquid aminos on on the side.
Serve with soy sauce on the side.
And now, we’ve reached the best part of all. Let’s grab one of our delicious tofu musubi morsels and dig in!
Dig into that tofu musubi.
If you’re looking for more tofu recipes, check out these tasty options:
Recipe Card for Tofu Musubi
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Tofu Musubi
Equipment
- Small saucepan with lid
- Small bowl
- Flat dish
- Tofu packaging, reserved (optional)
Ingredients
For the marinated tofu
- 16 ounces tofu extra firm
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons liquid aminos or soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon mirin
- 1 tablespoon ginger sliced
- 1 tablespoon garlic sliced
- 2 each scallions finely sliced
For the sushi rice
- 1 cup sushi rice
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon coconut sugar
- 1/2 tablespoon salt
For assembling
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil for browning tofu
- 2 sheets nori seaweed cut into 1.5" strips (8 strips needed)
Instructions
To make the rice
- Rinse the sushi rice with running water 3 times.
- Cook rice in a small saucepan with water over medium heat. Once it starts boiling, reduce heat, cover, and simmer on low for 15 minutes or until rice absorbs the water. Let it rest for 10 minutes.
- Combine the rice vinegar with sugar and salt in a small bowl. Mix until sugar dissolves.
- Transfer the rice to a bowl, pour over the vinegar mixture, and mix/fluff with a fork. Reserve.
To make the marinated Tofu
- Slice tofu in 8-9 strips 1/4-inch thick.
- Mix the marinade ingredients in a bowl and transfer to a flat dish that fits all slices. Pour marinade over tofu slices and let it rest for 15 minutes; flip occasionally.
- Remove tofu slices from marinade, discarding the scallions, garlic and ginger slices.
- Bring a non-stick skillet over medium heat with vegetable oil and cook the tofu until brown. 3 minutes each side. Reserve.
Assembling the sushi
- Slip the rice in 8-9 equal parts. Wet your hands and press each part into rectangles the same size and about double the thickness of your tofu slices. Pack it firmly to become one piece. If you prefer, you can use the tofu package as a mold.
- Top each rice rectangle with the cooked tofu. Then, wrap each sushi with one nori strip.
- Serve with extra soy sauce on the side.
