Kirbie's Cravings

Happy Onigiri (Rice Balls)

As I mentioned in my Hello Kitty rice balls post, I had actually been looking for the nori (seaweed) puncher to make cute happy faces on my rice balls, which I had seen on several sites. I've looked at stores near me and have not found them. But I did find them on ebay. These seaweed punchers are much easier to use than the Hello Kitty set, mainly because there are less parts. Each face has only two eyes and a mouth so it's a lot easier to stick these pieces on my onigiri.

I absolutely love how cute these came out. It made me giddy to see all these happy, cute faces staring back at me. For the rice balls, I used various rice ball shapers I own: star, heart, circle, triangle, bear.  On the back of each shape, I sprinkled rice seasoning so they wouldn't taste too plain.

I was actually able to put the cut outs onto a plate (already in the shape face), and then put the rice ball facedown into the cut outs, and they would simply stick on, creating these cute faces. So I didn't have to stick each cut out on the face, piece by piece. 

These were really fun to eat and I plan on making them quite often!

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6 comments on “Happy Onigiri (Rice Balls)”

  1. Pingback: Happy Onigiri (Rice Balls) | Online REL

  2. Oh that makes sense! I was too scared of really squishing it down too much. I’ll give it a try tonight! Thanks =)
    And yes, those xanga-ish sites are really weird. I do hear that they change a lot of posts from the original owner. Thank you again! I’ll be looking here frequently for more recipes =3

  3. That Xanga site is interesting. They asked for my permission to put up some of my posts along time ago, but I am never notified when they do, or of comments people make, or the changes they sometimes make to my posts. I’m glad you visited my actual site.
    I can think of two things that may help. Make sure when you cook the rice, that your rice ends up sticky. If you have too much water the rice will be mushy. Too little, and they might not stick together and the rice will be hard.
    The other thing is you want to make sure you really pack in the rice. Do you have onigiri sets? They are really good at smashing the rice so its compacted tightly. Your rice should overflow from the onigiri shapers initially. Maybe double the size of the shaper in height, and then smash it down. If you are doing by hand, also make sure your balls are very very tight. A lot of rice can be smashed down into on ball, and that is what keeps it together. If you don’t have enough rice and don’t squish it enough, they will fall apart. Hope this helps!

  4. Hi! After seeing your posts on Xanga, I was inspired to make my own onigiri last night =) However, they started falling apart slowly after I set them down. Do you know how to make sure it stays together? I used unwashed Japanese rice and followed instructions I found online, yet they still fell apart.

  5. These are extremely cute!