Baked Salmon Sushi

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• Baked sushi with salmon  
• Perfectly cooked salmon sushi
• What ingredients to use and varieties
• Easy salmon sushi bake recipe that can be prepared in advance
• How to make sushi rice sticky
• How to prepare baked salmon sushi
• The perfect garnish for salmon sushi bake
• More Japanese recipes
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• Baked salmon sushi recipe

This is a very approachable recipe for salmon sushi. An oversized warm nigiri, fully loaded with miso baked salmon, nori seaweed, avocado and lashings of sriracha mayonnaise. Serve this baked salmon sushi recipe warm, straight from the oven with all the traditional accompaniments of soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger. Perfect for sharing, it looks fantastic, it tastes restaurant-made and it is really simple to make but makes a massive statement, and that is eat me!  

Baked sushi with salmon  

Baked sushi is certainly not something to shy away from either, even if you are a sushi aficionado. It may appear that the baked version is an easy way into sushi for an adventurous family looking to introduce their children to a new cuisine or for people who distance themselves from raw fish for example and want to try the Japanese original but are a little scared.   

It is in fact another way of preparing and presenting a great sushi dish. This is only one baked salmon sushi recipe after all, you can be creative and go overboard with whatever ingredients you want. Try other sushi restaurant staples such as spicy tuna, california roll, tiger roll, eel, scallops or octopus. Experiment with other sauces and sushi toppings such as yuzu, tiger milk or sliced mango, the only different thing here is that the food comes out hot and presented as one item to slice up or share however you like.

Perfectly cooked salmon sushi

The foodie dimension is also upheld nicely too, and this is down to the cooking technique employed that sees the fish cooked, but beautifully tender and pink. There is nothing overcooked and dry here. Obviously, if that is how you enjoy your salmon, by all means, cook it well done, but just as the majority of sushi is raw, and this is sushi, albeit cooked, the best way to serve salmon here is rare or medium rare at most, just as you would with a nice tuna steak which is a great alternative fish to use.

Salmon is an oily fish as is tuna, and both fish are served raw in a multitude of dishes, so to prepare them rare or medium is perfectly ok, just use good quality fish. 

The key to cooking salmon in this baked salmon sushi recipe is to cook it in a hot oven (250℃) on top of the rice for about 7 minutes, this way the inside remains warm but essentially raw and retains the flavour and texture similar to sashimi.

What ingredients to use and varieties

All the ingredients necessary to make this baked salmon sushi dish will also be easy to source from good supermarkets. The base is made from short grain sushi seasoned with kombu and rice wine vinegar sandwiching two sheets of nori seaweed (the sheets of seaweed used for sushi rolls), a prime fillet of Salmon brushed with a little miso paste mixed with sesame oil and maple syrup and garnished with avocado, sesame seeds, wasabi and pickled ginger (gari) coriander and Sriracha mayonnaise. Have a little soy sauce on the side and that is it. If you want a variety of more authentic Japanese ingredients such as dulse seaweed, masago caviar, yuzu or dried tuna flakes (bonito) which add depth of flavour, you should be able to find these in an Asian supermarket but these are optional extras.

Easy salmon sushi bake recipe that can be prepared in advance

A great thing about this baked salmon sushi dish is that it can be prepared quite a bit in advance, it just needs to be baked in a hot oven for about seven minutes before you need to garnish it and serve. 

First of all, prepare the rice. Short-grain rice varieties contain a lot of starch which helps the grains stick together in sushi dishes, however, some starch needs to be removed to stop the rice from becoming glue-like. Run cold water through the rice until the starch stops coming out, drain and repeat then soak the rice in the water for up to 30 minutes to help soften the grains. Then drain the water off and use new water to cook the rice.

How to make sushi rice sticky

Sushi rice requires less water to cook it than longer-grained varieties. You can’t simply boil the rice in any amount of water you want and drain it. A ratio of 1 part rice to 1 to 1.25 parts water will produce a soft tender grain that is sticky enough for sushi. Any more water and your rice will become waterlogged, not stick together, and in parts turn paste-like.

Place a sheet of kombu seaweed on top which will flavour the sushi beautifully with added umami and then place the pan on the hob. Once the water has just started to boil, place the lid of the pan on top (a glass lid is easiest so that you can see inside the pan) and turn the heat down to the lowest setting you can. This way the rice gently steams inside the pan and won’t boil over or burn. After 10-15 minutes the rice will be cooked. You can see if it is cooked by gently tilting the pan and checking to see if no water seeps out, if it does, just keep it cooking a little longer until it doesn’t. Once done, it is important to take the pan off the heat and set aside for ten minutes more. Make sure to leave the lid on so that the rice can rest and firm up in the residual steam.

How to prepare baked salmon sushi

Once the rice has rested, take the lid off and remove the kombu, then gently fold in the Japanese rice wine vinegar. This seasoning gives the sushi rice its traditional characteristic taste and texture.

This part of the preparation can be done in advance and can sit in the fridge for up to two days before you are ready to make the finished sushi dish. Otherwise, simply go straight into making the baked salmon sushi.

The finished dish needs to sit on its own like a large piece of loaded sushi. So, as it needs to be removed from the tray you bake it in, either use a grease-proof paper-lined baking tray or cake tin. Square dishes work best, however presenting it round does look good too if you have the time to trim the nori seaweed which comes in a square shape.

Place a third of the cooked rice on top of the grease-proof paper and spread it out evenly into the tray. Place a sheet of nori on top and repeat the process with the rice, then place another sheet of nori and finally top with the last third of the rice and press down for an even finish.

For the next step, make sure your oven is preheated to 250℃/482°F. Mix some miso paste, soy sauce, sesame oil and maple syrup, brush over the entire prime fillet of salmon, and place the fillet skin side up on the rice. Place it on the top shelf of the oven and bake for 7 minutes. 

This hot temperature will effectively sear the salmon just as it would if you were pan-frying the fish, which would also take about 7 minutes for medium rare.

Once baked, take the dish out of the oven. Remove the skin by simply pulling it off from one end and discard, it will come off easily because of the heat used to cook the fish. Whilst the fish is still warm pull the flakes gently apart and spread evenly over the sushi rice.

Remove the baked salmon sushi from the tray by lifting it up by the paper and sliding a knife under it to transfer it onto a wooden board or slate.

The perfect garnish for salmon sushi bake

Working quickly so that the dish remains warm, although you can eat this cold as you would any ordinary sushi dish, garnish with wedges of avocado, pickled ginger, dots of wasabi, dulse seaweed (or shreds of nori if you can’t find dulse) sesame seeds, coriander/cilantro and long splashes of Sriracha mayonnaise. If you like it spicy, add togarashi and more plain Sriracha.

Present it in the middle of the table with some soy sauce on the side and slice it up how you want to serve it. Portion out large wedges to eat it with a knife and fork or cut it into small squares and use your fingers or chopsticks, eat it your way and enjoy.

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