Sushi Bake

Over the past few years, Sushi Bake has become one of the most popular pot luck/party food among friends and family.  It is requested at every party and always the first dish to be devoured.  Sushi Bake is essentially a deconstructed sushi roll, baked like a casserole.  It’s the perfect food to bring to parties or events because it takes little time to prepare, super easy to make, packed with all the Japanese flavors people love when eating sushi, and is absolutely yummy.

All the ingredients for Sushi Bake are simply piled on in a disposable pan/baking dish and baked for about 30 minutes.  Once it is ready to serve, scoop the sushi bake in the middle of roasted seaweed, folded, and enjoyed like mini tacos.

For this recipe, I used just Salmon and Imitation crab, but you can substitute with cooked shrimp, real crab, extra imitation crab, or whatever combination of protein works best for you or is readily available.  There are a few combinations I still want to try and experiment with and will definitely post if it’s successful.

Sushi Rice Ingredients:
4-5 cups cooked sushi rice
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Salmon and Crab Mixture Ingredients:
1 pound roasted Salmon Filet
8 ounces finely chopped imitation crab
1 cup Kewpie Japanese Mayonnaise, more for extra creaminess
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Additional Ingredients:
Tobiko
Furikake rice seasoning
Sushi or Unagi Sauce
Packages of layered seaweed
Kewpie Mayo

Steps:

Prepare the Salmon – Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Coat salmon with oil and season both sides with salt and pepper. Roast the salmon in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove the salmon from the oven and place it in a medium mixing bowl and let it cool.

Prepare Mixture – Unwrap the imitation crab from the packaging. Chop and shred the imitation crab and add to the medium bowl with the salmon. Breakup and shred the salmon into pieces.  Add Japanese mayonnaise, salt, and pepper to the medium bowl and mix ingredients thoroughly until fully combined.

Prepare Sushi Rice – In a small saucepan, combine rice vinegar, sugar, and salt.  Bring to a quick boil and mix until the sugars are dissolved.  Mix the seasoned vinegar with the rice and combine.

Assemble Casserole – Butter a 9×13 baking dish.  Add the first layer with sushi rice.  Sprinkle half of the Furikake Rice Seasoning over the rice.  Spread a layer of the salmon and crab mixture over the rice.  Sprinkle the rest of the Furikake Rice Seasoning over crab Mixture. Spread Tobiko over crab mixture.  Sprinkle on chopped green onions.

Bake Casserole – Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Wrap the baking dish with foil. Bake the casserole for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and serve hot with seaweed layers.

Tips:

• It is important to cover the casserole with foil before placing it in the oven to avoid casserole from drying out.
• Substitute shrimp, real crab, or with more imitation crab for salmon.  The possibilities are endless.
• If packaged roasted seaweed is unavailable, buy Sushi Nori and cut into little rectangles.
• I find that initiation crab can have a lot of excess water in it.  Wring out the liquid from the imitation crab before chopping it up.