Raw fish and rice safety

Start with cooked and vegetable fillings. Cucumber, avocado, cooked shrimp, canned tuna and imitation crab let you learn rolling with no raw-fish risk.
If you use raw fish, buy it from a trusted fishmonger and ask for fish sold for eating raw that has been frozen to destroy parasites. The FDA advises choosing previously frozen fish for raw dishes.
"Sushi-grade" and "sashimi-grade" are marketing terms, not legal standards. Ask the seller how the fish was frozen and handled instead of trusting the label.
Most home freezers do not get cold enough to destroy parasites reliably, so buy fish that was frozen by the supplier rather than freezing it yourself.
Freezing kills parasites but not bacteria. Keep raw fish in the fridge at 40°F or below, make the sushi the day you buy the fish, and serve it right away.
Season the rice with vinegar as the recipe says, cover it with a damp towel, and use it within two hours at room temperature. Refrigerate or throw out what is left.
Pregnant people, young children, older adults and anyone with a weakened immune system should choose cooked or vegetable rolls and skip raw fish entirely.
Keep a separate cutting board for raw fish, wash your hands and knife after handling it, and keep raw fish away from ready-to-eat fillings.

Official seafood guidance

FDA: Selecting and Serving Fresh and Frozen Seafood Safely Official advice on buying, storing and serving seafood, including raw fish and who should avoid it.

Gloved hands pressing a layer of sushi rice onto strips of nori on a wooden counter

Your first sushi session

Rice, nori, cucumber, avocado, about 90 minutes

Tested recipes to start with

What you can roll in your first month

Cucumber-avocado maki

The linked tested recipe, and the best way to learn spreading rice thin and rolling it tight.

Tuna-mayo maki

Canned tuna stirred with mayonnaise makes a cooked filling, a mild version of the takeout spicy tuna roll.

Cooked shrimp hand rolls

Cones of nori filled by hand, so they need no mat and forgive uneven rice.

Inside-out vegetable roll

Rice on the outside and nori inside, rolled on a mat wrapped in plastic wrap.

Cooked shrimp nigiri

Hand-shaped rice ovals topped with butterflied cooked shrimp, your first try at shaping rice by hand.

Styles to try

Maki rollsNori outside, rice and one or two fillings inside, cut into rounds. This is where nearly everyone starts.

Start here

Make the linked cucumber-avocado maki this week, cutting each roll into eight pieces with a wet knife.

America's Test Kitchen: Cucumber-Avocado Maki

Inside-out rollsRice on the outside and nori inside, the style of most American restaurant rolls. They need a mat wrapped in plastic wrap so the rice does not stick.

Start here

Once regular maki hold together, wrap your mat in plastic wrap and roll one with the rice facing out.

Hand rollsNori cones filled and eaten right away, with no mat or slicing, which makes them the easiest choice for a group.

Start here

Set out nori quarters, rice and cooked fillings and let everyone roll their own cones at the table.

Just One Cookbook: Temaki Sushi (Hand Roll)

NigiriSmall hand-pressed rice ovals under a topping. It is the hardest style to make look neat and the one where fish quality matters most.

Start here

Shape ten small rice ovals with wet hands and top them with butterflied cooked shrimp before you try raw fish.

Skills that matter most

Cooking and seasoning rice

Rinsed, evenly cooked rice that is sticky but not mushy is most of what makes sushi taste right.

Spreading rice thin

About a quarter inch of rice is enough. Too much rice is the most common reason rolls burst or will not close.

Rolling with even pressure

Tuck the filling with the first turn of the mat, then press gently along the whole log so it is firm but not squashed.

Slicing cleanly

A long sharp blade wiped with a damp cloth between cuts, used with one smooth pull rather than sawing.

Hands pressing a butterflied cooked shrimp onto a small oval of rice — Nigiri with cooked shrimp, a good first topping

Choosing the rice and caring for the mat

Buy short-grain or medium-grain Japanese-style rice labeled for sushi. Long-grain, jasmine and basmati rice will not stick together.
Use plain rice vinegar and season it yourself with sugar and salt. Bottled seasoned rice vinegar also works, in which case skip the sugar and salt.
Check nori for sheets that are dark, even and crisp. Keep opened nori sealed in a zip bag with the moisture packet so it does not go chewy.
Before each session, lay plastic wrap over the mat for inside-out rolls. Afterward, rinse it without soap and stand it up to dry completely so it does not mold.

What trips beginners up

Expect the first few rolls to be loose or lopsided. Rolling tight usually clicks by the third or fourth session.
Plan on the rice taking a few tries. Brands absorb water differently, so adjust by a tablespoon at a time until the grains are tender but not mushy.
Nigiri looks simple and takes longest to make neat. Stick with rolls until those come out even.
Overfilling: one or two thin strips of filling roll far better than a fat bundle.
Rolling hours ahead: nori turns soft within about an hour and rice hardens in the fridge, so roll close to serving time.

A hand holding two cut maki pieces filled with crab, cucumber and salmon — Thin fillings, even rice, a tight roll

Where to learn

Free recipe sites with step-by-step video cover every style on this page. A local cooking school or a sushi class at a Japanese grocery is worth one evening if you want someone to watch your rolling and correct it.

Free recipes and videos

Just One Cookbook Free Japanese home-cooking recipes and videos, with many sushi styles.

Why the kit looks like this

The essentials are the shelf-stable ingredients of the first recipe plus a rolling mat, so one order covers your first several sessions. Fresh fillings come from the grocery store each time. A rice cooker is not needed: the linked recipe cooks the rice in a saucepan. The slicing knife and thermometer at the end are for later, once you start working with raw fish.

Homemade cucumber and carrot maki on a round wooden board with a dish of soy sauce and chopsticks — Homemade vegetable maki, ready to serve

An overhead spread of sushi rolls on slate with pickled ginger, wasabi and edamame

Stock the sushi counter

One pick per line

The first seven lines are the tested recipe's shelf-stable shopping list plus the mat. The paddle, strainer, wasabi and ginger make every session easier. The thermometer and slicing knife are for later and start out of the kit. Clicking a card selects it on the counter list, and clicking the selected card again takes that line out.

Japanese short-grain sushi rice

Essential · Ingredients

Short-grain rice turns sticky when cooked, which is what holds a roll together. Other rice types fall apart.

budget

Lundberg Sushi Rice, Sticky White Japanese-Style Short Grains, Regenerative Organic Certified, 32 Oz

4.7(4719)

$9.22

Sushi Making

Raw fish and rice safety

Your first sushi session

Styles to try

Skills that matter most

Choosing the rice and caring for the mat

What trips beginners up

Where to learn

Why the kit looks like this

Stock the sushi counter

Japanese short-grain sushi rice

Unseasoned rice vinegar

Roasted nori sheets for sushi

Granulated sugar

Fine salt

Soy sauce for dipping

Bamboo sushi rolling mat

Rice paddle (shamoji)

Fine-mesh strainer

Wasabi paste or powder

Pickled sushi ginger

Fridge and freezer thermometer

Japanese slicing knife (yanagiba style)