Spam Onigirazu - Recipe by Cooks and Kid (2024)

FAQs

Does spam musubi count as sushi? ›

It's only considered sushi if the rice is vinegared and sugared; musubi rice often is not. You will find Saran-wrapped Spam musubis sitting by the register of every gas station and convenience store in Hawaii.

The handheld snack can be described as Spam sushi – if you replace the raw fish with canned pork. Typically the salty Spam is caramelized in a sweet and savory sauce and lies on a bed of white rice. The snack is wrapped neatly with a piece of nori or dried seaweed.

Cultural Origin: Spam musubi originated in Hawaii, which has a unique culinary culture that blends various influences, including Japanese, American, and Polynesian. It was introduced during World War II when canned spam became a prevalent food item.

Aside from spam, you'll need just a few simple Hawaiian pantry staples to make homemade spam musubi, including a short or medium grain white rice (my family swears by Calrose rice!), Japanese furikake seasoning for added umami flavor and texture, and sushi nori – a roasted seaweed to hold everything together.

It is not a significant source of dietary fiber but may contain vitamins and minerals from ingredients like seaweed (nori) and furikake seasoning. Enjoy Spam Musubi in moderation due to its sodium and fat content.

Because Spam is already cooked, it can be eaten straight from the can and requires minimal preparation prior to eating. It's also highly versatile and can be added to a wide variety of recipes. Some of the most popular ways to enjoy Spam include adding it to sliders, sandwiches, pasta dishes and rice.

In most cases, the best-by dates for cans of Spam are approximately three years after the manufacturing date. After the best-by date, Spam is still safe to eat; however, it may change in appearance, taste, or nutritional value.

Spam contains six ingredients: a mixture of pork and ham meat, salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite, a food preservative added to bacon, hot dogs, cured meats, sausage, and smoked fish. Aside from adding potato starch in the 1990s, Spam's recipe is relatively unchanged.

Almost seven million cans of Spam are eaten in Hawaii every year, more than in any other state, according to Hormel. If you've ever been to the Islands, you may have noticed how common Spam is at breakfast. It's usually paired with eggs, rice, bacon, and Portuguese sausage.

Hawaii. Residents of the state of Hawaii have the highest per capita consumption in the United States, bringing in sales of 7 million cans of Spam per year. Its perception there is very different from that on the mainland. Hawaiians sometimes call it "Portagee Steak".

Is Spam from Hawaii? ›

This quintessential canned ham product manufactured in Minnesota was introduced to the islands during the 1940s, and has become a wildly popular staple food across the islands. There is even an annual Spam festival in Hawaii!

No, that's musubi. Musubi is spam with rice. And it's not a Japanese invention and has no link to sushi. It's more closely related to an onigiri which is also called an omusubi.

Musubi is considered to be both a snack and a lunch item as well. It is made with a slice of grilled Spam sandwiched in between or on top of a block of rice, wrapped together with nori in the tradition of Japanese.

Since it became overabundant though, civilians were then able to get their hands on those cans of Spam. The ethnically-Japanese locals got creative, putting it into onigiri, a traditional Japanese snack of compacted rice wrapped in nori. And with this simple addition, that's how Spam musubi came into existence.

What Is Spam? Spam is a canned cooked meat product made from ground pork and processed ham. The meat mixture is combined with preservatives and flavoring agents, such as sugar, salt, potato starch and sodium nitrite, and then canned, closed and vacuum-sealed.