Portuguese Sausage Musubi With Step-by-Step Pictures
If you’ve ever thought about making your own Portuguese sausage musubi or spam musubi but didn’t know how to do it, this is the blog post for you. Portuguese sausage musubi is super easy to make. In terms of special equipment, it does require a spam musubi maker, but you can get that for just $1.50 at Daiso. If you have no idea what a musubi is, keep reading! Hopefully by the end of this post, I’ll have convinced you to try it. Also remember to check out my food glossary for more information on any food or ingredient names that you’re unfamiliar with!
Do you guys like spam musubi? How about Portuguese sausage musubi? I grew up eating spam musubi. It was common among the Asian community in southern California. Obviously, both spam musubi and Portuguese sausage are VERY popular in Hawaii. Spam musubi was invented there! And every time I vacation to Hawaii, I make sure to get the Hawaiian breakfast at McDonald’s, which has spam or Portuguese sausage and rice! Yum! But when I moved out for college, I met people for the first time who didn’t eat spam. In grad school, I had a lunch bag with a picture of spam musubi on it, and nobody knew what it was! How could anyone not know of this amazing food?!
Well, regardless of where you are on your personal spam journey, I have a musubi recipe for you. This is a Portuguese sausage musubi (not spam), but it uses exactly the same steps as making spam musubi. I’m giving you a very basic tutorial with step-by-step picture instructions, but feel free to add your own flavor twists! Musubi can be as fancy or as plain as you want.
Ingredients and Special Equipment:
For the ingredients, you’ll probably need to hit up an Asian market. You need short grain Japanese rice, spam or Portuguese sausage, and some sheet seaweed. If you buy Portuguese sausage, look for one sliced and shaped like spam, in rectangles. I did NOT even know they sold Portuguese sausage already sliced like this until just recently! I saw it as I was browsing Uwajimaya, which basically spurred the idea for this blog post.
You’ll also need a musubi maker. It looks like a long plastic rectangle with a plastic plunger that goes in the middle. If you have a Daiso store near you, they usually sell it there for $1.50.
Step-by-step Photo Instructions:
Once you have your ingredients and materials prepped and ready, you can start making musubi! Line up the mold on top of a sheet of seaweed.
Add some rice, then squish it down with the plunger.
Put a layer of sausage or spam on top of the rice. Keep the mold in its place!
Add another layer of rice and press down with the plunger. This time, take the mold off. I find it helpful to leave the plunger down while peeling off the mold. Then you can take off the plunger piece.
Wrap your seaweed, slice, and you’re done!
You should really let the rice cool down before slicing to get nice clean cuts. I, however, was very hungry when making these, so the slices you see down below are what happens when you don’t wait. Oh well.
Portuguese Sausage Musubi
Ingredients
- 3 cups Japanese-style short grain white rice
- water to cook rice
- 1 pack (10 slices) Portuguese sausage or Spam
- 5 large sheets seaweed
Instructions
- Cook rice according to your rice cooker instructions. If you don’t have a rice cooker that tells you how much water to add, most packages of rice will have instructions on the bag, usually 2:1 water to rice ratio.
- Meanwhile, place Portuguese sausage slices in a nonstick skillet. No oil is needed. Fry until browned on both sides.
- Place musubi maker on top of one sheet of seaweed (See picture above). When rice is done, place roughly 1/3 cup of cooked rice inside the maker. When in doubt, put in less. You can always add more rice later.
- Use the musubi maker’s plunger to press the rice down. Your rice should create a layer somewhere between 1/4-1/2 inch tall, depending on how stuffed you want your musubi. Take plunger off, but leave the maker in place.
- Place two slices of Portuguese sausage in maker.
- Add another layer of rice and squish down with the plunger as before. This time, leave the plunger on top of the rice and pull the mold off. Then take off the plunger as well. You should be left with a nice rectangle.
- Fold both edges of the seaweed over your rice/sausage block. If the seaweed doesn’t want to stay wrapped, you can dab your finger into some water and press on the edges to seal them shut.
- To make clean slices, it’s best to wait for the musubi to cool down a little. Slice each rectangle in half for two large musubi or in fourths for four snack size musubi. Musubi is best eaten day of, but can be refrigerated and reheated in a microwave.
What do you think? Have I converted you? I hope you give it a try!
These look so tasty Kristin! I’ll have to swing by my local Daiso to get a mold and try them out 🙂
Yeah! Gotta love Daiso! I’m thinking of trying to shape slice and bake cookies in the mold too, to get nice perfect rectangles. I like when I get multiple uses out of a $1.50 item.
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