‘Canned’ spicy tuna sushi roll (with a twist)

‘Canned’ spicy tuna sushi roll

Why make ‘canned-tuna’ sushi in the first place?

Containing no raw fish at all makes it much easier to prepare and suitable for wider audience of diners, and a lot cheaper making it a great opportunity for novice sushi makers out there.

Sure, it wouldn’t taste exactly like an ‘Authentic’ spicy tuna, but it will taste (and look) great – and is granted to be a good return on your time and money investment.

Start with the sauce

You can’t make spicy tuna without spicy mayo sauce. The quantities given below yields enough sauce for 1 can of tuna – which should do for about 4 sushi rolls. One disclaimer is that it is designed for a mellow spicy-mayo level. If you are a big fan of the hot sauce, consider doubling the amount of sauce per tuna can.

For the sauce, put together 1 tbsp of your favorite mayo, 1 tsp of Chili sauce (I use Sriracha) and 1 tsp of toasted sesame oil. Optional additions are: A squirt of lemon juice, a spoon of masago (fish roe) and a bit of soy sauce.

Add the filtered tuna to the sauce, and mix it evenly.

TA-DA!
You will find out that this right here spicy canned tuna is amazing not just for sushi, it is also great for sandwiches, salads, etc.

Making the roll

Let’s move on to making the actual roll.
Take a nori sheet and cut it in half. Place that half on top of your saran tape wrapped bamboo sushi mat, with the rough side of the nori facing up. With your hands wet, form a ball of sushi rice, and gently spread it across the nori. There’s no need to press the rice down on the nori, just spreading it around equally, keeping it fluffy and nice is fine.

If you wish to add some topping to the rice, like sesame, masago, etc. This would be a good time to do it. For this roll I choose sesame seeds. Not to much though, I’m going to add other stuff later.

Fill it up

Cool. Let’s flip that nori so the rice should now face the bamboo mat. You can use a spoon or chopsticks to load the spicy mayo soaked canned tuna on to the nori. Line it up nicely, making sure tuna is equally lined up across the nori as can be seen in below.

Not shown in the picture, next to the tuna you can add 1-2 sticks of cucumber – again, make sure it’s equally distributed across the nori. Right before you are ready to roll, it might look a little something like this.

Let it roll

Now it’s time to actually “roll” the roll. If you are not sure how to do that, have look at our article on how to make any sushi “Inside out roll” here.
When you are done rolling, move the roll to a cutting board and with a sharp, wet knife cut it to 8 pieces. Look here for tips on how to cut a sushi roll without destroying it completely.

After cutting, move the sushi to nice plate, giving some thoughts to the order and the arrangement of it.

Anything on top?

To finish up, I added a bit of Ikura, and some chopped green onion on top of each sushi piece for taste and aesthetics.

Closing thoughts

Making the canned spicy tuna is super simple – and hopefully I was able to demonstrate can generate a very nice result.

Let us know if you liked it, and suggestion or recommendation is welcome.