Happy September! Holy smokes can anyone else believe that it’s already September?! Summer is wrapping up and we can all feel fall in the air. Even if you’re not going back to school, we all have that feeling of settling back into a routine, organizing our schedule, and getting ready for fall. For me, this also means having a solid list of dinner recipes to rely on – recipes that are easy, healthy, delicious, and that I can throw together quickly after a long day’s work. And that’s where my sushi bowl comes in, it checks all those boxes!
A sushi bowl is the perfect weeknight dinner recipe! It’s such a fun and easy dinner that everyone can customize depending on what they like! It’s also fairly light, and super healthy! It was actually a recommendation from my nutritionist (Jen from My Edible Advice – who is wonderful!) to try a sushi bowl, so I took her suggestion and made it my own!
While this sushi bowl has a fair amount of components, I swear it is so easy! It’s also totally customizable, and as I always say, cooking is about having fun and making things your own! So feel free to make substitutions and experiment 🙂 If you have any helpers in the kitchen, everyone can be assigned a task – someone makes the rice, someone cuts the mango and avocado, someone else takes care of the seafood – and the dish comes together in no time!
The quantities below will make enough for about two to three bowls, with some leftovers. I always just eyeball everything depending on what ingredients I have on hand. You really can’t go wrong here, but I’ve given you a rough idea of quantities. But just know that’s a guide, you don’t have to follow it exact like you need to for a baking recipe! If you want more mango or avocado in your bowl, by all means – add some more!
Ingredients:
- 1 cup Rice (white, brown, sushi)
- 1-2 Yams
- 1-2 Avocados
- 1 Mango
- A few sheets Nori (or a small snack pack)
- Shrimp / Salmon / Crab (a mix of whatever you’d like!)
- 2-3 tbsp Sesame Seeds
- 2-3 tbsp Mayonaise
- 1 Lemon
- Salt and Pepper
- Soy Sauce / Tamari / Coconut Aminos
Instructions:
Prep your ingredients
1. Cut your yams into slices (about 1/2 inch or 1.5 cm thick) and roast them in the oven. Roast them for 30 minutes (or until they’re soft when poked with a fork) and flip halfway through.
2. Make your rice – it doesn’t matter what kind, whatever you prefer!
3. If you have a salmon fillet, remove the skin and cut it into smaller chunks. For the shrimp, take the shells and tails off. Sauté your salmon chunks, and add your shrimp once the salmon starts to cook, but is still raw on the inside. To season the seafood while it’s cooking, I use a mixture of soy sauce, ginger, tamari, salt, pepper, or whatever other “sushi” flavours I have on hand! Cook these for about 10 minutes, until both the salmon and shrimp are cooked through. I usually break the salmon up into smaller bits with my spoon/spatula while it’s cooking. It helps it cook faster and breaks it down nicely for your sushi bowl.
4. For the crab, I’ve been using a can of wild crab (rather than fresh) – I find it way easier and it still tastes great! Take your canned crab, empty it out into a bowl, mix it with a spoonful of mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and a splash of lemon juice.
5. Cut your avocado and mango into small chunks.
Prep your toppings and sauces
6. Cut your nori sheets into small pieces. I have the small snack-size ones (from Costco), but the full sheets work great too, you just have to do a little more cutting.
7. In a bowl, whisk together a spoonful mayonnaise and half a lemon worth of juice. You can adjust these quantities depending on whether you want a thicker or thinner sauce. Here’s a tip: add your mayo first, and the lemon juice little by little. It’s a lot easier to thin the sauce out than it is to thicken it. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Assemble your bowl
8. Time to assemble your sushi bowl! I like to put the rice down in the middle, and everything else around it. Put your yams, seafood, avocado and mango around the bowl. Add the nori pieces on top, and sprinkle everything with sesame seeds. Drizzle your lemon-mayo sauce as well as some soy sauce on top of your bowl. And voila – time to dig in!
You can obviously add more things to your sushi bowl like pickled ginger, cucumber, edamame, you name it! Have some fun with it depending on what you and your family like!
There you go! Hope you’re able to add this sushi bowl to your go-to recipes for the fall! I know it’s one of mine, and it’s always a big hit!
And if you’re craving for a more hearty fall dish, check out my vegan, gluten-free lasagna – it’s perfect for these cold, rainy fall days!
As always, if you make a sushi bowl, share a photo on Instagram and tag me (@danielle.a.connor), I’d love to see! 🙂
XO
Danielle
