Sushi tacos are a crunchy, savoury snack rich in umami that fuses Japanese and Mexican flavours. The supple rice and fresh fish provide a delicate, melt-in-your-mouth texture, while the salty nori shell delivers a delicious crunch.
Furthermore, these nori tacos maintain the iconic taco structure and aesthetic by wrapping seafood-inspired toppings in nori. Meanwhile, abundant helpings of delectable flavours on the inside add an Asian-fusion twist to the experience.
These quick snacks are incredibly versatile and easy to make. You can get creative with the fillings for these delicious sushi taco shells. They're also a lot fun to prepare.
We've created our recipe with four different filling combos. You can choose between using raw or cooked fish. For the sauce, we'll show you how to make a creamy mayo sauce and a spicy one. So, the next time you want to make something unique and extra special for sushi night, try our sushi taco recipe.
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What Is A Sushi Taco?
This fusion meal consists of a deep-fried nori seaweed tempura shell filled to the brim with sushi ingredients. These ingredients may include rice, salmon, tobiko, and various sauces and garnishes. As a result, you get crunchy sushi taco shells with a unique, fresh, spicy salmon filling and hot rice.
Our sushi taco recipe is a novel take on conventional sushi, combining Japanese and Mexican flavours. These snacks are available at many Asian fusion restaurants, especially in cities with significant Japanese and Mexican populations. Moreover, they're also popular at food trucks, pop-up events, and among adventurous home cooks.
Sushi Taco Ingredients
Here are the ingredients you need to make our sushi taco recipe.
Sushi rice:
- Cooked short-grain Japanese rice
- Rice wine vinegar
- Sugar
- Salt
Seaweed nori taco tempura batter:
- Nori seaweed sheets
- Egg whites
- All-purpose flour
- Ice cold water
Sushi taco filling options:
- Sashimi grade salmon
- Sashimi grade tuna
- Tobiko (flying fish roe) or Masago
- Salmon fillet (to pan fry)
- Canned tuna
- Red onion
- Avocado
- Cucumber
- Spring onions
Spicy sriracha mayo sauce:
- Japanese mayonnaise (or regular mayo)
- sriracha hot sauce
- soy sauce
- sesame oil
- rice wine vinegar
- granulated sugar
Simple mayo sauce:
- Japanese mayonnaise (or regular mayo)
- Dijon mustard
- salt
- ground black pepper
You can choose to mix any combination of the fillings. The sauces can be used as a dip or combined directly with the fillings.
Nori
For nori tacos, you'll need to use full sheets of nori. While you can use any type, we particularly like roasted nori sheets as they are easy to handle and have a lovely flavour.
There are two sides to a nori sheet. One side is shinier, and the other is less glossy and has a slightly rough texture. Make sure to put the batter on the shiny side. We like to fold it into a taco with the rougher side as the interior of the taco. That will help hold the ingredients better.
Seafood
Fresh, high-quality fish is the key to making excellent sushi tuna tacos. You can make our sushi taco recipe with any of your favourite seafood like shrimp, masago, salmon, tuna, yellowtail and crab.
If you're using raw fish, you must use sashimi-grade fish. However, if you don't have access to raw fish, you can always use canned fish, though it might not be as fresh. You can replace them with cooked salmon and tuna. We used 1 salmon fillet and 1 can (100g) of drained tuna for our recipe.
For the cooked salmon, we lightly salted the salmon and pan-fried it with a bit of olive oil. Pan fry with the skin side facing down for 3 minutes or until opaque halfway up. Then, flip the salmon and fry for another 2-3 minutes. Let it cool before roughly mashing the fillet. Then, mix it with the spicy sauce.
For the canned tuna, drain the tuna and then mix it with the diced cucumber and simple mayo sauce in a bowl.
Alternatively, you can use cooked shrimp, chicken, tofu and marinated vegetables for this quick snack.
Rice
Sushi rice requires Japanese short-grain rice to achieve its desired texture and flavour for seaweed tacos. Regular rice has a fluffy texture, and the grains tend to separate when cooked. Meanwhile, sushi rice has a stickier and more cohesive texture when cooked.
Furthermore, the stickiness of this short-grain rice variety is essential for holding together the ingredients in sushi rolls. The sticky texture also prevents the tacos from spilling out. Therefore, we don't use long-grain rice, as it won't be sticky enough.
Using a rice cooker will give you the most even results. While the rice is hot, you want to mix together rice wine vinegar, salt and sugar. Then, taste it to see if you like salty, sour and sweet balance of the rice. You can make your own adjustments to our base recipe.
Sushi Taco Recipe
Ingredients
Nori taco base
- 4 nori sheets
- 1 cup rice Japanese short grain, cooked
- 2 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
Sushi taco fillings
- 1 cup salmon chopped into small cubes
- 1 cup tuna chopped into small cubes
- ½ cup red onion finely chopped
- ½ avocado diced
- ½ cup masago tobiko flying fish roe
Tempura batter
- 1 egg whites
- 60 g all-purpose flour ½ cup
- 180 ml ice-cold water ¾ cup
Spicy sriracha mayo sauce
- 1 tablespoon Japanese mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon sriracha hot sauce
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon sesame oil
- ½ tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon granulated sugar
Simple mayo sauce
- 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Cook the rice. Then season it with vinegar, sugar, and salt while it's warm. Let this cool to room temperature.
- Mix the different salmon or tuna fillings with the sauce mixtures.
- Prepare your tempura batter by mixing the egg whites, all-purpose flour, and ice-cold water in a mixing bowl. The tempura batter should be runny so the taco shells are light and crisp.
- Cut the nori into circular shapes and dip the shiny side into the tempura batter. Then fry the battered side in a pan of oil that'saround 160-170°C (320-330°F) for 30 seconds. Then, using chopsticks, fold the nori sheet in the middle to form a taco shape. Hold this for 1-2 minutes before letting go to submerge and fry the other side.
- Add 1-2 tablespoon of sushi rice to the bottom of your fried sushi taco shell. Then add red onion, fish, and diced avocado topped with optional masago and spring onion. Mix and match the sauce and sushi taco fillings to enjoy.
Notes
- You can replace sashimi-grade fish with cooked salmon and tuna if you can't get sashimi-grade fish. We used 1 salmon fillet and 1 can (100g) of drained tuna.
- For the cooked salmon, we lightly salted the salmon and pan-fried it with a bit of olive oil. Pan fry with the skin side facing down for 3 minutes or until opaque halfway up. Then, flip the salmon and fry for another 2-3 minutes. Let it cool before roughly mashing the fillet. Then, mix it with the spicy sauce.
- For the canned tuna, drain the tuna and then mix it with the diced cucumber and simple mayo sauce in a bowl.
- You can replace the tobiko with masago.
- The tempura batter recipe above (with 1 egg white) can be used for 8 servings of sushi taco.
- Fry the nori in very hot oil to make it crispy. However, keep a watch on the nori as it browns very quickly.
- Purchase a sushi taco holder to keep these tacos in place, and eat these tacos right away to keep the nori taco shells crispy.
- You must add the filings to your seaweed tacos shortly before eating. This is because the rice and the toppings may cause the shell to become soggy if left for too long.
Nutrition
Calories have been calculated using an online calculator. Nutritional information offered on Honest Food Talks is for general information purposes and is only a rough estimate.
Sushi Taco Cooking Tips
Let the rice cool
Allow the rice to cool before handling it. If the rice is not hot, scooping it into the taco will be easier.
Cutting circle seaweed shape
Cut the nori into circular shapes by folding it in half and cutting it into a semi-circle using scissors.
Working with tempura batter
Make sure the water is ice cold. We add ice to the cool water to make it ice cold. Make sure the tempura batter is in a wide plate or bowl so that you can place the nori sheet flat on it.
We want only to batter one side of the nori sheet, which is the shinier side of the nori sheet. This is because the nori sheet will turn out too soggy and not hold its circle shape if we batter both sides.
Frying your seaweed taco
Heat up the frying oil in a pan or pot under medium heat until it reaches a temperature range between 160-170°C (320-330°F). Then, carefully place the nori sheet into the oil with the battered side facing down. Ideally, slowly place down the nori sheet so that one end touches the oil first, followed by the rest of the nori sheet. If you drop the entire nori sheet flat down immediately, you might get an air bubble trapped in the middle. This will cause uneven frying.
Allow to fry for just about 30 seconds. Then, using a chopstick and spatula, fold the circle nori sheet in the middle to form a taco shape. One side of the nori sheet should be suspended in the air once you've folded it. Then, continue frying the submerged side for another 1-2 minutes. Once it's done, flip it around and fry the other side for another 1-2 minutes. We like the tempura batter to turn golden yellow. Once done, carefully remove it from the oil and place it on a kitchen roll to remove excess oil.
Don't wait too long to fold the nori. Otherwise, it will be difficult to shape into a taco. The longer the batter is fried, the harder it will become.
Using a taco holder
The taco holder is only for holding the sushi taco once it's filled up and ready.
Vegan Sushi Tacos
Our sushi taco recipe is quite customisable, so you can easily make it vegan. To make a vegan sushi taco, you would need to follow the same preparation methods. Instead, you would substitute out all of the non-vegan fillings.
For example, you can replace the filling with avocado, vegan spicy mayo and rice. We recommend using diced avocado, cucumbers, shredded carrots, sliced tomatoes, edamame, caramelised onions and mushrooms for vegetables.
You could also use vegan tuna or salmon as a meat substitute. Ultimately, you can experiment with our recipe and create a unique, perfect combo.
Furthermore, you would need to make a vegan tempura batter out of 50g of corn flour, 35g of plain flour, 10g of rice flour, a teaspoon of baking soda and ½ cup of water. Alternatively, you could leave the nori as is and double up to have a thicker shell instead of frying it in the tempura batter.
Sushi Taco Calories
One serving (one taco) from our sushi taco recipe has about 430 calories. However, note that the calories may vary according to the number of fillings you add.
How to store
This Mexican and Japanese fusion dish is meant to be eaten immediately. We don't recommend storing this to eat later as the texture of the fried seaweed will become soggy and taste oily over time.
However, you can prepare everything beforehand. Don't fry the nori sheets and assembly until it's close to mealtime. If you do end up storing it, we recommend keeping it for no longer than a few hours.
If you loved our sushi taco recipe, try out our gunkan maki recipe. Follow us on Instagram @honestfoodtalks for more fusion favourites and seaweed deliciousness.
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