How Sushi Rice Is Really Made — Ratio, Temperature, and the Role of Seasoning Vinegar

The rice is everything. Not the fish. Not the knife. The rice.

I've worked in a few Japanese kitchens in London. The first thing every head chef checked wasn't the fish prep or the garnishes — it was the rice. If the rice was wrong, the whole service was wrong. That's how seriously it's taken.

Here's how we actually make it.

The Rice Itself

Not all Japanese short-grain rice is the same. At my current restaurant we use Haruka. Before that, at another kitchen, it was Koshihikari. Both are short-grain Japanese varieties — sticky enough to hold shape, soft enough to eat cleanly off your fingers.

Don't substitute with long-grain or jasmine rice. It won't work. The starch content is completely different and the rice won't bind properly.

The Ratio — This Is Where Most People Go Wrong

For every 100g of cooked sushi rice, I use 11–12ml of sushizu — the seasoned rice vinegar mix. Not before cooking. After.

The ratio sounds small but it's precise. Too much and the rice becomes wet and falls apart. Too little and it tastes plain. The 11–12ml range gives you room to adjust depending on how the rice cooked that day — rice absorbs water differently depending on the batch and the humidity in the kitchen.

Season It Hot

This is the part most home guides get wrong. They tell you to let the rice cool first. Don't.

Season it while it's still hot. The heat opens up the grains and lets the vinegar absorb properly rather than sitting on the surface. You'll see the rice go slightly glossy as you fold it in — that's what you want.

The Hangiri

We use a hangiri — a flat wooden rice tub — and a wooden rice paddle. The wood absorbs excess moisture as you work, which helps the rice reach the right texture. A metal bowl keeps the moisture trapped and makes the rice wet.

If you don't have a hangiri at home, a wide wooden salad bowl works reasonably well. Avoid plastic or metal.

Folding, Not Stirring

You fold the vinegar into the rice using the paddle — cutting motions, not circular ones. Stirring breaks the grains and turns it mushy. Fold from the bottom, turn, fold again. Keep it moving but keep it gentle.

The Steaming Mistake Junior Chefs Make

I've seen this more than once: opening the lid too early after the rice finishes cooking.

When the rice cooker finishes, leave the lid on for 10 minutes. Don't open it. Don't check it. That residual steam finishes the cooking and evens out the texture across the whole batch. Open it early and the top layer is perfect but the bottom is still too wet.

It seems like a small thing. It isn't.

Storing for Service — The Detail That Takes Years to Learn

This is the part nobody talks about in home guides because home cooks make one batch and eat it immediately. In a restaurant kitchen, you make rice for an entire service and it needs to hold.

After mixing the vinegar in, I fan the rice — just a container lid or a light tray, whatever's nearby — while folding. Solo. Fan and fold at the same time until the rice has cooled slightly and has a light sheen.

The key is the temperature before you store it. Too many chefs either rush it into the thermo box straight after mixing — before it's cooled — or leave it open too long and the surface dries out. Both ruin it.

The sweet spot is around 45–50°C. Check it with a probe thermometer. At that temperature the rice is still warm enough to stay pliable for nigiri but cool enough that it won't keep cooking or dry out in the box.

Get that window right and the rice holds through service. Get it wrong and by the second hour your nigiri is either falling apart or cracking.

The Short Version

The fish gets the attention. The rice does the work. 🔪