Brown Bag Lunch: Sushi Salad Recipe

I'm a big fan of sushi but rarely make it at home.  It seems easier to just go to the local Japanese restaurant and order a California roll.  This Sushi Salad from Clean Eating inspired me.  It has the sushi ingredients without the work of rolling.  I would recommend following the recipe but in case you are adventurous, I have given you tips from my experience of what worked and what didn't work:

Sushi Salad
  • cup short-grain brown rice
  • 1 tbsp wasabi paste
  • 2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
  • 2/3 cup rice wine vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp raw honey
  • 1 English cucumber, diced into 1/4-inch chunks
  • 4 nori sheets, quartered and cut into 1/4-inch strips
  • 1 large carrot, peeled and thinly sliced 
  • 8 oz crab meat pieces (claw or jumbo lump)
  • 1 avocado, pitted, peeled and sliced
  • 4 cups baby spinach

  1. In a medium saucepot, bring 2 cups water to a boil. Stir in rice, cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for an additional 10 minutes. Spread rice on a baking sheet to cool to room temperature, about 15 minutes. 
  2. In a small bowl, whisk wasabi, soy sauce, vinegar and honey. Set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, mix rice, cucumber, nori and carrot. Drizzle with wasabi-honey mixture and stir to combine. With a rubber spatula, gently fold in crab.
  4. Divide spinach evenly among serving bowls or plates and top each with rice-crab mixture and avocado.
Here's what I did to the original recipe:

*Money Saving Tip:  I replaced the crab meat with imitation crab meat (worked)
*I omitted the nori sheets and spinach (worked)
*I added more rice and less cucumber (didn't work) - I had to add back the additional cucumber
*I only used a portion of the wasabi-honey mixture (worked - personal taste)
*Since I was preparing the salad for my brown bag lunch, I added the avocado the morning of so it wouldn't get soggy (worked)