Flavored Sushi Bake Recipe (Original, Spicy, and Teriyaki Sweet) (Step-by-Step DIY Recipe)

My very first cooking experiment was the Golden Baked Sushi Madness , around 3 months ago (wow, time certainly flies!) While it wasn’t an unmitigated success, I was pretty happy with it. Since then, I’ve tried my fair share of purchased sushi bakes (e.g., Taste and Tell MNL, Fullness of Joy, et al). And I thought to myself, perhaps it’s time for me to go back and make my original recipe better, now that I have more cooking experience under my belt.

Well, after some prodding from my family (who claimed they liked MY sushi bake better than the store-purchased ones, probably because it’s free LOL) and my friends (who were sharing their own recipes w/ me), I finally took the plunge AGAIN. This time, I decided to be a bit more ambitious by coming out with three sushi bake flavors – the original California Maki variant, a spicy variant (aka I really just put gochujang), and a teriyaki sweet variant. Guess which one is my favorite? The teriyaki one, of course! Anything sweet is almost always a win for me!

Without further ado, here’s my revised sushi bake recipe 🙂

 

DELECTABLE FOOD FOR THE DAY: TRI-FLAVORED SUSHI BAKE MADNESS (Original California Roll, Spicy, and Teriyaki Sweet)

DIFFICULTY: Easy, even an 8-year old can do it

SERVING SIZE: Good for 6 hungry people (this is a 20 x 8 sushi bake tray). If you’re cooking for less, you can straight up just decrease the ingredients proportionately

PREPARATION AND BAKING TIME: 3 hours (for beginners)

 

INGREDIENTS:

Ingredients for the substitute Japanese rice (since I was too cheap to buy Japanese rice):

• 2 cups normal rice
• 2 cups sticky rice (to make the rice stick to each other, otherwise your sushi bake falls apart)
• 2 tbsp sesame seed oil
• 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper

Ingredients for the toppings:

• 16 sticks of crabstick, shredded (I just used normal hotpot kani, but you’re supposed to use premium kani. After careful experimentation, I realized premium kani DOES taste better. You can really savor the crabmeat taste… So don’t skimp on this ingredient!)
• 4 medium sized (VERY RIPE) mangoes, cubed
• 2 medium cucumber, cubed
• Furikake seasoning (so everyone kept saying you needed furikake and roe to make a legit sushi bake, so I actually went out and bought them this time. Tbh, it doesn’t make that big of a difference. Skip if you don’t want to purchase these.)

Ingredients for the basic sauce (for the ENTIRE 20 x 8 sushi bake):

• 2/3 cup cream cheese, melted (place these outside the refrigerator AT LEAST 2 hours before you start, so it’s softened by the time you need it)
• 2/3 cup Japanese mayo

Ingredients for the spicy sauce (on top of the basic sauce) – for 6 x 8 sushi bake:

• 1/2 tbsp gochujang (adjust based on your spicy level preferences)

Ingredients for the teriyaki sauce (on top of the basic sauce) – for 8 x 8 sushi bake:

• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• 3 tbsp soy sauce (I used Lee Kum Kee)
• 1 tbsp rice wine
• 2 small shoots of ginger, roughly chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, roughly minced
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 tsp Cornstarch

Ingredients for crunchy topping (optional – but I think it makes a HUGE difference)

• 1/4 cup Breadcrumbs
• 2 tbsp butter

 

STEP-BY-STEP PROCEDURE

STEP 1: Prepare your toppings. (60 minutes)

1. Shred your 16 pcs of crabsticks. To shred the crabsticks, I press down on the kani and start unraveling it. Once it’s fully unraveled, I place one on top of each other, then commence to slice and dice until the become small cubes. Don’t worry if they’re not equally shredded. You just want them to become small bits

2. Prep your 4 pcs mango. First, slice the mango and get rid of the inner seed. Retain as much flesh as possible. Afterwards, peel off the skin, then slice the mango into cubes. Once that’s done, transfer the cubes to a bowl (ONLY the cubes, without the juice). I recommend you have a second bowl ready as well – this is where I place the not so sweet mangoes (of course, I taste tested LOL) as well as the mango juices). I ended up using the second bowl to make mango juice!

**Why the need to separate out the juice? Last time I didn’t and my sushi bake came out (1) yellow – because the mango juice dyed everything yellow, and (2) really liquid instead of baked, which meant I ended up eating it with a spoon and fork instead of my fingers.

3. Cube your 2 pcs cucumber. First, strip the skin, then cut the cucumber in half and use a spoon to take out the seeds. Afterwards, cube the remaining cucumber.

**I couldn’t decide between cubing the cucumber or peeling it to make nice strips. I ended up doing both so I could check which works better. Well, lucky you, you get to learn from my mistakes. Cube it! If you use cucumber strips, it makes it very difficult to slice your sushi bake because the strips get tangled with your knife… Just trust me on this

 

STEP 2: Prepare the different sauces. (20 minutes)

For the basic sauce

1. Place 2/3 cup cream cheese, 2/3 cup Japanese mayo into a bowl, the shredded crabsticks, the cubed mangoes, and the cubed cucumbers into a bowl. Mix well.

For the spicy sauce

2. Separate out 1/3 of the basic sauce you’ve created and place into a different bowl. Put in 1/2 tbsp gochujang and mix well

For the teriyaki sauce

3. Combine in a pan the following ingredients: 3 tbsp brown sugar, 3 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp rice wine, chopped ginger, minced garlic , ¼ cup water, and 2 tsp cornstarch

4. Place the pan over medium high heat and stir continuously

5. Once the sauce becomes thicker in its consistency, turn off the heat, and remove the garlic and ginger from the teriyaki sauce. It’s so good – I taste tested it hehehe! Don’t worry if you don’t manage to get all the garlic and ginger out – just make sure the big ones are gone

6. Separate out another 1/3 of the basic sauce you’ve created and place into the teriyaki sauce pan. Mix well

 

STEP 3: Prepare the crunchy topping. (5 minutes)

1. Measure out 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs and toss into the pan, followed by 2 tbsp butter

2. Place the pan over medium heat fire. Stir continuously until the butter mixes well with the breadcrumbs and it turns golden brown

STEP 4: Prepare your Japanese rice (15 minutes)

1. Since I didn’t have Japanese rice, I had to make do. Cook 2 cups of normal rice and 2 cups of sticky rice together.

2. Place these into a bowl, coupled with 2 tbsp sesame seed oil, 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp pepper. Mix well

 

STEP 5: Place everything into the tray, then bake (20 minutes)

1. On a pan, place a layer of rice (around 3/4 inch should do nicely). Sprinkle furikake seasoning on top for additional flavor (optional)

2. Afterwards, spread a layer of sushi bake filling. Since I had 3 flavors, I made sure they were partitioned well so you could clearly see the difference

3. Sprinkle furikake seasoning on top for additional flavor, followed by the crunchy breadcrumbs!

4. Place into pre-heated oven at 200 deg C. Bake for 10 minutes.

**My time says 20 minutes because I baked 2 different pans

5. In a toaster, heat the roasted seaweed for ~10 seconds on each side until slightly crisp.