Salmon sushi rice bowls are an easy, healthy dinner made from fresh salmon or lox, avocado, cucumber and seaweed. Customize each bowl so that kids and adults can eat what they like best.
Salmon sushi rice bowls are something of a unicorn dinner at our house because both kids love it, it's healthy and these sushi rice bowls are super easy to make.
What more can you ask for?
This is a super-fast dinner, especially if you use short-cuts like lox (instead of fresh salmon) and store-bought microwavable frozen rice.
Step-by-step instructions
- Cook your rice (ideally, the cooked rice should have some time to cool)
- Slice avocado and cucumber
- Serve the rice with avocado and cumber, lox and dried seaweed
- Yep that's it!
Ingredients
Rice: Any type of white or brown rice works for this recipe. Try Instant Pot white rice or Instant Pot brown rice. Sometimes I make Instant Pot sushi rice , but I don't bother seasoning it with rice wine, sugar and salt (you can if you want). To make this dinner really easy, use frozen Instant rice (found in many grocery stores).
Salmon: You can cook fresh salmon (recipe included below) or make life really easy and use lox. Smoked salmon is also delicious, but can get pricey.
Avocado: My favorite part of the bowl! We could all use a helpful reminder of how to cut an avocado.
Cucumber: Adds fresh, crunchy texture
Seaweed: The seaweed and rice combination gives this rice bowl the flavor of sushi. Seaweed snacks are easy to serve with these bowls and my kids love them. When I don't have seaweed snacks, I cut up sheets of dried nori.
Sushi Bowl Toppings and Condiments
Soy sauce: Instant, easy flavor
Coconut Aminos: Sweeter than soy sauce, but also a little bit salty. I really love drizzling coconut aminos over cooked salmon.
Teriyaki sauce: Sweet and salty and often loved by kids.
Sriracha mayo: Creamy and spicy Sriracha mayo adds heat to your bowl.
Sesame seeds: I love the way toasted sesame seeds look on salmon bowls. Black sesame seeds are especially stunning.
Furikake: This seasoning combines salt, sugar, sesame seeds, dried seaweed and bonito flakes. You can find it in many grocery stores, or make your own furikake.
Kids Rice Bowls
What make rice bowls such a great family dinner is that everyone can customize their own bowl.
Your child (like mine) might just eat white rice and seaweed snacks. Or maybe they'll go for the salmon and avocado, too.
One of my kids likes to wrap her salmon bowl ingredients in seaweed snacks to make little bite-sized "sushi bundles."
Tip: When my kids were toddlers, I used kitchen shears to chop all of the ingredients in their sushi bowl into tiny pieces
You can pile your own bowl high with all your favorite ingredients. Everyone is happy because they get to eat what they want.
These salmon sushi bowls are the type of rice bowl I serve most often at my house. But you can serve all types of rice bowls for easy family dinners.
Rice & bean bowls: White rice and canned beans, plus grated cheese = happy kids. You can also offer avocado, chopped tomato, chips, bell peppers or ground meat.
Roasted vegetable bowls: Any type of roasted vegetables paired with a grain like barley or farro makes a really healthy rice bowl. You can also offer olives, crumbled feta, hummus and pita bread.
Coconut rice and shrimp bowls: Instant Pot turmeric coconut rice makes a lovely rice bowl, with the option of adding shrimp or another type of seafood. You could also offer black beans.
Mediterranean bowls: Pair Mediterranean chicken with rice and cucumber yogurt sauce. Also offer black olives, sauteed spinach, hummus and pita bread.
Sushi Bowl FAQ
Sushi rice is short-grain Japanese rice. It's seasoned with sugar, salt and vinegar to make sushi.
Calrose rice is medium-grain rice grown in California. It can be used as a substitute for sushi rice.
No, you can use any type of rice that you want.
Lox is the type of thinly sliced salmon usually served with bagels. To make lox, salmon is cured with salt or a combination of salt and sugar. Sometimes it is cold smoked as well.
Smoked salmon is cured or brined and then hot smoked. It has a drier, flakier texture than lox and a stronger smoked flavor.
More Easy Family Dinners
📖 Recipe
Salmon Sushi Rice Bowl for Kids (and adults!)
Salmon sushi rice bowls bowls are an easy, healthy dinner made from fresh salmon or store-bought lox plus avocado, cucumber and seaweed. Each bowl can be customized so that both kids and adults can eat what they like best.
Sushi rice bowls taste better with cold or room temperature rice, so make sure to give the rice at least 15 minutes to cool before dinner.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: 30 Minutes Meals
- Method: Assemble
- Cuisine: Japanese American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
- 4 to 6 cups cooked rice, cooled to room temperature (any variety of white or brown rice)
- 8 to 12 ounces lox or smoked salmon OR 1 ½ pounds cooked salmon (cooking instructions below)
- 2 avocados, sliced or cut into small chunks
- 1 cucumber, sliced or chopped
- Seaweed snacks OR whole sheets of toasted nori cut into pieces
These bowls don't necessarily need sauce or garnishes, but you can add more flavor by also serving soy sauce, coconut aminos, teriyaki sauce, roasted sesame seeds and/or furikake.
Instructions
1. It's simple - Just set the prepared ingredients out, and let everyone make their own sushi bowls (cooked rice, lox or cooked salmon, chopped avocado and cucumber, seaweed snacks or sheets of dried nori)
Fresh Salmon Cooking Instructions
- Heat oven to 375 F
- Place a large piece of foil on a baking sheet. Set the raw salmon on the foil.
- Drizzle olive oil or melted butter over the salmon (about 1 tablespoon for every 1 pound of salmon). Lightly season the salmon with salt.
- Fold the sides of the foil up and over the salmon and seal the edges to create a closed packet.
- Bake until the salmon easily flakes apart with a fork and is cooked through, about 12 to 15 minutes.
Notes
1 cup of uncooked rice will make 2 to 3 cups of cooked rice.
Jen
A very easy go-to dinner that my kids love!