I love sushi.
Let me say that again: I LOVE sushi!
Some days though, I don’t feel like rolling it and cutting it and setting it up nicely. I just want to eat! In those cases, I make my deconstructed sushi bowls.
I got the recipe/idea for this a few years ago when my father was undergoing a quadruple bypass surgery. When you’re in a waiting room, even Reader’s Digest magazine is enough to keep your attention for just a few minutes.
The ingredients are easy-anything you would normally put in your sushi. I used carrots, cucumbers, green onion, avocado, and shiitake mushrooms for this. In the past (preveganism) I used crab, shrimp, cream cheese, or smoked salmon.
The only difficult thing is the rice. The rice is really what defines sushi. If you’re not using the proper rice, then this is just a raw stir-fry.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 medium cucumber, seeded and julienned
- 1/2 carrot, julienned
- 1 green onion, cut on a bias
- 1/2 avocado, sliced
- sliced shiitake mushrooms
- 1 tsp Golden Mountain seasoning sauce
- 1/2 cup short grain white rice
- 3/4 cup cold water
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp rice vinegar
- 1/2 sheet nori, cut into strips
- 2 tbsp Nayonaise (or vegan mayonnaise of choice) *optional
- 1 tbsp sriracha (or chili garlic sauce)
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds
Directions:
1. Prepare your rice. Rinse thoroughly with cold water, until water runs clear. This usually takes me about 4 rinses. Cook according to package instructions or use a shortcut and put it in your rice cooker. 1/2 cup rice to 3/4 cup water.
2. Cut your vegetables and cook any proteins. I used dried shiitake mushrooms, so I soaked them for 15 minutes in hot water and sauteed in Golden Mountain seasoning sauce (I also use this for Pad Kee Mao.) If you can’t find it, soy sauce works fine. Set aside when fully cooked.
3. After rice is done cooking, take off heat and add sugar and rice vinegar. Cut through rice with a spoon to stir. Allow to cool to room temperature. Pile onto a plate.
4. Makes spicy mayonnaise sauce-combine vegan mayonnaise and sriracha (or chili sauce) in a bowl. Stir. Vigorously.
5. Pile vegetables/proteins around the rice. Top entire thing with green onions, nori strips, sesame seeds, and spicy mayonnaise. Add soy sauce to taste. Devour.
Avocados and Ales 
This looks delicious! Actually I have a couple of sushi books where the sushi vinegar rice is baked in a pan, kind of like a casserole. Sushi in a bowl with fresh toppings like this post is called Edomae chirashizushi or Edo-style scattered toppings over rice.
If you’re looking to roll fast, you can do it without a mat. I recently made a video called Dirt Cheap Vegan Sushi that shows you how: