Made at Home - Sushi

*the following is post in which I may or was compensated &/or may contain affiliate links. All opinions, photos and instructions are my own. 

My entire family loves sushi. Even the youngest of us thinks it is really delicious.

Sushi out at a restaurant for a family of 6 can be very pricey, and it is not something we have even attempted much further than pre-made from our local grocery store.

So we decided to try our hand at making our own sushi at home. We have seen and heard of various friends of ours making their own sushi and it seemed simple and cost effective for our family to enjoy!

My local Whole Foods Market has a freezer section loaded with sushi seafood. There you'll find a selection of Salmon, Tuna and Crab meat that is pre-portioned and mostly ready to roll, depending on how you want to prepare your roll.

We decided to play it safe with our kids and go with the crab meat.

At my local Whole Foods Market, the Kani Sushi Crab was $5.99 for 5 oz and was more than enough for what we needed. We even had some left over that we didn't even use.

It is also helpful to have Sushi Rice, and you will need Nori, which is essentially paper thin sheets of seaweed. I also recommend having some Rice Wine Vinegar on hand as this will help your rice be extra sticky and hold together.
Whole Foods Market prices in my area:
Nori Seaweed   $6.99
Rice Vinegar    $2.99
 Sushi Rice by 365 Everyday Value (WFM brand)  $2.69
I also picked up a Hass Avocado, and if you love Avocado's the ones from Whole Food Market are the most spectacularly buttery, flavorful avocados you have ever tasted! Well worth the little bit higher price each for using in sushi, or home made Guac!

Now, we were pretty excited, and hungry, to get this going so we jumped right in and did not cook our rice in advance enough to allow it to cool to room temperature. I do recommend allowing yourself some planning time to do this at least a couple hours ahead of preparing so that the rice is not so hot that you can't handle it.

I also suggest following the instructions on the Nori package for "toasting" your seaweed before you roll it - it will lighten in color a bit and be a bit more palatable. We skipped this part, and it was still good, but definitely a bit more "chewy" in texture than it could be.

Slice your veggies into matchstick size pieces. We used Carrots, Cucumber and Avocado.

You will want to get a bamboo rolling mat to make your rolls look like a Professional Sushi Chef and make it super easy.  (You can get one here. JapanBargain Bamboo Sushi Mat Roller 9.5 inch *affiliate link)  You will have to line it in saran wrap.

Spread  the rice across your Nori up to 1/2" or so away from the top and bottom edges. Spread your rice about a 1/4 of an inch thick.
Lay your fillings across one side, and then begin rolling. This part is tricky and is the scariest part of making sushi. Give yourself a learning curve and realize it will take you by the third one to get the hang of it. I compared it to rolling a pumpkin roll cake, it's somewhat similar - but smaller scale obviously.

Roll that sushi without getting the saran wrap or bamboo mat caught in the roll and use your mat as a guide to keep it all in place. Use your fingers to spread water across the Nori on the ends to seal it shut.

Ready to slice and serve! We had more sushi than our family could eat and even ate left overs for a couple days after. I almost called people over for a "sushi party" there was so much!! I can't wait to try some other combinations as it is super easy and once you try it the fear factor is over.

All together we spent about $25 in supplies, and made about 5 rolls. (we could have actually made 2 more).  At about $8-$12 a roll at my local super market for the pre-made this comes out to be about $3.50 per roll.  This is a 60% savings just by making it at home!

What's your favorite thing to eat out that you have made at home a lot cheaper?
Comments and recipe sharing is welcome! Good luck sushi chefs!

*this was a blogger ambassador post. I receive compensation for posts in affiliation with Whole Foods Market. See my full affiliate disclosure at the tab above. All opinions and instructions are my own. 

Photo credits: MKMartin