Gluten-Free Spam Musubi

Growing up in Hawaii we would always stop at 7-11 to load up on spam musubi!! They have them in those warming display cases like you would find pizza or hot-dogs. Spam musubi makes for a quick and easy lunch at the beach, I love food you can “throw” at people. You know…no prep, individually wrapped, you can eat it whenever you’re ready. Also, it’s quite filling and it keeps well at the beach too. The only problem is they are not gluten-free because they use soy sauce when cooking the spam! Well, that means it’s pretty easy to make gluten-free spam musubi, you just need to use gluten-free soy sauce!!!

That leads me to a side note about soy sauce… I’ve heard people say they don’t like gluten-free anything because it’s just not the real thing. Well guess what…gluten-free soy sauce is actually REAL soy sauce!! It is made from 100% soy while the regular soy sauce you get in stores these days is watered down with fermented wheat. So you tell me, which one sounds better now?!

Anyways, if you’re planning on making spam musubi, you should consider investing in a musubi mold which will make the whole process way easier! My sister gave me one for Christmas a few years ago and I love it!! Thanks sis! For your convenience I’ve added an Amazon link for the musubi maker as well as some of the gluten-free ingredients used in this recipe. I promise the links are safe, I set them up through the Amazon Associate program which helps me to earn a small amount from each qualifying purchase. Thank you for your support!

Ingredients:

• 5 cups uncooked white rice
• 1/4 cup seasoned rice vinegar
• 2 cans spam
• 1/4 cup gluten-free soy sauce
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 8 sheets gluten-free nori
• Optional: 1.9 oz bottle of Furikake
• Optional: Egg – 1 egg for every 2 musubi (mix and match, I don’t put it on all of them)

Directions:

1. Cook rice according to instructions. Once the rice is fully cooked stir in the seasoned rice vinegar.
2. Meanwhile, slice each can of spam into 8 slices. Mix the soy sauce and sugar and set aside.
3. In a large saucepan, over medium high heat, cook the spam slices roughly 2 minutes each side. Once both sides appear slightly browned add the soy sauce & sugar mixture to the cooking spam. Continue cooking just until the sauce starts to thicken and is soaked into the spam.
4. Each sheet of nori will make two or more musubi depending on how much coverage you want. Typically I like full coverage so I will make two musubi per sheet. Place your musubi maker on one side of the nori, right in the middle. Scoop enough rice to fill the bottom of the maker, roughly 1/4 inch up the side of the mold, give it a quick pack down with the top of the musubi maker. Then sprinkle a thin layer of furikake over the rice. Next, add the cooked spam and the egg if you’re including it. Sprinkle again with a little more furikake. Then add the same amount of rice to fill in the top of the mold. Press the top into the mold, making sure the rice is packed tight. Now repeat the same on the other side for the second musubi.
5. Once both are formed wrap the nori sheet around both then cut to separate the two musubi.
6. Eat fresh or wrap tightly in saran wrap and place in the fridge, keeps for at least 3 days.

See below for a VEGAN option!!

Vegan Tofu Musubi

Recently, I was making spam musubi to take with us on our camping trip and remembered one of our friends is vegan. Being a celiac myself I try to be sensitive to other people’s food preferences, so I didn’t want to leave him out!! I realized that tofu is very similar in consistency with spam so I thought, why not!! I simply replaced the spam with extra firm tofu and did everything else the same. Obviously, I left the egg off too. They were delicious and we could barely tell a difference!!! Immediately upon our return from camping I called my dad to let him know the next time I see him I would make this for him. He’s a pescatarian so he has never had spam musubi, needless to say, he was SO excited!! 🙂