Rainbow Veggie Sushi Rolls

My friend Pamela originally turned our family onto making homemade veggie sushi. This easy and fun meal quickly became a family favorite, and we have been making sushi about two weekends a month for years! I often make extras and send the kids to school with a “sushi burrito”— the finished nori wrapped roll, before it gets cut.

A few weeks ago my friend Brandy showed me a picture that she saw on Instagram of a sushi roll with multi-colored rainbow rice. When I mentioned that to our 12-year old, she just had to try it! Seriously— she would not let it go 🙂

We already had natural food coloring at home, which are glycerin based liquids that color foods from beet (red), turmeric (yellow) and spirulina (green) and can be combined to make additional colors. After we cooked the rice, our kids decided that instead of a rainbow, they each wanted to choose the color of their own avocado roll, and of course, ours too.

The five rolls we made became our rainbow sushi, rather than having a rainbow of colors within each roll. They sure do look cute, huh?

Rainbow Veggie Sushi Rolls
by Debbie Steinbock

Ingredients:
1 ½ cup sushi rice
3 cups water
optional- add to rice while cooking: 2 Tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tsp sugar,
and 1 tsp salt
thin slices of vegetables such as carrot, cucumber, avocado, jicama
pre-toasted nori seaweed sheets
natural food coloring

Method:

1. Rinse rice in a fine mesh strainer until your water runs clear. In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add the sushi rice, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for approximately 20 minutes. Optional-in a small bowl, mix the rice vinegar, sugar, and salt and add to the rice during cooking.
2. Once the rice is cooked, divide it into small bowls and add your choices of natural food coloring to make the colors you like.
3. Roll sushi according to these simple instructions. Note: we don’t even use a sushi mat to roll ours, personally.