If you’re like me, it’s the problem that keeps you up at night… what should I do with all that leftover sushi rice?!

Thankfully, I have finally found an answer: rice crackers! They’re so delicious, so versatile, and so easy to make. You can eat them as a snack, add them to soups/salads, or find a million other creative uses.

What’s great about these crackers is that you can control the level of crunch by adjusting the baking time. After 15 minutes you have soft and chewy crackers that are more like a rice cake (my favorite), or depending on your use, you can continue baking until they become much more crunchy.

Makes about 18 crackers

Ingredients: 2 cups cooked sushi rice

2 tablespoons rice vinegar Garlic powder, to taste

Sea salt, to taste

Step One

Cook the sushi rice according to package instructions, about 1 cup of rice and 1 1/2 cups water. Let this finish cooking and set aside to cool. Or if you have leftover rice, that works even better.

Step Two

After the rice is cooled to room temperature, add a little rice vinegar, garlic powder, and salt. Gently fluff to coat the rice evenly. You could easily omit the garlic and use other spices (chili powder for spicy crackers?) or anything else you want to try.

Step Three

Using your hands, form the rice into balls about half the size of golf balls. Add them to a baking tray covered in parchment, then add another layer of parchment on top and press down with something large and flat (another baking sheet?) until you have thin and flat crackers.

Alternatively, you can roll the rice out into a flat sheet and cut into triangles or any shapes you like with cookie cutters. The only limitation is that if they become too large, the edges will dry out while the centers remain too moist. For best results, keep them under 1 ½ inches in diameter.

Step Four

Bake at 360º F for 15-30 minutes. This step can be tricky. If you allow the crackers to cook for too long, they become almost as crunchy and inedible as uncooked rice. If you don’t cook them long enough, they fall apart. The sweet spot is about 20-25 minutes where the crackers hold together but are still softer and more chewy.

If refrigerated in a sealed bag, these can last 1-2 days, but they are best if eaten the same day, which has never been a problem for me 🙂