Otoro Sushi – Enjoy the most valued part of the tuna belly with sushi in two ways, seared and drizzled with yuzu juice or just with a touch of soy sauce. Either way, the sushi literally melts in your mouth!
Lately I started to make my own Nigiri Sushi (握り寿司), which is the most common type of sushi with a slice of raw fish on top of sushi rice pillow. Today I’ll show you how to make this delicious Otoro Sushi 大トロ寿司 two ways – seared and un-seared.
Watch How To Make Otoro Sushi 大トロ寿司の作り方
Otoro Sushi – Enjoy this prized part of the tuna two ways, seared and drizzled with yuzu juice or just with a bit soy sauce. Either way it melts in your mouth!
What’s Otoro (大トロ)?
Otoro is the most prized part of the tuna belly and it’s also the fattiest part of the tuna / maguro (鮪). This delicious cut tuna belly is located at lowest section of tuna belly and it is highest in fat content and light in color. The well-marbled Otoro is so soft and tender that it literally melts in your mouth.
Otoro is very rare so you may not see it offered in most of the sushi restaurants, and the price is usually ridiculously high because less than 1% of the tuna body can be categorized as Otoro.
Image from Metropolitansushi.com
Sushi-grade tuna for Chutoro & Otoro Sushi
Online sashimi store like Fish for Sushi carries varieties of sushi grade fish, including Otoro and Chutoro. For those of you who don’t have an access to high-quality sushi grade fish in your local area in the US, you can now enjoy sushi at your own home by placing the order online!
Making Otoro Sushi at Home
I highly recommend to serve Otoro with sushi rice because Otoro can be too fatty to eat on its own.
For Otoro, a very popular way for sushi restaurant to serve is is slightly seared (Aburi, 炙り). Simply use a blow torch to lightly sear Otoro pieces to bring out the latent flavors and umami. Seared tuna resembles more like a slice of marbled steak than a piece of fish.
Now just close your eyes and let it melt away in your mouth…
Just a quick note, true Otoro is really fatty and it’s like eating a stick of butter. If you haven’t tried it before, I recommend trying Chutoro first. Chutoro also has a very high fat content but with a bit more red meat.
What alcoholic beverage goes well with sushi?
Typically with sushi, we love enjoying it with sake or beer as alcoholic beverage of choice. But did you know wine goes well with sushi too?
For today’s Otoro sushi, we decided to try it with a 2013 Rose of Pinot Noir- Central Coast from Dolin Malibu Estate Vineyards.
The Otoro sushi and this rosé wine paired really well. The crisp light fruity rosé cleaned the palate perfectly after the fatty tuna. This rosé wine had a really light and refreshing smell, almost like walking in a field of flowers during the spring time. As you drink it, it is smooth and light with strong hints of berries and a slight hint of citrus. The finish is clean and leaves you wanting for another sip, after you take another bit of the Otoro sushi. Enjoy this wine on a warm day or with your favorite sushi!
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- Sushi-grade Otoro (fatty tuna)
- Sushi rice pillows
- Yuzu
- Soy sauce
- wasabi
- Sushi ginger (for garnish) (See Notes for homemade recipe)
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Gather all the ingredients.
- Remove the skin and trim around the piece.
- Slice to desired thickness. Due to the high fat content, a thinner slice is recommended.
- Scrape the meat off from the skin. This part is considered one of tuna’s most delicious part and you can use it to make Negitoro Don.
- With a kitchen blow torch, sear the Otoro to bring out the latent umami flavors.
- Place on the sushi pillows… and squeeze yuzu juice on top of the seared Otoro. Serve with soy sauce, wasabi, and sushi ginger.
Sushi ginger: Homemade recipe, click here.
Equipment you will need:
Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
Disclosure: We received no compensation for this wine review. We received a bottle of 2013 Rose of Pinot Noir- Central Coast from Jarvis Communication free of charge to use in exchange for an honest review.
