Easy Homemade Poke Bowls

Love poke bowls? Here’s an easy method for making them at home. This is flexible and totally customizable for your tastes.

It all began with a trip to Boston a year ago and some poke bowls we picked up at Boston Public Market. They were so fresh and delightful. We promptly fell in love and looked forward to having them again.

Poke, a Hawaiian dish, combines raw, marinated fish with sushi rice and other toppings.

On our recent trip to Boston, we didn’t end up getting poke bowls. But on the next leg of that trip — when we visited New York — we did. And again, we adored them.

As we were leaving, Will really wanted to drop by another poke place and get bowls but the timing wasn’t right. We couldn’t. But that got me thinking: why couldn’t we make poke bowls at home?

Making poke bowls at home

The toppings are an important part of the poke bowl. Really, you could include anything you, your guests or your family likes. Here’s a few ideas that we favor:

You’ll also need proteins for your bowl. You could go with cooked options such as teriyaki salmon, roasted shrimp or marinated tofu. Smoked salmon also works, as does seared tuna.

However, we love raw fish. In some areas, you can source your own sushi-grade fish but here it’s not readily available. Instead, I ordered a few portions of sashimi from our favorite sushi place. It was easy and we simply cut the sashimi into pieces for our bowls.

Additionally, you will need sushi rice (see below) and sauces such as eel sauce, teriyaki sauce and soy sauce to top the bowls.

How to make sushi rice

For our sushi rice, I used Mark Bittman’s recipe in How to Cook Everything (not available online). However, there are a number of good recipes available online.

• Masaharu Morimoto’s Sushi Rice Recipe | Food & Wine
• Alton Brown’s Sushi Rice Recipe | Food Network
• Sushi Rice Recipe | Family Favorite Recipes
• Basic Sushi Rice Recipe | Food Republic

How to assemble a poke bowl

We use shallow bowls — they are actually pasta bowls — for our poke bowls. Use whatever bowl you feel comfortable with.

Lay out the ingredients and options. I use bowls and a large cutting board for this, as well as a smaller cutting board for cutting up the sashimi.

Start by spoon the rice into the bowls. You can create a bed of rice in your bowl or place it to one side. (I typically do the latter; Paige is a bed of rice girl).

Then add your toppings. There’s no limit to how much you can add. I do require that we all have plenty of plants in our bowls though. Mango is a favorite here.

Choose your sauce. And then enjoy. Paige likes to use the sauce for dipping. Will and I pour ours over. Again, it’s pretty flexible.

And delicious too.