The Jolly Fox
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Vegan Spam Musubi.
Spam. Ew! Never tried it, so I don’t know what it tastes like. What can I say, ham in a can never appealed to me or anyone in my family. For reasons unknown to me, Hawaiians seem to have a thing for Spam, but you know, okay.
My plane ride home from Maui was “interesting”. There was a large woman (ps. I don’t mean heavy, I mean like she was a giant person) a few seats ahead of me that was eating and loving Spam musubi. Suddenly, I knew what to do with the weird vegan ham log in my freezer. Yeah, I had a VegeUSA ham log. It confused me, so I froze it. Anyhow, the log and Spam have certain things in common, they’re both fake meat except Spam has parts in it. If I’m going to fake meat it up, it’s always going to be parts free.
I’ve really made this sound gross, but it’s actually super good. I was afraid of it a little, but ended up really liking it. They have vegan ham rolls at Whole Foods and other natural foods stores. I wouldn’t really recommend buying one necessarily, but if you come into possession of one, make this recipe and you won’t be sorry.
PS. This is much easier to do with a musubi press. I didn’t have one, but I did my best. I have now since ordered one.
Vegan Spam Musubi
Ingredients:
1/2 vegan ham roll, cut into rectangles, you know, Spam shape.
1/4 c tamari
1/4 c vegetarian oyster sauce (stocked at most Asian grocers–made from mushrooms)
1/2 c raw sugar
1-2 tbsp coconut oil
about 5 sheets nori
2 c sushi rice (short grain rice + brown rice vinegar)
Method:
Prepare sushi rice. Lots of recipes online if you need exact measurements. In a small mixing bowl, combine tamari, vegetarian oyster sauce and sugar. Use this mixture to marinate the vegan ham slices. I left mine in the fridge for a little over a day. Likely they do not need that long, a few hours up to overnight.
Heat the coconut oil in a skillet or saute pan. Let’s say over medium or medium-high heat. Take your marinated slices and saute them good. Real good, until they start to brown. Cook the slices in batches if necessary and allow them to cool before musubi assembly.
When you’re ready to make musubi, grab your nori, musubi press, rice and vegan ham. Cut your nori in half lengthwise. Using one half of the nori, put your musubi press in the middle and push in some rice. Top that with a slice of vegan ham, then top with more rice. Remove the press. Wrap the seaweed up around the rectangle, seal with a little water if needed.
The Jolly Fox 
I don’t remember if I ever tried Spam or not, I assume it would taste something like ham. But I love sushi, the vegan spam musubi looks great! 🙂
Thank you, I was surprised that it was actually tasty!
I really don’t understand the whole obsession with spam over there, not something that was ever up my alley. I’ve got one of those ham logs in my freezer too, spam musubi sounds pretty awesome once you get rid of the animal bits:)
I know right?!? I saw your recipe for mushroom and ham strata which I must make! Great use of the log! 🙂
This isn’t vegan, sadly. Look under allergen information at:
http://www.vegeusa.com/VegeUSA/products/vege_ham.html
Vegeham log contains eggs
Hey there,
I should have checked the website–the product featured in the recipe is 100% vegan. For some reason, it’s not on the website, so I’ll remove the link. VegeUSA makes several vegetarian counterparts to their vegan meats that contain egg. I don’t know why they do that, but they have a vegan version of shrimp and a version that contains egg.
Anyhow, I can assure you that VegeUSA sometimes marketed under Vegetarian Plus makes vegan ham logs and that is what I used in this recipe. Here they are available at Vegan Essentials: http://www.veganessentials.com/catalog/vegan-glazed-ham-roll-by-vegetarian-plus.htm
The label read vegan in the title and contained no egg or animal products listed in the ingredients. So, this is most definitely vegan!
Thanks for pointing out that it’s not on their website though!