I started eating low/healthy carb recently. However, I was asked to make spam masubi this weekend. Is there a way to make it low/healthy carb for me? I was thinking of subbing it with quinoa or something…but not sure if that will work. Any ideas? Thanks so much!
I have made it with brown rice before. If is fine, but after a few trials, it is best if the brown rice is a bit over cooked. My rice cooker tends to have dryer brown rice which I like but it simply falls apart in a SPAM musubi. I would say that if you go this route, test some rice out and see if it is moist enough so that the brown rice binds together naturally.
Hope this helps!
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My first thought was quinoa, but I think you’d have a really hard time getting it to hold together.
Maybe use half the amount of brown rice and have an tamago (made w/ egg whites) and SPAM musubi?
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how about using tofu? specifically the one below. Stays formed, no worries about falling apart. and you can cut to size as needed.
Alternatively use half the amount of rice…
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What’s wrong with just nori and spam?
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too salty me thinks on its own
@ipsedixit Nothing, but I agree with @Sgee it might still be salty even if you use the low sodium (which I do).
Fantastic idea…I’ll have to experiment with this. Someone suggested riced cauliflower, but it wouldn’t bind and there might be too much moisture.
Supplement your white rice with konyaku/konjak “rice.” A close friend brought a bunch of this over from Japan. At first, we were expecting grossness, but we didn’t even notice it mixed in with the rice. It will become noticeable as the ratio of konyaku rice increases.
Google “konyaku rice.”
I’ve been researching lower-carb / low-GI rices and the subject is way more complicated than generally reported:
The section on rice starts on page 16. The common claim that brown rice’s GI is 40 and white rice’s is 89 is supposedly based on this report, but it shows nothing of the sort.
Bottom line: Uncle Ben’s.
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Konnyaku’s texture is nothing like rice. More like flavorless gelatin.
True.
But then neither is tofu, another one of the suggested alternatives.
And between the two, konnyaku is lower in calories, if not everything else.
@ipsedixit Now that I’ve had a chance to look this up…99 Ranch sells yam noodles in the refrigerated section of the store. From the sound of it, it’s almost the same concept, except in noodle form. Thanks for the tip…this could be quite promising!
Be careful which oddball noodles you get. Some are high-carb and high-GI. Barley or Uncle Ben’s could be better.
I was going to suggest noodles, as that’s more common, but I thought it might be difficult to use in a musubi. Hence the block.
Good luck.
The konyaku “rice” filler/substitute’s texture is unnoticeable for the most part. Uncooked, its shape and color is like white rice. Cooked, it also looks like white rice - moist and translucent. However, it doesn’t have any taste, so the surrounding real rice kernels fill in that duty of taste.
The purpose of this product is to reduce the intake of actual rice by the ratio you decide to go with, without sacrificing taste or texture.
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Interesting. I did not know about konnyaku rice. Sounds perfect for the OP.
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