What Are the Different Types of Sushi?

Sushi is as beautiful as it is delicious. Here's a complete guide to the different types of sushi, from maki to nigiri, plus condiments, recipes, and more.

By

Carl Hanson

Updated on May 20, 2021

Sushi is all about freshness and presentation. It's meant to be as beautiful as it is delicious -- a true feast for the senses. Here's a quick look at the different types of sushi.

Maki Sushi

Sushi rolls. To make maki sushi, fresh ingredients like fish and thinly sliced vegetables are rolled up in toasted seaweed (nori) into a snug cylinder and sliced into bite-size pieces. Futomaki Sushi is a larger, thicker version of maki sushi.

Uramaki Sushi

Another variation of maki sushi, uramaki sushi is sometimes called an inside-out roll because the rice is on the outside of the roll and the nori is on the inside.

Popular Maki and Uramaki Sushi Recipes

Check out our sushi making step-by-step guide -- How to Make Homemade Sushi Rolls.

Nigiri Sushi

Nigiri is an elegant, often more expensive style of sushi. Thin slices of fresh raw fish (also cooked shrimp and egg omelet) are dabbed with a light smear of wasabi paste and placed on molded sushi rice.

VIDEO: How to Make Nigiri Sushi

In this video, sushi chef Hitoshi shows you how to make nigiri sushi.

Get the recipe for Nigiri Sushi.

Sashimi Sushi

Thin slices of raw fish without the rice. Popular sashimi includes yellowfin tuna (hamachi) and salmon (sake).

Temaki Sushi

A cone-shaped hand roll that looks like a sushi version of an ice-cream cone.

See our collection of Sushi Recipes.

Key Sushi Ingredients

Sushi rice: Made with short-grain rice, sushi rice is flavored with rice wine vinegar, sugar, and salt.

Nori: Dried seaweed sheets.

Seafood: Fresh, raw, sometimes cooked salmon, tuna (ahi), yellow tail (hamachi), mackerel, grilled eel (unagi), cooked shrimp (ebi), crab (kani), and lobster, and more.

Tempura: Battered and fried seafood or vegetables.

Roe (tobiko): Fish eggs from a variety of fish.

Egg (tamago): A thin omelet folded and cut into strips. Here's a recipe for Japanese Tamago Sushi.

Vegetables: cucumbers, avocados, carrots, daikon radishes.

Vegetarian Sushi

Sushi isn't always about seafood. These fish-free sushi options say it with fresh vegetables.

VIDEO: What are the Types of Sushi?

Not just food, sushi is art. Enjoy this quick intro to the beautiful world of sushi.

Condiments for Sushi

Serve fresh sushi with wasabi paste, soy sauce, and pickled ginger (gari). Eat a thin slice of pickled ginger in between bites of sushi to refresh the palate.

Soy sauce, pickled ginger, and wasabi paste | Photo by Meredith.

A Note about Mixing Wasabi and Soy Sauce. Some sushi purists insists you shouldn't mix the wasabi paste into the soy sauce for dipping. This is a "rule" many, many people ignore -- and they have a delicious time doing it. For more on sushi rules, including the ones you can safely ignore, check out The Rules of Eating Sushi.