Sushi Donuts Are a New Way to Eat Breakfast for Dinner

It’s an irrefutable fact that food simply tastes better when it comes in a cool shape, whether it’s in a burrito, on a stick, or inside of an edible bowl. But when you take two awesome food shapes—sushi and doughnuts—and slap them together, you can create pure food alchemy. And fortunately for us, that’s just what food wizard and Instagram celebrity Sam Melbourne (creator of the galaxy doughnut) did with sushi doughnuts, a mashup of sushi treats inside a beautifully sculpted, rice-laden doughnut. Melbourne’s version is all-vegan, all-raw, and loaded with healthy toppings like avocado, ginger, cucumber, black sesame seeds, and radish. 

This Instagram sensation had many people asking how to make sushi doughnuts, which isn’t actually as hard as it looks, and might be easier than making sushi on its own (and is about as easy as figuring out how to make breakfast sushi). First, grease a doughnut mold with oil (butter or coconut oil would work too), and then push cold sushi rice along the sides of the mold. Next, flip the pan upside down to carefully remove the rice rings, and garnish with your favorite toppings. But that method’s just for beginners. The world of sushi doughnuts gets much more intense from here.

Enter: California Sushi Donuts. This Los Angeles-based sushi pop-up shop took the sushi doughnut idea and ran with it, creating wild flavors and combinations that go way past the standard rice ring that made waves earlier this summer. Now you can get sushi doughnuts that are covered in dazzling colors, festooned with shrimp, or shellacked with an avocado glaze.

But California Sushi Donut is not without its competitors. Plenty of aspiring at-home chefs have taken a stab at recreating this ringed masterpiece, often with fantastic results.

But if we had to pick our favorite example of sushi doughnutry (that’s totally a word), we’d have to give it up to Whole Foods. Their take on the sushi doughnut incorporated actual sushi into the center of the doughnut, which puts the entire thing on a totally new level. 

So whether you want to have breakfast for dinner (well, breakfast-shaped foods for dinner), or want an excuse to eat sushi for breakfast (and I mean, who doesn’t?), the sushi doughnut may be the option for you. Just make sure your avocado rose skills are on point as well, because your Insta game must remain tight as ever.