Tuna and Avocado Rice Bowl is another simple donburi (rice bowl) dish, along with Wagyū Steak Don. I would say this is even easier because you hardly cook anything. Marinated in tasty wasabi-flavoured sauce, the combination of tuna and avocado is a great topping for a donburi dish.
Avocado is a perfect match for tuna. Japanese people say that eating a piece of avocado with soy sauce is almost like eating toro (the fatty part of tuna), and I’d have to agree with them. By mixing tuna and avocado, with a soy-based sauce, you will experience the dish as if you are eating toro together with akami (the red meat part of tuna).
It’s not a Poke Bowl
You often find tuna and avocado donburi served as a poke bowl. It might look like a poke bowl, but the sauce I used in today’s donburi dish, Tuna and Avocado Rice Bowl, is different from the typical poke sauce.
Nagi’s tuna Poker Bowl.
The sauce ingredients can vary, but poke sauce often includes sesame oil, ginger and/or chilli, in addition to soy sauce as a base flavour. Nagi posted Tuna Poke Bowl and her sauce includes all of these.
My sauce includes soy sauce as well but does not use any of the other ingredients mentioned above. The flavour of Tuna and Avocado Donburi is a typical Japanese flavour with a touch of wasabi. And the sauce is not oily at all.
It is almost like eating sashimi and rice together.
What’s in My Tuna and Avocado rice Bowl (Donburi)
There are only three key ingredients other than the sauce.
- Tuna
- Avocado
- Cooked rice
You will need sashimi-quality tuna for this. The avocado should be firm (not over ripen) so that it won’t be squashed easily when mixed with the tuna. For the cooked rice you can use sushi rice, but I prefer plain rice.
Sauce
- Soy sauce
- Cooking sake
- Mirin
- Bonito flakes
- Wasabi paste
Toppings
- Roasted white sesame seeds
- Roasted seaweed shreds (kizami nori)
You don’t need to have toppings, but they will make the servings prettier and also give a different texture to the dish.
You can buy a pack of kizami nori from Japanese/Asian grocery stores (photo below). But I usually make my own from a sheet of yaki nori, which I always keep in my pantry, even if mine is not as fine strips as the store-bought.
In addition to or instead of the toppings listed above, you can use finely chopped green onions.
How to Make Tuna and Avocado rice Bowl (Donburi)
You want to infuse umami from the bonito flakes. So, you need to heat up the sauce ingredients. But this is the only cooking you need to do. The rest is just cutting, marinating and assembling.
- Make sauce and cool it down.
- Dice tuna and avocado.
- Add wasabi to the sauce and marinate tuna and avocado in the sauce for 15 minutes.
- Put rice in a donburi bowl, then put tuna and avocado on the rice.
- Pour the sauce over, then scatter sesame seeds and kizami nori.
It takes less than 30 minutes to make Tuna and Avocado Rice Bowl (Donburi) and marinating the tuna and avocado takes up most of the time.
Tuna and Avocado Rice Bowl (Donburi) is quick and easy to make, and it is a really tasty dish. Instead of tuna, you can use salmon.
Yumiko
Tuna and Avocado Rice Bowl is a simple donburi (rice bowl) dish, which hardly requires cooking. Dressed in a tasty wasabi-flavoured sauce, tuna and avocado are the great toppings for a donburi dish.
Prep Time include 15 minutes of marinating time.
Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.
- 120g / 4.2oz tuna (sashimi quality, note 1)
- ½ avocado
- 150-200g / 5.3-7.1oz cooked rice
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp cooking sake
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 2.5g / 0.1oz bonito flakes
- ⅓-½ tsp wasabi paste (note 2)
- ½ tsp roasted white sesame seeds
- Roasted seaweed shreds (kizami nori, note 4)
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Put all the Sauce ingredients, except wasabi, in a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat off and cool it down (note 5) to at least room temperature.
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While cooling the sauce, dice tuna and avocado into 1.5cm / ⅝" cubes.
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Put the sauce through a sieve and collect it in a bowl. Squeeze the bonito flakes in the sieve to get the liquid out of them as well.
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Add wasabi to the sauce and mix well. It’s OK to have tiny lumps of wasabi.
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Add the tuna and avocado to the sauce. Gently mix so that the avocado does not get squashed. Leave for 15 minutes.
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Put rice in a serving bowl, levelling the surface.
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Using a slotted spoon or a large fork, transfer the tuna and avocado onto the rice, covering the entire surface of the rice.
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Pour a small amount of sauce over evenly. You need to adjust the amount of dressing to pour over depending on how much rice you have in the bowl (don’t put too much sauce on).
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Sprinkle sesame seeds over, then scatter kizami nori.
1. I used akami (the red meat part of tuna) which is cheaper than toro (the fatty part of tuna).
2. The kick of wasabi can vary a lot depending on the brand of wasabi you use. Adjust the amount of wasabi by tasting the sauce.
3. You don’t need to have them, but it is nice to have at least one topping for visual effect, as well as giving the dish a different texture. Finely chopped green onion can be an alternative.
4. You can buy a pack of kizami nori (roasted seaweed that is already shredded) from Japanese/Asian grocery stores. But I usually make my own from yaki nori, which I always keep in my pantry.
Cut out a 3cm / 1⅛" wide strip of yaki nori, then make 2mm / 3⁄32" wide, 3cm / 1⅛" long strips.
5. I leave the pot in cold water to bring the temperature down slightly, then put it in the fridge to fast-track the cooling process.
6. Nutrition per serving. Assumed only a half of the sauce is consumed.
serving: 401g calories: 545kcal fat: 17g (26%) saturated fat: 2.7g (14%) trans fat: 0.0g polyunsaturated fat: 2.7g monounsaturated fat: 11g cholesterol: 47mg (16%) sodium: 726mg (30%) potassium: 1126mg (32%) carbohydrates: 58g (19%) dietary fibre: 8g (32%) sugar: 4.9g protein: 36g vitamin a: 5% vitamin c: 17% calcium: 3.9% iron: 20%
Meal Ideas
A typical Japanese meal consists of a main dish, a couple of side dishes, a soup and rice. I try to come up with a combination of dishes with a variety of flavours, colours, textures and make-ahead dishes.
The amount of tuna in the donburi dish is not a lot. So, I decided to have a side dish with a little bit of meat in it. A small serving size of Nikujaga is a good choice for this.
I needed a few more vegetables to go with these dishes. What about Sesame Bean Sprouts? And the addition of Pickled Red Cabbage brightens up the meal.
- Main: Tuna and Avocado Rice Bowl (Donburi) – today’s dish.
- Side dish 1: Japanese Meat and Potato Stew (Nikujaga) – small serving, make ahead.
- Side dish 2: Sesame Bean Sprouts – make ahead.
- Pickles: Sweet and Sour Pickled Red Cabbage – make ahead.
- Soup: Tofu and Wakame Miso Soup – or other ingredients to go into the miso soup.
Hi Yumiko-san, It all looks simple and yummy … but it’s not a simple task to find sashimi-grade tuna unless you are close to a large fish market. In ordinary seafood stores tuna looks like … well, you know, matured (dark-brown!) to say politely. But sashimi salmon is easily available. If I choose to replace tuna with salmon, I, perhaps, need to change a source. What would you suggest? Thanks, Sergy
Hi Sergy, you don’t need to change anything. Salmon goes very well with the sauce in the recipe. I tried it before. Simply replace the word ‘tuna’ with ‘salmon’ in the recipe!