Onigiri wrappers were secretly also onigiri holders this whole time.

Japan’s convenience store onigiri (rice balls) are arguably the world’s greatest snack. They’re convenient, filling, healthy, affordable, and, most importantly of all, very tasty.

Just about the only downside is that they can be tricky to open, if you’re not used to the process. The most common shape for store-bought onigiri is a triangle, and they have a uniquely layered wrapper that keeps the seaweed separate from the rice (so that the seaweed stays crisp) until you remove it. That means that you have to both tear open the wrapper and slide its sections off in the right directions/order. We’ve gone over this before, but the proper method is first to vertically tear the wrapper’s central strip…

…then slide the wrapper off of the bottom two corners.

This will get the wrapper off without squashing the onigiri or scattering pieces and pieces of torn seaweed all over the place.

But it turns out there’s an even higher-level way to handle removing the wrapper, as shared by Zen-Noh (also known as the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives Group’s National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations). The steps are similar to the orthodox process explained above, but a few clever tweaks create a very nice extra advantage, in that not only can you cleanly remove the wrapper, you can keep your hands/fingers clean as you eat too!

動画もおいておきます pic.twitter.com/6m7mlZxumM

— 全農広報部【公式】日本の食を味わう (@zennoh_food)October 11, 2024

As shown in Zen-Noh’s video example above, the first step is the same: vertically tear the wrapper’s central strip. You’re going to want to make sure you keep tearing all the way around, too, so that this strip completely separates from the rest of the wrapper.

This will leave you with two separated triangular pieces of the wrapper on the lower corners of the onigiri. Slide both of them off, but instead of throwing the, away, turn them upside down and place them back on the rice ball’s lower corners. Because those triangular wrapper pieces are longer on one side than the other, turning them upside down like this makes them overlap across the bottom edge of the onigiri and keeps them from rising as high along the sides. In other words, you’ve just turned the onigiri wrapping into an onigiri holder, so that you can hold the rice ball by its wrapper as you eat it and keep your hands clean, since they’re not in direct contact with your food.

手を汚さないコンビニおにぎりの食べ方を知ってから、この食べ方をしたくてコンビニおにぎりを買ったりすることもあります
出かけたくなる心地いい気候には、おにぎりを携えて…ｽﾀｺﾗｻｯｻ pic.twitter.com/XiLT3ZtEDz

— 全農広報部【公式】日本の食を味わう (@zennoh_food)October 11, 2024

While it’s true that most onigiri aren’t particularly messy to eat, there are some that have sauces or extra juicy fillings, which Zen-Noh’s method will help keep off of your hands. Something else that’s especially nice about the idea is that, because of their easy portability, onigiri are often eaten on the go or while doing outdoor activities such as hiking. Ideally, you’d want to wash your hands before and after you eat, but since a lot of times onigiri get eaten in places where there’s no sink around, Zen-Noh’s make-your-own-holder technique is nice to know.

So thanks, Zen-Noh! We’ll file this one away in our memories right next to your trick for making extra-fluffy pancakes.