What Does Sushi Grade Mean?
Firstly, you should keep in mind that there really is no such legal term as “sushi grade fish“. For a detailed description of what really makes fish safe to eat raw, I recommend reading the section of SushiFAQ which answers this question, What really is sushi grade fish? However, what this term really means is that the fish is fresh and handled properly so that one can be reasonably sure that it is clean and parasite free. In most cases it has been frozen to a low enough temperature for long enough that any parasites that the fish may have had have been destroyed. Most fish that you will find in any grocery store or fish market is not sushi grade fish, so ask questions and know what you are buying if you intend to eat any seafood raw.
Sourcing your fish
When choosing your fish, make sure it looks clean, not slimy, and smells subtly of the ocean, and not overly fishy. If it looks or smells funny, avoid it (but some fish, such as tuna, may have a slight rainbow hue on the surface of the flesh which is normal and natural, not a sign of poor quality or processing). Remember, the nose knows. There are a few places that one might find fish of high enough quality that it can safely be made into sushi at home:
Japanese Markets – If you are fortunate enough to have a Japanese market near you, they may very well sell fish that is considered sushi grade. If you are in or near a city, chances are, you may find a Japanese grocery store somewhere local. While you will generally find a variety of fish there, you can ask or look for the area where they will probably sell fish that has already been cleaned and cut into pieces that are ready for sushi.
Often, they are cut into a rectangle, ready to be sliced against the grain for perfect sushi neta. Just make sure that the fish you buy is specifically meant to be eaten raw, as it may not be in the same area as the fish sold which is intended to be cooked. I buy a lot of fish from my local Japanese grocer.
Grocery Store/Fishmonger – Don’t even think about it. While it couldn’t hurt to ask you local fishmonger if they do in fact sell sushi grade fish, most do not, and never assume that a fish you buy from a grocery store or fishmonger is safe to eat raw.
Online – In my experience, there are a number of online stores that sell sushi grade fish and ship overnight. Many have an incredible assortment of different seafood, a great deal of which is sushi grade and sold for making sushi at home. They even have items that can be hard to find, such as abalone and multiple grades of uni (sea urchin), and even have one of my all time favorite seasonal items, ankimo (monkfish liver), which can be very difficult to find.
Most items are shipped frozen, so you can defrost and use at your leisure, and, if you are totally new to making sushi at home, they even sell sushi kits and all the ingredients you will need to get started. There are a number of places online that I have used, but they all seem to come and go, and I am like to experiment after proper research into reviews.
The Ocean – Yes, believe it or not, you can eat salt water fish you catch yourself as sushi. I mention this with big red blinking words of caution, however, as most people cannot necessarily be certain a fish a fish is parasite free and clean enough to eat raw without proper training, but if you know what to look for, you can tell a good fish from a bad one. I have eaten tuna right out of the water and can say that is a vastly different food than tuna that has been frozen, thawed, and shipped around the world for a few days. It is truly an amazing food when it is that fresh.
Seafood This Fresh Is Available
There you have it. Thanks to the internet and the globalization of culinary interests, one can probably expect to be able to get high quality fish for sushi without too much effort. The Internet has opened up that option for a lot of folks, and with more and more people eating sushi, whether for the perceived nutritional benefits, or simply because it’s just so darned good, our ability to find great ingredients increases.
I have introduced a lot of friends to making sushi at home, and when they see how easy it can be, they often continue the practice. You don’t need a book, just the desire, and the right fish can make your evening sushiful and fun. Perfect sushi rice isn’t hard to make and sushi kits are easily acquired, so once you have what you need, get down to business. And if you want to let me know how your sushi making went, please comment below, I’d love to hear.
I have always been fascinated by the creation and culture of different foods, particularly sushi and sashimi in the modern era of Japanese cuisine. I am a classically trained chef and sushi connoisseur, also having operated a food service company and enjoy investigating and experimenting with food around the world.
Dear Warren,
One word about supermarket fish. While I think you’re right not to try to get sushi grade fish from the regular fish section, you may want to consider asking the guy making supermarket sushi for a piece of fish that’s safe to eat. I have done this and it worked well. He went in the back and came back with a piece of sushi-grade salmon that was delicious an hour later at home.
I’m lucky to have a well-established Asian town near me so I can just go to the Super H-Mart to get myself some fresh fish.
The sushifaq code doesn’t work on orders less then $100
Yes, that is correct. I mention that at the end of the post. Only my readers get that discount and the company needs to have a purchase worthwhile enough (in terms of size) order to offer such a significant discount.
Warren,
How long is the frozen fish from the website you’ve listed good for? I want to order some from there but we would eat it over the course of 2 or 3 dinners and I don’t want it to go bad. Thanks!
It’s hard to say specifically, but I’ve gotten fish from them and frozen what I didn’t want and eaten it at a later date. I would email them specifically if you had questions about particular items, but most of the items I get I receive not frozen. I’ll cut off a piece to use, freeze the rest, and thaw it at a later date (I tend to get large orders). Even unfrozen, depending on the type of item it is, it could last a few days, if the item is handled properly. To be honest, that goes against my recommendations on my site (sushifaq.com) but I am personally willing to take risks I won’t publicly advocate for legal reasons. 🙂 but I’ve been handling food for commercial purposes since I was 8 (my mother had a catering business that I grew up a part of, and I have been a personal chef) so I am naturally very careful about food handling and keep my surfaces and tools very clean. But I would check with them to be safe as some items may last longer than others.
I’ve been generally satisfied with catalina op but recently I’ve noticed their price going way up. Ikura for 90$ a kg, Salmon for 18$ a lb. That’s a bit steep. Anybody know the reason for this?
Unfortunately it’s not just Catalina, seafood in general is going up a lot (with the exception of farmed fish from China and other countries that I don’t trust when it comes to food safety). For those of us who love sushi, it’s going to be a bitter pill to swallow.
I was thinking about ordering from sushinut but i am a little concerned that they don’t use a secured page for ordering. Have you had or heard of anyone having any issues?
I have personally ordered from them with no problems. But when I saw your question, I actually called them and asked them about this and they said they are going to be making the order page a secured page, so any concerns can be put aside. That said, the good thing about credit cards is that if someone fraudulently uses them, you are protected. But I was told that the transaction itself goes through authorize.net, which is a secure credit card processing company, and sushinut does not keep your credit card number on file anywhere, so at least IMHO, we’re fine. I don’t worry about myself for those reasons and definitely keep ordering from them, from my experience, their food arrives in the best condition of any company I’ve used to order sushi grade fish.
My daughter loves sashimi. Specifically tuna. She lives in an area where there aren’t any Japanese Markets and so she resorts to just buying the regular tuna at her local grocery store. She insists that if they can sell it, it’s fine. I have cautioned/warned her many times that this is an unsafe practise bur she refuses to believe me. Am I wrong?
While some grocery stores may carry fish that is safe to eat raw, if it is not specifically sold to be eaten raw you cannot be sure that it is safe to eat that way. Personally, I would never make sushi or sashimi from fish I bought at the grocery store, only places that were selling find intended to be eaten as sushi. Perhaps she has asked the fishmonger at the grocery store if the fish is safe to eat raw? If not, this does sound risky to me.
I understand not using fish from a grocery store seafood department but what about frozen and packaged fish. would that be ok to use? I really do love sushi and would probably order fish on line. But I could go broke making and eating sushi. Can prepackaged frozen fish safe to make this new to food that I dearly love?
Thank you
That’s a good question, and I would say that eating any seafood uncooked that is not specifically meant to be eaten raw is probably not a great idea. Can you? Sure, and as long as it was safely handled you’d probably be OK, but it’s still a risk you have to ask yourself if you want to take. Personally, I wouldn’t eat anything raw that isn’t specifically handled as an item to be eaten raw. Play it safe.
What if you go to a sprouts or Whole Foods and ask if they have sushi grade fish. And they say yes. Would you consider that safe?