Today, we’re going to show you how to make mochi without rice flour! Mochi is one of Mrs. Eats’ favorite foods in the world! These little balls of pounded rice are chewy, stretchy, and so delicious! If you want to learn to make these without rice flour like mochiko, we can show you how to do it!
Watch how to make mochi without rice flour
What is mochi?
Mochi is one of the oldest types of sweets in Japan. It’s made from glutinous rice that is pounded until it becomes smooth and stretchy. When you touch it, it feels like a stiff dough. It even has a similar stretch and tends to fight back in much the same way.
It’s commonly eaten on its own or wrapped around a sweet bean paste called anko. Although you may think of mochi as only something that is only eaten as a dessert, in Japan, mochi is enjoyed in savory soups and with soy sauce, too.
What is the origin of mochi?
Nobody really knows when or why people began pounding rice to create mochi. The food is so ancient that it seems to have existed before recorded history. Because of its ancient nature, it has played an important role in the lives of ancient Japanese and is seen as a holy food.
In Japan, there is a folktale that tells of a young boy who shot a piece of mochi with an arrow as he was playing around outside. When the arrow pierced the mochi, it transformed into a bird and flew away. After this, his village suffered great famine and drought. This story signifies the importance of mochi and the importance of respect for food.
Why is mochi made with glutinous rice?
Glutinous rice is a strain of rice that is high in one component of starch called amylopectin. This part of starch determines how stretchy and chewy the rice is. Because glutinous rice is high in it, when it is pounded, it has an amazing stretchiness, similar to that of a melted cheese.
Regular rice is high in another type of starch component called amylose. This affects the texture in that it doesn’t allow for the chewiness, instead it allows for more brittleness. Amylose is the reason why some types of rice, like wild rice, have a firmer bite than a softer rice like Japanese rice.
Can I make mochi without glutinous rice?
NO! I see this all over Youtube where they tell people to make mochi with rice, but do not specify that you need to use glutinous rice! In fact, in a very popular mochi making video, there’s a long comment thread on whether people were successfully able to make the real, stretchy, chewy mochi with regular rice, and the results are absolutely not!
If you want real mochi with the real stretchy chewiness, you must use glutinous rice! With that said, using regular rice is how you make Korean mochi that you find in dishes like topokki, the spicy rice cake dish. Korean savory mochi dishes use this firmer type of mochi, compared to the glutinous rice version!
Ingredients to make mochi without rice flour
- Glutinous Rice (See it on Amazon) – This is the only rice you should use to make mochi if you want to get the perfect stretch, chew, and texture! Using any other kind of rice is asking for a bad time!
- Sweet Red Bean Paste (See it on Amazon) – Sweetened, mashed red beans. The perfect filling for perfectly homemade mochi!
- Sugar
How to make mochi without rice flour
Making mochi without rice flour is really easy! Actually, I think you’ll be surprised at how simple it is and how quickly it comes together!
First, gluttonous rice is soaked for a few hours. This allows the grain to state with water. The rice is then drained and ground into a paste with a few tablespoons of water. Once the rice had the consistency and smoothness of glue, it gets mixed with some sugar and poured onto parchment paper set inside of a steamer basket.
If you do not have a steam basket, you can cook it in the microwave. This website details the process of cooking mochi properly by nuking it. You can tell the mochi is cooked when it goes from a milky white to a slightly translucent white.
Next, you add the mochi onto a surface covered with corn starch. this will keep it from sticking to your hands and the surface. You work the movie into a rectangle then cut it into squares.
Now, you take some red bean late and roll it into a ball. it might be a little messy, so plastic gloves are recommended. Finally, wrap the mochi around the red bean balls, give it a final light coating of cornstarch on the bottom, and set it on a plate.
What do I fill my mochi with?
1. Sweet Red Bean Paste
This is the classic filling of mochi! If you’ve never had sweet red bean paste, it certainly sounds weird, but taste-wise, it’s just a kind of thick, sweet paste.
If you’ve ever had bean dip or refried beans, imagine that texture, but instead of it being savory, make it sweet. The beans themselves don’t have a strong flavor, and you’ll only just taste a sweet, sugary flavor.
That being said, it can be a little dry, which is why these mochi are great to have with some refreshing bitter green tea. Heck, they’d go really well with my Dalgona green tea, as well!
2. Fruits!
Adding fruit into mochi is more of a recent trend, starting from the 1980s. The first fruit added into a sweet bean mochi was strawberry. At first, people mocked it and thought it was an unnecessary addition, but it soon turned out to be extremely popular!
Since then, fruit inside of mochi has become as normal as the original sweet bean mochi itself! If you’d prefer filling your mochi with fruit, then make sure you check out our recipe on making fruit mochi!
How to make mochi without rice flour: 4 tips!
1. Grind the rice
You may have seen videos of mochi being made by pounding it with a giant mallet. While this is the traditional way of making it, and while it may look fun to do at home, don’t! It takes a lot of time and energy to pound the cooked rice into mochi! Mrs. Eats and I tried this when developing the recipe, and although it works, it is a very tiring affair. Save yourself the the and energy and just blend it into a paste in a food processor or blender!
2. Soak your rice!
While traditional Royce cooking calls for water to be added right before cooking, is different if you’re trying to make mochi without rice flour. The glutinous ride just be soaked for 2-4 hours prior to grinding. This will ensure that the whole grain is saturated in water, resulting in a perfect mochi that has the right chewiness and texture.
3. Work quickly while it’s still warm!
Mochi will begin to stiffen as it cools, so working quickly while it’s still warm is important. While the mochi is warm, it is pliable, flexible, and can be shaped easily. Work too slowly and you may find that the mochi fights back when you stretch it and will be prone to tearing as you shape it around your fillings.
4. Make it fun!
We decorated ours with these edible stickers! These faces make the mochi that much more hilarious and fun to enjoy! If you’d like to get some of these edible stickers for yourself, then check them out in our brand new shop!
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How to make mochi without rice flour
Ingredients
- Glutinous rice 150g
- Sweet red bean paste
- Sugar 2 Tbsp
Instructions
- Add glutinous rice to a large bowl and add water until the rice is completely submerged. Allow to soak for 2-4 hours.
- Drain the water and add rice to a food processor or blender. At 3 tbsp of water and grind for a minute.
- Open the lid and check the consistency. It should be smooth and have the consistency of white glue. Add a teaspoon of water and continue to grind for another minute. Repeat this step until you have the correct consistency.
- Prepare a sheet of parchment paper and add it to a steam basket. Pour the mochi paste into the parchment. Steam the mochi, covered, for about 10 minutes. The mochi is finished when it turns from a milky white to a translucent white with many small holes dotting the surface.
- While the mochi is steaming, roll the sweet red bean paste into about 7 - 8 balls that weight about 20g each.
- Carefully remove the parchment paper and mochi from the steamer. Gently scrape the mochi off of the parchment paper onto a work surface dusted with corn starch.
- Working quickly, shape the mochi into a long rectangle, then cut the mochi into 30 gram squares.
- Place the mochi onto the palm of your hand and stretch out the edges gently. Make sure that the edges are thinner than the center of the mochi.
- Place the bean paste ball into the center of the mochi and wrap the edges around, pinching to seal.
- Turn the mochi seal-side down and gently roll on the palm of your hand. Dip the bottom lightly into corn starch and set on a plate.
- Continue to shape the rest of the mochi. Serve immediately.
- *Note: For microwave instructions, refer to the instructions listed in the article above
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