About Clare Farnell

I started making sushi at home in 2021 with a cheap bamboo mat and the wrong rice. The rice was jasmine. I bought it because the bag had a picture of something vaguely Asian on it. The first roll fell apart. I ate it standing over the bin.

Five years later I have made several hundred rolls, burned through three rice cookers testing which one actually produces better sushi rice, reviewed six sushi making kits side by side, and spent more hours than I would admit reading Amazon reviews and Reddit threads about nori grades. My partner has eaten a lot of test sushi. He has developed opinions about the relative merits of different bamboo mat brands.

This site exists because I could not find what I was looking for when I started. Most sushi guides were either written for professional chefs or for people who had never made anything more complex than toast. I wanted practical information from someone who had made the same mistakes I was making and worked out how to fix them.

What this site covers

Sushi Planet covers everything a home sushi maker needs from first session to confident weekly cook:

• Ingredients — rice, nori, fish sourcing, soy sauce, and everything that goes inside a roll. See the sushi ingredients guide.
• Tools — rolling mats, knives, rice cookers, kits. Everything reviewed with specific product recommendations. See the sushi tools guide.
• Technique — how to make maki, nigiri, uramaki, and how to fix the mistakes that trip up most beginners.
• Types of sushi — what each style is, how it differs, and which to try first. See types of sushi.
• History and culture — where sushi came from and what makes Japanese food culture distinctive. See sushi history.

If you are just starting out, the sushi for beginners guide is the right place to begin.

How I research and test

Every product recommendation on this site goes through the same process before I publish it.

Hands-on testing: Where I have purchased and used a product myself, I say so and describe the specific experience. The Zojirushi NS-TSC10 rice cooker I have used weekly since 2022. The JapanBargain chopsticks I bought in 2024 and have run through the dishwasher weekly since. The bamboo mats I have gone through more of than I can count.

Research-based evaluation: Where I have not personally tested a product, I say so explicitly. For those products, I analyse Amazon review data across hundreds or thousands of verified purchases, read Reddit threads from actual users, and compare manufacturer specifications. I note which products fall into this category in every review.

Product verification: Every product recommended on this site has been verified as in stock on Amazon at the time of writing, with the current price and review count confirmed from the listing. Prices change. I include a last-updated date and note that prices should be verified before purchasing.

What I will not do: Recommend something I would not buy myself. Recommend something because it pays a higher commission. Ignore negative reviews because a product is popular.

Why I started writing publicly

I began sharing sushi notes on Medium in 2022 under the handle @claresushi, mostly because writing things down forced me to understand them properly. The Medium articles started getting traffic from people asking questions I had already answered. Sushi Planet grew from that.

The YouTube channel (#sushi-planet) covers technique in more detail than text allows. Watching someone roll a maki once is worth more than reading about it three times.

Contact

For editorial questions, corrections, or to suggest something I should cover: clare@sushi-planet.com

For data protection enquiries, privacy requests, or anything related to this site's legal pages: data@sushi-planet.com

Response time is typically 2 to 3 working days.

Affiliate disclosure

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sushi Planet participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program (US) and the Amazon Associates UK programme. When you click a product link and buy something on Amazon, this site may earn a small commission. The price you pay is identical whether you use my link or visit Amazon directly.

This commercial relationship does not influence editorial decisions. I recommend products based on research and testing. I have told readers not to buy things I earn commission on. If a product is not worth buying, I say so.

For full details, read the affiliate disclosure.

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*Clare Farnell has been making sushi at home since 2021. She writes about Japanese home cooking, sushi tools, and kitchen equipment at sushi-planet.com.*