Mochi Recipe: How to Make Mochi at Home

Have you ever tried mochi? This soft and gooey rice cake is a Japanese dessert favorite — and a food I encourage you to try on a ketogenic diet.

But why eat rice if you’re trying to avoid carbs? While the standard ketogenic diet can help you burn fat and boost your energy, limiting carbs all the time can make you fatigued, cause thyroid issues, and even wreck your sleep. That’s why the Bulletproof Diet is a cyclical ketogenic diet — and why rice is still on the table once in a while.

While other Bulletproof-friendly recipes like ice cream and keto bread hack the added sugar, flour, and milk with substitutions that won’t make you feel foggy and fatigued, this mochi recipe takes a different approach. Since mochi is mainly made up of (naturally gluten-free) glutinous rice and water, this mochi recipe adds a few optional hacks to improve the flavor and nutritional profile of its smooth and stretchy dough.

The first hack is a capsule of saccharomyces boulardii. This probiotic yeast supports a healthy gut while adding a delicious yeasty flavor to your mochi. For more yeast flavor, you can even add a teaspoon of organic sugar to your mochi rice — the yeast will feed on it and the sugar will be gone by the time your rice is done soaking.

When the mochi recipe calls for pounding the dough, Brain Octane and sake can add extra creaminess and yeasty flavor to your mochi. These steps are also optional, but add amazing taste if you plan on eating your mochi plain.

Finally, mochi naturally contains the benefits of resistant starch when you cook and cool the glutinous rice. The right kinds of resistant starch can support gut health and fat burning. Just make sure you use sweet white rice for this recipe — regular white rice will not produce the same sweet taste or stretchy dough in your mochi.

Once you make this mochi recipe, how should you enjoy it? The matcha or cacao flavors shown here are just one variation. You can also stuff mochi dough with grass-fed butter and drizzle with raw honey, pan fry it in ghee, wrap it in bacon, or coat balls of Bulletproof ice cream with it. Since you can enjoy mochi sweet or savory, the possibilities are endless.

Special thanks to Joshua Weissman for cooking and shooting this recipe!

Mochi Recipe: How to Make Mochi at Home

Start to Finish: 10 hours (2 hours active)

Ingredients:

• 3 cups sweet white rice
• Potato starch, as needed
• 3 teaspoons matcha powder or 3 teaspoons cacao powder (optional)
• 1 capsule saccharomyces boulardii (optional)
• 2 teaspoons of sugar (optional)
• Pinch of Himalayan salt (optional)
• Up to 4 tablespoons Brain Octane Oil (optional)
• Sake to taste (optional)

Instructions:

1. Place rice in a large metal sieve and rinse lightly.
2. Add rinsed rice to a large bowl. Add yeast and sugar (if using) on top of the rice. Pour enough water over your rice to fully cover, mix to incorporate sugar and yeast, and soak overnight.
3. After soaking, drain rice. (Do not rinse.) In a steamer basket covered with cheesecloth, add rice and steam for 30-45 minutes or until rice is just tender.
4. Using a mortar and pestle or high-powered stand mixer, grind and pound the rice vigorously until it becomes a smooth paste. (If using a mortar and pestle, you may need to work in batches.) Add matcha or cacao powder to rice (if using) before you pound it. If the rice becomes too sticky or begins to dry out as you pound it, just add a teaspoon of water or sake as needed. If desired, add up to 4 tablespoons of Brain Octane for better consistency.
5. When rice has been pounded into a smooth and lump-free dough, prepare your work surface. Sprinkle the area generously with potato starch. Making sure your hands are completely dry, coat your hands in potato starch. Work your dough onto the work surface and lightly knead it, using potato starch as needed, until your dough is no longer sticky to the touch.
6. Divide mochi into 7 two-inch pieces and roll into balls using potato starch on the surface to keep it from sticking.
7. Serve immediately or eat within 24 hours. To save mochi for later, store in an airtight container in the freezer.

Serves: 7

Nutritional Information (Per Serving):

• Calories: 72
• Protein: 1.5g
• Total Carbs: 15.7g
• Dietary Fiber: .8g
• Total Sugars: 0g
• Sugar Alcohols: 0g
• Net Carbs: 14.9g
• Total Fat: .1g
• Saturated Fat: 0g
• Cholesterol: 0g
• Sodium: 4mg
• Potassium: 7mg
• Calcium: 1mg
• Iron: 0mg