‘Please stop I’m begging you’: ‘Southern sushi’ recipe with cold grits stuns the internet
The American palate has expanded significantly since the days of TV dinners and casseroled everything, but the internet made clear this week that there are still some food horizons too perilous to explore. One such example: Southern "sushi" made using grits in place of rice.
What is a 'Southern sushi' roll?
The recipe appeared on Instagram this week in the form of a video posted by Chef Jessica on her account @kitchenable.
Jessica, who describes herself on the site as a “Professional foodie, mom, & wife” and tells the Daily Dot that she's run the KitchenAble Cooking School in Tallahassee, Florida for the last 11 years, uses cold, leftover grits as the foundation for the dish. She replaces the traditional nori (a type of seaweed) with softened collard greens, before layering a row of grits, green onion, and cooked shrimp on top.
Chef Jessica then uses a sushi mat to create rolls that she slices into sushi-like shapes. The finished dish is served with pickled jalapeños and hot sauce.
The internet reacts
The response to her video, posted on Tuesday, Mar. 25, 2025, was immediate and decisive. @ellaggrace writes “girl i’m texan but this is not ok” and @Xever_ending exclaims “COLD grits?!”
@ghostgarbage.inc thinks this is “The most southern looking sushi” and @daemon.gray808 says “I didn’t realize 2025 could get more disappointing…”
Others voice similar sentiments. "Is the sushi in the room with us right now?" asked @ashahidil. "I didn't realize 2025 could get more disappointing..." wrote @daemon.gray808.
Does this even qualify as sushi?
The market for sushi restaurants is on the rise and is expected to grow by almost $4 billion over the next four years. As of 2023, nearly five million Americans report eating the dish once a month, and one of the most frequent concerns raised in the comment section of the video was whether or not Chef Jessica’s dish should even be described as sushi.
@Dubistdu says “There is nothing sushi about this” and @ashahidil wonders “is the sushi in the room with us right now?”
Chef Jessica says she's worked as a professional chef, personal chef, and recipe developer, and explains in an email that she knows her video doesn't represent actual Japanese sushi. She writes, "I learned a ton about authentic sushi while working at Disney’s California Grill when Yoshi Cabral was the sushi chef there," and shares that her naming convention is more of a "playful nod" towards the techniques employed to make the dish.
She says, "While some people have strong opinions about food names, I see cooking as a way to bring people together. If you trace any recipe far enough back, almost all food is fusion in some way!"
Sushi is a traditional Japanese dish usually made using medium-grain white rice, although other rice (specifically brown and short-grain rice) are also commonly employed. As Food52 explains, the word “sushi” refers to the rice portion of the dish, not the raw fish. So to eliminate the seasoned rice on which the fish — or in this case shrimp — is served suggests that, as @kam_billies_misc points out “This isn't sushi lol, it's just a grit wrap.”
Chef Jessica is not the first food creator to experiment with this kind of culinary swap. The website Kath Eats posted a similar recipe for shrimp and grits sushi back in 2014. And while the choice to use grits in place of rice is controversial bordering on disqualifying, cooked shrimp is a common ingredient in Japanese cuisine — although sushi chefs would be more likely to utilize tempura or deep-fried shrimp as part of the roll.
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.
The post ‘Please stop I’m begging you’: ‘Southern sushi’ recipe with cold grits stuns the internet appeared first on The Daily Dot.