Onigiri (; ?), also known as omusubi (; ?) or rice ball, is a food made from white rice formed into triangular or oval shape and often wrapped in nori (seaweed). Traditionally, an onigiri is filled with pickled ume (umeboshi), salted salmon, katsuobushi, or any other salty or sour ingredient as a preservative. Because of the popularity of onigiri in Japan, most convenience stores there stock onigiri with various fillings and flavors.

There are even specialized shops whose only products are onigiri for take out. In Lady Murasaki's eleventh-century diary Murasaki Shikibu Nikki, she writes of people eating rice balls. At that time, onigiri were called tojiki and often consumed at outdoor picnic lunches.

Other writings dating back as far as the seventeenth century state that many samurai stored rice balls wrapped in bamboo leaves as a quick lunchtime meal during war, but the origins of onigiri are much earlier even than Lady Murasaki. Before the use of chopsticks became widespread in the Nara period, rice was often rolled into a small ball so that it could be easily picked up. In the Heian period, rice was also made into small rectangular shapes called tonjiki (; ?), so that they could be piled onto a plate and easily eaten.

From the Kamakura period to the early Edo period, onigiri was used as a quick meal. This made sense as cooks simply had to think about making enough onigiri and did not have to concern themselves with serving. These onigiri were simply balls of rice flavored with salt.

Nori did not become widely available until the Genroku era in the mid-Edo period, when the farming of nori and fashioning it into sheets became widespread.

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