Step 1

You may want to use gloves to protect your hands from the sea urchin's spines. Turn your live sea urchin upside down so that its mouth is facing up. Use kitchen shears to cut around and remove the mouth.

Step 2

Use your shears to cut the sea urchin in half. Alternatively, you can use two spoons back-to-back to crack it right open.

Step 3

Let the water pour out of the urchin. You will notice a black goop inside, which is partially digested sea urchin food. Use a wooden skewer or chopstick to clean this out so that just the orange "meat" remains in the shell.

Step 4

Use a spoon to carefully lift the uni from the shell. Add a squeeze of lemon and/or hot sauce to enjoy fresh and raw uni right out of the shell.

Step 5

Alternatively, add pieces of raw fresh uni to small pieces of sushi rice to make uni sushi and serve right away with soy sauce. See notes for more serving suggestions for eating sea urchin.