Just Bento

Bento contents:

• Panfried salted salmon, 2 oz / 60 g (120 cal)
• Green Pea Rice, 1 US cup (220 cal)
• Asparagus with vinegar (10 cal)
• Scrambled egg with green onion (100 cal)
• Cherry tomatoes and snow peas (10 cal)

Total calories (approx): 460 (how calories are calculated)

Time needed: 10 minutes the night before; 15 minutes in the morning

Type: Traditional Japanese continue reading...

I haven’t added a new furikake recipe in a long time. So, it’s about time I did. As I wrote in the first homemade furikake recipe article, the homemade kind has a lot of advantages over the storebought kind.

One of the advantages is cost, and this furikake uses a cheap yet healthy ingredient that’s available to most people, wherever they may live: Canned sardines! A can of about 4 ounces of sardines (120g) or so costs a couple of dollars or euros or whatever at most. And sardines are packed with good nutrients: Omega-3s, protein, calcium, etc.

I’ve attempted to stay away from Japanese ingredients with this one, since I occasonally get complaints from readers that they can’t get a hold of those ingredients. If you can’t get Worcestershire sauce for some reason, use steak sauce or a similar rich, brown sauce. If pine nuts (though this only uses 2 tablespoons) are beyond your means, use sesame seeds or chopped nuts of another kind.

This furikake is good on pasta as well as rice. continue reading...

A light stuffed fish cake recipe that’s really good in bentos. continue reading...

These light and crispy shrimp are fairly low in calories, even though they are fried. You only need about 1 cm / 1/2 an inch of oil to fry these in a regular frying pan, so don’t be afraid to try them even if you don’t do much deep-frying. They are very easy to make with frozen shrimp, and just a bit more work with fresh shrimp. continue reading...

There are already several mini-burger or tsukune dumpling type of recipes here, but here’s another one. What can I say - mini-burgers are just perfect for bentos: they taste good when they are cold, can be made in quantity, and usually freeze very well.

This time it’s a shrimp and tofu version, adapted quite a bit from a recipe in a recent issue of Kyou no ryouri: Beginners (Today’s Cooking: Beginners) magazine. It’s best when made with fresh shrimp, but uncooked frozen shrimp is fine. You probably don’t want to be messing around with shrimp paste in the morning, so it can made it the night before (have some for dinner too - it’s great hot) or freeze a batch. The sweet-hot red pepper jam I’ve used as a sauce goes very well with it, but if you don’t want to go to the trouble of making the jam, use a sweet or hot bottled chili sauce. continue reading...

While I do try to keep a good stash of pre-made food to quickly assemble bentos in the morning, sometimes I’ve just run out, or am not in the mood to use whatever I have in the freezer, or leftovers in the fridge. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible to assemble a bento quickly using fresh ingredients and pantry items. Here are a couple that I made last week. The only premade ‘stash’ I used was frozen brown rice. continue reading...

Shuumai or shumai dumplings （焼売）are a standby for dim sum, and are very well suited to bentos. They are small, taste good cold, freeze very well, and are a lot easier to make than gyoza dumplings.

You’ve probably encountered shuumai dumplings in the freezer section of Asian or Japanese grocery stores. Frozen ones are usually pretty good, but if you make them yourself you know exactly what you put in them. I just make a double batch whenever I decide to make shuumai for dinner. Just follow along with the photos and you’ll be turning out lots of shuumai yourself. continue reading...

• 1 cup (1 cup=220ml) white rice, 240 cal
• 1 cherry tomato and vegetable gratin with pesto, 110 cal
• Easy chili shrimp (4 med. shrimp), 60 cal
• Edamame, 10 cal
• Yukari (furikake made from umeboshi and red shiso leaves)

Total calories (approx): 420 (how calories are calculated)

Time needed in the morning: 10-15 minutes

Type: Japanese continue reading...