recipe

Chicken Nanban 2 ways

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Two ways to make chicken nanban, a sour-sweet-salty chicken that tastes great in bentos.

Chana Dal with Fennel and Almonds

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An Indian-influenced complete-meal recipe, great for thermal lunch jars or cold in regular bentos. Vegan, gluten-free, and even diabetic-friendly, but I promise it still tastes terrific!

Really frugal ramen soup eggs

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Yet another way to jazz up hard boiled eggs! This is really really easy and really frugal, dare I say cheap....

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Bento contents:

Total calories (approx): 510 cal (how calories are calculated)

Time needed: 5-10 minutes in the morning from pre-made components

Type: Sort-of-Vietnamese (Asian), bread based

All-season shredded vegetable pickle-salad, plus migrating birds!

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A very simple 'instant' pickle-relish-salad made with always available vegetables, plus an equally easy decorative cutting technique.

Brown rice porridge with azuki beans (azuki iri genmai gayu)

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Healthy and filling, this brown rice kayu or rice porridge is perfect for thermal lunch jars.

Two-color namasu, a make-ahead daikon radish and carrot salad

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Here's a recipe for a classic vegetable dish that is served at New Year's in Japan. It actually gets better after some time in the refrigerator, and is a great bento side dish that may even bring you some luck!

Pan-fried crispy chicken or turkey nuggets with gobo (burdock root) or any root vegetable

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Crispy pan-fried (rather than deep fried) chicken nuggets made from pre-cooked chicken dark meat. The nuggets are coated with cornstarch and thinly shaved or shredded gobo (burdock root) for extra crispiness. You could use leftover turkey (thigh or leg meat), and any kind of firm root vegetable instead.

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