How to make cute bento recipes: Be creative and make different sandwiches to go with all kinds of fun animal characters!
I’ve been making bento lunch for my children for the past 2 years as they started elementary school. However, I never made cute character bento because I thought they would be too difficult. Thanks to the wonderful bento cookbook, Bento Delights: Adorable + Stylish Lunches on the Go, written by my friend Syntia of Cooking Gallery, making this cute bento was very easy and fun!
This is a great cookbook to help you make stylish and fun bentos, regardless of whether you’re a beginner or an expert. This 118-page full-color cookbook features 31 different bento recipes from character bentos to traditional bentos so you can be inspired with new bento ideas.
You can see the preview of the cookbook on Amazon, but here are some of the pages from the cookbook.
As you see, the cookbook is very well-organized and there are big pictures of what a final bento looks like on each featured bento and step-by-step pictures will guide you visually.
The cookbook includes Bento Basics and Tools & Accessories if you are new to bento making, and there are many useful tips and tricks that you can use in your bento making right away! The cookbook also includes an additional 100 recipes at the end so you will always have bento recipe ideas for your bento every day!
Watch How to Make Cute Bento
Cute animal sandwich bento made with cheese, ham, nori. Be creative and make different sandwiches to go with different animal characters!
Simple Bento Making Tools
When I first started to make this sandwich bento, I tried to see if I can avoid spending money on bento making tools such as animal cookie cutter and nori punchers. If you’re wondering what nori puncher is, it’s a little tool to create a facial expression using a sheet of nori seaweed. Having various nori punchers help create different fun faces.
I attempted to make my own handmade nori facial expression and hand-cut animal shape…but to be honest they didn’t look nice at all despite my effort. After I purchased a few bento tools, it was much easier and faster to make cute characters. If you plan to make character bentos in the future, I think the following tools are worth investing.
Other Homemade Bento Ideas:
Wish to learn more about Japanese cooking? Sign up for our free newsletter to receive cooking tips & recipe updates! And stay in touch with me on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.
How To Make Cute Bento
Video
Ingredients
For Characters
- 1 Japanese or Persian cucumbers (1 cucumber = 2" x 2" peel)
- 1 slice cheddar cheese
- 1 slice ham
- 1 carrot
- 1 nori (dried laver seaweed)
For Sandwich
- 1 Tbsp strawberry jam
- 1 slice cheddar cheese
- 1 slice Japanese or Persian cucumbers
- 1 slice tomato
- 1 Tbsp egg salad
- 1 Tbsp Japanese mayonnaise
For Bento
- lettuce
- cherry tomatoes
- oranges
- strawberries
- bunny-shaped apple
- cherry tomatoes
- Japanese or Persian cucumbers
- octopus-shaped sausages
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- For Characters: Watch this video to learn how to make character faces for froggy, chick, and bunny. The trick is to make all the parts first and then create the faces after.
- For Sandwich: Using a cookie cutter, cut out the bread to make a mini sandwich.
- Spread the strawberry jam and egg salad on the sandwich bread.
- Spread mayonnaise on one of the sandwich bread and place ham, cheese, tomato and cucumber on top.
- For Bento: Place the lettuce and sandwiches carefully into the bento box. Place the character faces on the sandwich and secure with little pieces of uncooked spaghetti if you want to secure the character faces on the sandwich. Fill the empty space of the bento box with cherry tomatoes. You can also pack additional bento fillers such as octopus shape sausages, vegetables, and fruits.
Notes
- Bento Box (To buy this bento box, click here.)
- Plastic straw
- A bear shape cookie cutter
- A bunny shape cookie cutter
- A round cookie cutter
- A square sandwich cutter
- Small scissors
- Nori punchers
- Tweezers
