Cute Bento Recipes

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!

To share this fun experience with you, I’m also giving away five (5) Bento Delights to Just One Cookbook readers and first two winners will also get a $20 voucher to shop at Bento&Co online store courtesy of Cooking Gallery.

Bento Delights: Adorable + Stylish Lunches on the Go is a great cookbook to help you make stylish and fun bentos, regardless 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 everyday!

Watch How to Make Cute Bento 可愛いお弁当の作り方

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 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.

• Animal cookie cutter
• Nori punchers
• Square (stamp shape) cookie cutter

Other Homemade Bento Ideas:

• Chicken Meatball Bento
• Teriyaki Salmon Bento

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Thank you so much for reading, and till next time!

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How To Make Cute Bento

Prep Time

30 mins

Total Time

30 mins

 

How to make cute bento recipes: Be creative and make different sandwiches to go with all kinds of fun animal characters!

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: bento box, lunch box

Servings: 1 Bento

Author: Nami

Ingredients

For Characters

• 1 Persian/Japanese cucumbers (1 cucumber = 2" x 2" peel)
• 1 slice cheddar cheese
• 1 slice ham
• 1 carrot
• 1 nori (seaweed)

For Sandwich

• 1 Tbsp strawberry jam
• 1 slice cheddar cheese
• 1 slice Persian/Japanese cucumbers
• 1 slice tomato
• 1 Tbsp egg salad
• 1 Tbsp Japanese mayonnaise

For Bento

• Lettuce
• Cherry tomatoes
• Oranges
• strawberries
• Apple Bunny/Rabbit
• cherry tomatoes
• Persian/Japanese cucumbers
• Octopus sausages

Instructions

1. Gather all the ingredients.

   
2. For Characters: Watch the youtube 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.
3. For Sandwich: Using a cookie cutter, cut out the bread to make mini sandwich.
   
   
4. Spread the strawberry jam and egg salad on the sandwich bread.
   
   
5. Spread mayonnaise on one of the sandwich bread and place ham, cheese, tomato and cucumber on top.
   
   
   
6. 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.
   
   

Recipe Notes

 

Please read FOOD SAFETY TIPS.

If you want to secure the character faces on the sandwich, secure with little pieces of uncooked spaghetti.

 

Equipment you will need:

• 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

Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.

I used Monbento lunch box and you can purchase on Amazon!