When you make bite-sized Japanese fried chicken for dinner, save an extra portion for your lunch box the next day. In this guide, I’ll show you how to pack a delicious Karaage Bento with tamagoyaki, onigiri rice balls, and vegetables for a colorful lunch to go!
Ever since I started Bento posts, a couple of my mommy friends had asked me how I make bento everyday. I get questions like “Do you cook bento in the morning?”, “What time do you wake up in the morning?”, “Does he eat everything?”…and so on. I thought you might be curious too, so here are my quick answers.
Do you cook bento in the morning?
No, normally I don’t “cook” in the morning, except for someday (like today) when I just needed one more dish to fill in some space in the bento box. So I sauteed pre-blanched spinach and that only took 3 minutes.
I do “re-heat” the pre-cooked food. For food safety, we usually re-heat the food before packing them into a bento box (Why? Read here.). I take out the food from the fridge (leftover from the previous dinner) or some frozen food (that I packed individually for bento) and put them in the toaster oven or in a frying pan and reheat them thoroughly.
What time do you wake up in the morning?
I think a lot of bloggers tend to sleep late, especially mommy bloggers because our “working hours” start after kids go to bed. My night job usually starts at 8 or 9 pm and lasts till past midnight. So, waking up in the morning is not so easy – I usually wake up at 5:45 or 6 am, and start preparing bento around 6:30 am. By 7 am, we’re sitting down for breakfast so we can leave before 7:45 am. My lunch packing takes about 15 minutes, at most 20 minutes.
Does he eat everything?
Good question! My son and I have been working on this. I have decreased the amount of lunch because he doesn’t finish all his lunch in time. He has 30 minutes to finish his lunch AND play with his friends until the bell rings. You can guess which part he spends more time…
…So that’s about it for now. If I get some FAQ’s, I’ll write my answers next time. So let’s go over today’s bento!
Previous Dinner was:
This is very easy to make and I freeze the leftover in small separate containers. Each container has enough Karaage pieces for one bento box. This method saves a lot of time in the morning when I am packing my son’s lunch.
Lunch Next Day:
- Karaage Bento
- Water bottle
As I mentioned earlier in this post, I “cooked” one dish today, and it’s Sauteed Spinach. This is my go-to add-on dish for bento. If I need one more dish, I quickly saute some colorful vegetables!
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Karaage Bento
Ingredients
- karaage (Japanese fried chicken prepared in advance; you can make my recipe for traditional or gluten-free karaage)
- onigiri (rice ball) (steam the rice ahead of time; see my instructions for how to make onigiri)
- sautéed spinach (see my easy way to sauté spinach)
- Tamagoyaki (Japanese Rolled Omelette) (prepared; you can make my Tamagoyaki recipe)
- cherry tomatoes
- broccoli (pre-blanched; I used frozen blanched broccoli; see Notes)
Instructions
- Remove the leftover karaage from the fridge and bake it for a few minutes in a toaster oven until it‘s warm.
- Meanwhile, make the onigiri (rice ball) and put it in the bento box.
- Make the sautéed spinach and pack in the bento box.
- Place the warmed karaage in the bento box.
- Put the slices of Tamagoyaki (Japanese Rolled Omelette) in the box.
- Wash some cherry tomatoes and pat dry. Place nicely in the bento box along with the thawed broccoli.
- Cool down completely before closing the bento box.
What a beautiful bento box! May I ask where you found the cherry leaf pic for the tomatoes?
Hi Steven! Thank you! I got those “cherry leaf” picks as a part of various picks from Japan. It’s pretty common, so some bento shops might sell them. 🙂
Your bento tips are like manna from heaven. I look forward to your bento recipes.
Thank you Ellen!