Get excited about your school or work lunchbox with this kawaii Piggy Spam Musubi Bento recipe. Wildly popular in Hawaii, these adorable nori wraps with Japanese rice and luncheon meat are so easy to prepare. You can get your kids to help out, too!

Do you enjoy making bento for yourself or your family? Look what I made today! Super adorable Piggy Spam Musubi!
Watch How To Make Piggy Spam Musubi Bento スパムむすび弁当の作り方
Fun and simple piggy spam musubi bento will be a great hit at school or work, make this cute bento at home in a few easy steps.
What Is Spam Musubi?
Spam Musubi is a popular snack or lunch from Hawaii and it is composed of just three ingredients; a slice of grilled spam, rice, and nori (seaweed).
Spam was a main course for the troops during World War II, and the local Japanese in Hawaii created omusubi or onigiri (rice ball in Japanese) with spam on top. And that’s how spam musubi was invented.
These days spam musubi have different variations (some with furikake/rice seasonings, etc) and they can be easily found at restaurants and even convenience stores in Hawaii.
Not Just Spam Musubi, It’s Piggy Spam Musubi!
Last month I received a copy of this amazing Yummy Kawaii Bento cookbook written by my friend Li Ming Lee from Bento Monsters.

My children and I went through the entire cookbook together in one sitting. We discussed which one was our favorite and both of my children especially loved Ming’s Piggy Spam Musubi bento and wanted to make it.
It might seem intimidating to try when you look at the fancy bento. However, with really thorough step-by-step tutorials like Ming’s cookbook, you would quickly realize how easy and simple it is to make.
Some of you might be unfamiliar with working with rice and making the rice into a specific shape. No worries, Ming suggested using the tin that spam was in it. You can easily make a nice and firm bed of rice with the tin.
You might wonder how the piggy’s ears and nose stay where they belong when the kids open their lunch box. We use uncooked spaghetti to secure them onto the spam. The rice contains enough moisture so by lunchtime, the spaghetti is soft and edible!

Ming’s 250-page Yummy Kawaii Bento cookbook has 70 cute bento recipes and 160 step-by-step tutorials with so many ideas! I’m totally blown away by all the pictures, tutorials, and details of this cookbook. Ming has a magic that makes the bento making so effortless.
If you already have an instagram account, I’m sure many of you already follow her Instagram account @bentomosters because how could we miss her super adorable creations? I mean, look at this cute food art!

As you can tell, there are lots of pictures, and if you’re a visual learner, this cookbook is really awesome. If you’re new to bento making, step-by-step pictures along with the detail explanation will help you tremendously. The final pictures are all so adorable and they inspire me to try making them on my own. Toward the end of the book, Ming shares some quick and easy recipes that can go into your bento box and I thought that’s very helpful.

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Piggy Spam Musubi Bento
Ingredients
- 3 slices SPAM® (7 oz)
- ½ Tbsp neutral oil
- 1½ cups cooked Japanese short-grain rice (see how to make Japanese rice)
- 1 slice ham
- 1 sheet nori (dried laver seaweed)
- 1 noodle spaghetti (dried)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients. For the steamed rice, please note that ¾ cup (1 rice cooker cup, 180 ml) of uncooked Japanese short-grain rice yields 2¼ cups (330 g) of cooked rice. See how to cook short-grain rice with a rice cooker, pot over the stove, Instant Pot, or donabe.
- Cut 3 slices SPAM® (7 oz). Add ½ Tbsp neutral oil to a frying pan and cook the spam until lightly browned on both sides.
- Line the spam tin with plastic wrap. Divide 1½ cups cooked Japanese short-grain rice into 3 portions. Scoop one portion of cooked rice into the tin and gently press down on the rice until it sticks together.
- Pull out the plastic wrap and remove it from the tin. Place a slice of spam on the rice.
- From 1 sheet nori (dried laver seaweed) sheet, cut out a strip of nori and wrap it around the spam-and-rice sandwich.
- Use a punch or a pair of scissors to cut out the pig’s eyes and nostrils from the nori sheet.
- Cut out an oval shape from 1 slice ham for the pig’s snout. Then, cut out six smaller ovals for the pig’s ears and feet. Cut out an inverted “V” at the edges of four of the ovals to form the cloven hooves.
- Place the ham and nori shapes on the spam.
- Use small pieces of 1 noodle spaghetti (dried) to secure the ham onto the spam. Continue making the rest of the musubi. Then, pack the spam musubi into the bento box. Enjoy!
Hi Nami… Those are so cute and very creative!!! ????????…….Thank you for new idea.
Thanks so much Jeanne! 🙂
Nami is there anything in the rice to hold it together so it keeps its shape?
Hi Linda! As long as you use Japanese short grain rice, you don’t need to worry about it (of course you have to press down a little bit so that some pieces of rice won’t fall off). Jasmine rice and other types are not sticky enough. By the way this is not “sticky rice” like glutinous rice. It’s just a Japanese short grain rice that has a bit more sticky texture than other Asian varieties of long rice. 🙂
Hi Nami, I love your piggy bento, they are so creative and adorable. To me making bento is not easy especially when you have to use all edible ingredients to make all kinds of variation. Thanks for sharing all the wonderful recipes.
Hi Jacky! Thank you so much for your kind compliment. 🙂 I’m happy to hear you enjoy my recipes! xo
I AM GOING TO MAKE THIS TO SURPRISE MY SON. SPAM MUSUBI HAS BEEN ONE OF HIS FAVORITES SINCE CHILDHOOD (he is 37). THESE LITTLE PIGGIES WILL MAKE HIM SMILE.
Hi Honey Bear! I hope your son will like it!! I think he’ll be shocked to see Spam musubi can be this cute. LOL. Thanks so much!
Hi Nami,
Thanks for answering my question about pickled ginger. Tried again and ginger is pink this time. Love the piggy spam musubi bento. A hit with my 11 year old daughter! Looking forward to more exciting recipies.
Hi Joanna! I’m so glad to hear it worked this time! The pink part is very important. Thanks so much for your feedback! 🙂
You’re such an amazing home cook, I can see you make bento for yourself… 😀 😀 😀
Hi Sissi! Yeah it’s so short! I don’t blame my kids for not finishing (especially when I pack a lot of stuff)… 😀 I just hope they eat enough without being hungry in rest of class. I bet both Bento and Spam Musubi are not so common words you hear in Europe… 🙂
I have enjoyed Spam Musubi for years, I Teriyaki the Spam and sometimes add Seasoned Rice Vinegar to the rice for a little variation. Enjoy the website as always.
Paul
Hi Paul! Yeah it’s fun to have all kinds of variations and I wonder what else I could add… 😀 Thank you so much for reading my blog! 🙂
So cute! Wish my kids were little!
Hehe thank you D! 🙂
Following BentoMonsters on Instagram, everything looks so amazing!
Hi Minh! Yes, Ming is very creative and I’m really happy for her that she published her cookbook! 🙂
Spam and bento… What’s not to love?? :O)
Right? 🙂 Thanks Ross!
Hi! This bento cookbook looks amazing- love that it has lots of pictures. Thanks for the info!
Hi Leila! Yes, this book has many pictures! I definitely love that part of this cookbook. 🙂
OMG! So cute ! Too cute! Too pretty to eat bentos!
Thank you, Joy! Good part is… it’s so easy you can make it again. 😉
Wow, your children have such a short lunch break!! It must be difficult to pack their lunches so that the meal is easy to eat within that time, but still all-around nutritious. (I remember being a horribly slow eater when I was little.) Thanks for introducing us to this bento design. The trick with the spam tin to shape the rice is great!
Hi Kimmi! Right? I remember I had 45 min lunch break and that was a nice break from studying and enjoying mom’s bento… I miss those days. 🙂 Yes, I actually went to look for spam mold too, just to show there is such thing, but I realized it’s not easy to find outside of Hawaii… so this idea from the cookbook was excellent! 🙂
Nami u r so creative. Tks for sharing.
Thank you Angela! I made it so easily thanks to the cookbook! 😉