Colorful Soboro Bento with sweet tender ground chicken, green peas, scrambled egg, and fruits. The easiest school lunch to pack in a bento box!
A lot of readers have asked for tips on bento making. I have one trick that my mom taught me which I think is helpful when you prepare a meal or even bento. That’s to work with colors. I’m going to explain the concept with my favorite Soboro Bento today.
Soboro is usually made with ground chicken seasoned with the slightly sweet soy sauce flavor. This dish is commonly served on top of steamed rice. Sometimes the bowl contains rice and soboro, but the brown color becomes overwhelming. To pretty up the dish, this dish often garnished with scrambled egg and some sort of green vegetables like green peas, snow peas, spinach, and etc.
Now on to the topic of colors and food. The Japanese try to have multiple colors when we serve food. Before bringing dishes to the dinner table, my mom would always look at the plate and say “oh it’s missing this and that color” and search in the refrigerator for ingredients to add. If it was missing red, she would grab a tomato and add to the plate. It’s amazing how just one small thing would make a meal prettier.
A meal with various colors also helps increase your appetite. Imagine if this bento only has brown food. The food is delicious but when it is layout nicely and colorfully, your eyes and tummy receive positive feeling.
Lastly, colorful ingredients mean different kinds of nutrition and it’s a great trick to add extra nutrition in the meal.
If you look at today’s bento, it’s really simple; nothing fancy, and it didn’t take me more than 15 minutes to prepare it. Try to think of some ingredients that add colors in your bento, with colorful fruits or vegetables, just like how I did.
Another helpful thing you can do is to use colorful bento accessories such as a separator, toothpicks, liners… there are so many accessories available for you to use which can add some color. You can find some of the things at a store like Daiso or Amazon.
This tip is very basic, but having this tip in your mind while making bento definitely helps to create better bento. As you see, I don’t make fancy character bento that requires more skill; however, I’d be happy if I could cheer up my son with some colorful bento during his lunch.
Previous Dinner was:
Lunch Next Day:
- Soboro Don Bento
- Water bottle
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- cooked Japanese short-grain rice
- Soboro (pre-cooked)
- Lettuce (for garnish)
- Peaches
- Strawberries
- Fill up half of bento box with Japanese rice. Let it cool so that hot/warm rice will not warm up other cool food.*
- Reheat leftover soboro in a frying pan until it's warm thoroughly.
- Wash lettuce and pat dry. Place nicely in the bento box.
- Place ground chicken, egg, and green peas on top of rice.
- Pack peaches and strawberries in an open space in the bento box.
- Cool down completely before close the bento box cover.
[Please read FOOD SAFETY TIPS .]
If you are using a thermal bento box like Thermos, you do not need to cool down before closing lunch box.
This lunch is for my 6-year-old son.
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 in your own words and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.
I totally agree with the color theory you mentioned — reminds me of a book I loved called “washoku”和食, which talked about how maintaining 5 color in every meal not only can boost your appetite but also indicate how well balance the meal is. The 5 color are green, yellow, red, white(usually rice), black(kelp/dark brown food)–I find it very interesting that in western societies rarely have the color black food though 🙂 Thank you for the recipe and the bento definitely has 5 color!
Hi Amie! Thank you for bring the book to my attention. I didn’t know this book, and it looks very interesting! I also realized after checking on Amazon that I’ve seen the cover of other books written by the same author.
In case someone is interested (I’d like to get a copy!), here’s the book: http://www.amazon.com/Washoku-Recipes-Japanese-Home-Kitchen/dp/1580085199
As for the 5 color, my mom follows the same rule, although I wasn’t sure if she actually mentioned “5” colors, but the concept is same. She would go from red, green, yellow…. to see if our menu has all the colors before we sit down to eat. She just does it naturally and I pick up that habit. I always glance the menu we’re having to make sure we have enough colors.
I think we do this practice almost “unconsciously” at the daily level that I didn’t even realize that was actually a great tip to make good looking bento. I just came to realize the other day.
So it’s nice to know someone actually writes about our food custom. Thank you so much for writing, and I’m definitely interested in reading. 🙂
That soboro bento looks delicious! It’s making me hungry, and I just ate dinner. =) I also like how you pack fruit in your bento! Those peaches and strawberries look so tempting.
My mother also includes lots of colors when she cooks, especially when she makes fried rice. She got into a habit of adding Craisins and pickled cucumbers for the color, and the flavor is actually very yummy.
For 6 years old, there won’t be “enough” fruits, and it’s really great as they have great color to brighten up. And not to mention they take “good” space so I don’t have to think of many ingredients for bento… Heheheh.
Your mom’s fried rice looks yummy!! And it’s wonderful as you can put veggies and meats in one dish. 🙂
You’re right, Nami! The different colored foods does make a difference. Thank you for sharing these helpful bento box making tips.
Do you have a recipe for the soboro?
Thanks Candice! Yes, the link is attached in the post, but here it is: https://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/tori-soboro-donburi/
my first time coming to your website, LOVE it! some of my fav foods are on here . im heading to the store right now to buy an icecream maker:)
Hi Jhiselle! I’m glad you found my blog. Are some of your favorite foods ice cream? 😀 I hope you will enjoy the recipes! Thanks for writing! 🙂
I just ran across your website and I’m excited to check it out further. By the way, you take beautiful pictures. 🙂
Thank you so much Jennifer! 🙂