Bento Lessons with DealDash

Now that the kids are back in school and I need to make lunches for two kids daily instead of one, I thought it would be fun to explore some “easy” bento designs.

Are you familiar with the concept of “bento”? If you were to look up the definition in the dictionary it would say “Bento is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional bento holds rice, fish or meat, with pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container.” However, to many moms (and some dads) bento is more than that – bento is an art project and an expression of love all in one cute little delicious package.

Bento designs can range from something fairly simple, such as the design above with two little steamed buns atop a pile of noodles to represent little birdies in a nest. It’s adorable, and in this particular case only adds an extra 5-10 minutes of prep time to make the little faces and arrange the ingredients nicely.

On the other end of the spectrum there are the extremely detailed and difficult to make bento as shown in the picture above. If you take each little character separately it shouldn’t be impossible to re-create, but it would take a very long time.

You don’t need any special supplies to make the more simple bento designs, just a sharp knife, a lunch box that is meant to be carried flat, and some patience. However, if you want to do the more detailed and artistic bentos, then you should probably invest in some of the rice molds and food-grade hole punches to make designs.

If your kids like the idea of taking bento boxes to school for lunches, it could save you some time and be a fun project to get them to help you with some of the preparation and designs the night before, so you just have to assemble the bento design in the morning before school.

Since you’re going to need a sharp knife, how about checking out the cutlery auctions on DealDash? DealDash has many different types of knives, as well as a huge assortment of other cooking implements. Simply click this link right here and you will be taken to DealDash so you can browse the site and snag some great deals. Good luck and happy bidding everyone!