Yuko - Bento: Over 50 Make-Ahead, Delicious Box Lunches

Bento has become so popular that if there is a demand from anybody, there is a kind of bento available. The hot bento chain stores started to spread throughout the country during the 1980s, and people ate those freshly made bentos as meals at home for dinner, not just for lunch. Convenience stores began to carry varieties of reasonably priced bento, and they became popular among students and young singles who did not want to cook. Depachika, the underground gourmet food floor found in department stores, attracted housewives for fancy bento to bring home, to have a break from daily cooking. Kyaraben, or character bento, incorporates cute characters from animation or other pop culture into the bento food.

For example, a mother might make the face of a childs favorite TV character by carefully arranging rice and vegetables. They first became popular among mothers of small children, and it has continued to inspire people on social media. Today kyaraben is a big industry, selling all kinds of tools and products for making these cute and amusing bento. Many people, however, use bento for pragmatic reasons, such as people who bring their own lunches to school or work, where food is not readily available; even people who have access to cafeterias and restaurants make and bring bento. The reasons may varywhether its economic, convenience, health or safety, or simply that they prefer bento meals. In recent years, bento has become increasingly popular outside of Japan.

We have started to see more food establishments serving bento, and there are more blogs, articles, and books about bento, many of them are written in English. Many bento enthusiasts around the world proudly post their neatly prepared bento photos on social media, and you can buy all kinds of bento boxes, accessories, and tools from online stores. The trending bentos are not necessarily the traditional Japanese versions, and range from quick and easy food to elaborate kyaraben.

Making bento is something weve been doing almost every day since our kids started school. And just like every busy parent out there, we dont want to spend our whole day making bento. We plan and prepare for bento to save both time and money.

We use leftovers. We use convenient products like precut vegetables. We prep at night so that we can pack and go in the morning. What motivates us to make bento is that it enables us to make safe and healthy lunches for our families. Bento makes it easy to get our kids the nutrition they need. We have become used to planning for bento as part of our everyday cooking.

While making dinner, for example, we always make extra so there is enough for the next days lunch, or we add a few extra steps, such as blanching and cutting vegetables the night before for a bento lunch the next day. Well share these tips and tricks throughout the book with you. Not sure if you can successfully incorporate bento into your busy life? The secret is that you really dont have to make it perfectly. If a bento recipe seems like too much work, start with one of our . Eventually, youll feel comfortable enough to try two side dishes, and soon youll be making complete bento meals in no time. It is okay not to make everything in bento from scratch, or not even every day.

A bento is not just food in a box; it is also the thought and care from the person making the bento. A busy kid may not notice this every day, but it will stay with them over the years, as it did with us. We even find ourselves copying the things our own mothers did in our bentos! In this book, we show you how to make the classic and popular bentos from Japan, as well as not-so-traditional bentos that we like and think everyone would enjoy no matter where you live. Many of our Japanese recipes are just as authentic as how our moms prepared them, but we have simplified some parts, both ingredients and steps, to make them more suited to bento and easier to make. We believe that what goes into bento should not be any different from what we would normally eat at home. Having lived in two countries, Japan and the United States, we have a range of comfort food.

We certainly love the traditional Japanese food that our moms made, such as teriyaki, simmered vegetables, and grilled fish, but we also have a lot more food that we regularly cook at home for our familyfrom pizza to quesadillas. Many of our recipes are customizable to suit your dietary needs. We have a dedicated chapter for vegans, but you can also use any bento recipe in the book and customize it for your diet.

Whether you are already packing lunches or thinking about starting soon, the idea of making bento every morning can be both exciting and daunting. You may not know where to begin or realize how easy it can be to make bento that you and your family will enjoy.