Job Discussion Forums

[basilbrush]

Hi

I wanna start taking a packed lunch in to work with me, what kind of things do people put in their bento boxes, any ideas?

[mimimimi]

If you'd like to bring your own lunch, then pack what you like. I usually pack left overs from dinner.

If you want to bring a fresh bento, then you'll have to wake up pretty early to prepare it. A fresh bento usually includes rice with Japanese pickles and several mini side dishes of boiled/grilled/steamed/stir-fried/deep-fried/pan-fried vegetables, eggs, fish and or meat - - much of which is made in the morning!

There's always the option of packing your bento the night before, but then the rice gets hard and dry and you lose the texture of some of the foods. If you have access to a microwave, then this shouldn't be a big deal.

Another short cut is to pack your bento with side dishes that you can buy frozen from the market. The packaging is very attractive, but I wouldn't recommend this as the quality and taste is questionable at best, unless you can somehow "dazzle" it up a bit.

[wintersweet]

http://www.justbento.com/ is pretty great

[mimimimi]

[wintersweet]

I should mention that Just Bento has been around so long that Maki has covered the "hit parade" of what to pack in your lunch many times, so instead of looking at the front page, you should go look through the archives and so on, such as:

http://www.justbento.com/handbook/bento-basics
http://www.justbento.com/handbook/bento-basics/making-food-for-bento-that-tastes-good-cold
http://www.justbento.com/handbook/johbisai
etc.

and of course, the recipe section itself: http://www.justbento.com/recipes

[basilbrush]

Cool, looks good!