I recently started making bentos out of fun and curiosity to see where it might lead me to on my cooking journey and now bento-making is becoming like a hobby.
Making bentos for lunch does have a number of advantages in my opinion.
1. Reduce food wastage from dinner the night before if you’re not making from new.
2. Saves time to prepare lunch the next day.
3. Healthy lunch option i.e. if you cook healthier and nutritious dishes.
4. No need to waste time thinking of where or what to eat when dining out.
5. Great sense of satisfaction because we make each bento with love.
6. A completely different form of cooking experience that adds variety and fun to our home cooking regimen.
7. Great looking food that will tantalise the senses and whet up the appetite. I love the use of colours.
8. If you have a creative flair, bento-making is one good way to showcase that artistic side of you. Many bento artists would come up with the cutest bentos that I felt were too adorable to be eaten, lol.
The last point probably doesn’t quite apply to me (haha) but it’s something I wouldn’t mind working on in the time to come.
This was the meal I made for dinner.
And this was the bento I made with the leftovers.
Consisting of steamed brown rice with steamed corn, steamed pumpkin, lettuce, Japanese cucumber, cherry tomatoes, cabbage salad in sesame soy dressing and Nando’s PERi-PERi Chicken.
My recipe for the Nando’s PERi-PERi Chicken can be found here. Instead of using whole chicken legs, I used boneless chicken leg meat. Alternatively if you can’t get hold of the sauce, you can just oven-bake or grill chicken like how you normally would.
Enjoy! 🙂