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Bento Sushi Rice Shapes

Published on November 8, 2013 • Last updated July 23, 2017 by Elizabeth
bento lunch

My children have been nagging me for ages to make them packed lunches. I admit it, I’m pretty lazy and if I can get away with not doing something I will. Making three packed lunches at the end of a busy day just didn’t seem appealing to me, nor did the thought of the mundane task of making boring sandwiches day in and day out. My own packed lunch as a child consisted of a plain peanut butter sandwich. With no milk! It was awful and put me off peanut butter sandwiches for life!

I’ve finally given in to the nagging and I’ve agreed to prepare packed lunches, but I’m doing it my way! Some years ago I heard about the Japanese food art of Bento, a single portion portable meal. Oekakiben or “picture bento” is a variation where the food is made into shapes or characters. Personally I think this is a much more appealing way to eat ones packed lunch and my children (and partner, since he’s requested a packed lunch for his work too!) love it!

I’ve only just started experimenting with bento but I’ll share some tips as I learn them. First off I thought I would share the basic sushi rice mould technique. This is quite a simple and appealing way to serve plain rice in a packed lunch and the only limit for the shapes is your imagination. Sushi rice is very sticky and lends itself well to being shaped. Cling film can be used to shape the rice but I picked up six different inexpensive sushi rice moulds (a bear, rabbit, star, fish, heart and car) on ebay, and these plastic moulds can also be used to shape warm boiled eggs.

bento collage

My children have induced lunch box envy in their school now with their Bento boxes! I have to confess that I love preparing their lunch boxes, something I didn’t think I would enjoy before I started with Bento. I love the lunch boxes themselves too. I picked up four of these Polar Gear Bento boxes on the Internet for around £5 each because they looked neat, sturdy and compact, perfect for a school lunch. Sometimes when you buy cheaper products on the Internet you get what you pay for – poor quality tat, but these, oh my goodness, I’m well impressed with these BPA free 1.1 litre stackable lunch boxes. Each box comes with three separate food sections and a dividing tray with a sturdy spoon and fork. The layers clip together and the whole thing is leak-free (at least there haven’t been any accidents so far). This cuts down on packaging waste too, as each item doesn’t need to be individually wrapped. There are two colours available: turquoise and berry purple (I’ve bought both colours and they’re both appealing). Yes, I’m well impressed with these!

This month sees the second instalment of a brand new food blogging challenge by Louisa over at Eat Your Veg and Vanesther over at Bangers and Mash: Family Foodies. This month Vanesther has challenged us to share our lunchbox ideas and tips for tasty and appealing fillers for packed lunches.

Besides the sushi rice shapes I’ve a few other lunch box ideas pictured above:
1. Bread sticks – portable, quick and will definitely get eaten by my children, at least
2. Babybel cheese – again, portable and fairly inexpensive if you can get them on offer at the supermarket
3. Seeds – a rich source of nutrients and great for small fingers to nibble
4. Ants on a Log – this is something my grandmother used to make for me. Sticks of celery filled with peanut butter and dotted with little raisin ‘ants’. My children absolutely love these, but only make this if you school is ok with you sending peanuts (mine is). Make sure your celery is bone dry before you make these or the peanut butter won’t stick!
5. Kiwi fruit – quick, portable and packed with vitamin C. I used to spend ages peeling and chopping kiwis before I discovered I could just cut them in half and hand them to the children with a spoon. Easy peasy!
6. Salad with vegetable shapes – Flower cutters come in handy here and make a carrot look so much more appealing!
7. Banana muffins – I’ve added 100 grams of supermarket brand white chocolate to my usual recipe to make these a little more tempting. I’ve just realised I’ve not yet blogged my usual recipe – this must be amended! These freeze well so you can make a batch when your bananas are going off and then keep them in the freezer until needed.

Sushi Rice Bento Shapes
by Elizabeth 
A clever and appealing way to serve rice in a packed lunch.
Ingredients
  • 250 grams sushi rice
  • 400 ml water
Instructions
1. Thoroughly wash rice and cover with cold water. Leave to soak for 20 minutes.
2. Drain rice and wash thoroughly again, until the water runs clear.
3. Add the 400ml cold water to the rice in a medium sized saucepan and bring to the boil.
4. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until all the water has been absorbed, around 10 minutes.
5. While the rice is still warm, spoon into your clean plastic moulds and snap the two sides together. Leave for 30 seconds before unmoulding. The rice shape will come out easily while the rice is still warm.
6. Set rice shapes on a cling film covered plate to cool completely in the refrigerator until needed.
Details

Prep time: 20 mins Cook time: 10 mins Total time: 50 mins Yield: Makes 10 shapes

I have included a product review in this blog post simply because I love the product and want to tell people about it. I bought the lunch boxes myself and Polar Gear have not sponsored this post.

Category: Recipe, Rice

About Elizabeth

Solivagant. Foodie. Calls Shetland home.

Previous Post:St. Ninian’s Beach, Shetland
Next Post:Shetland Food Fair 2013

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ursula Hunt

    April 7, 2015 at 11:00 am

    Clever idea

    Reply
  2. Heather Haigh

    November 1, 2014 at 4:32 pm

    That has to be one of the prettiest lunch boxes I have ever seen.

    Reply
  3. Alida

    November 15, 2013 at 10:44 pm

    Hello Elizabeth! I’d like to invite you to a new challenge over at my blog called “Let’s Party!”.You are very welcome to enter a recipe if you like!

    Reply
  4. Chef Matsui

    November 14, 2013 at 6:26 pm

    Super cute idea! 😀

    Reply
  5. helen

    November 12, 2013 at 8:43 pm

    they look great, I need to look for those rice moulds. I love the ants on a log, I think I will be including those in my little ones lunchbox!

    Reply
  6. Alida

    November 12, 2013 at 2:33 pm

    This is a great idea Elizabeth! I would be very happy to give this to my children for lunch and it must be very appealing to them. It is a cute box!

    Reply
  7. Johanna GGG

    November 10, 2013 at 10:01 am

    your bento boxes look gorgeous – we have the same bear shape and Sylvia loves it – I find if I leave it for a few hours it comes out much easier. This is a timely post for me. I hope to get into the bento way – last week was my first week of packed lunches for sylvia because she is starting school next year and I still haven’t even discovered if they have a canteen (nothing said about it so far) so the default seems to be packed lunches (I guess your kids’ alternative is the cafeteria?) Will share some thoughts about packed lunches when I have made a few more.

    Reply
  8. Kat BakingExplorer

    November 9, 2013 at 11:09 pm

    These look genuinely amazing Elizabeth! I would love this for my lunch and I can see why the kids love them too!

    Reply
  9. Mallory @ Because I Like Chocolate

    November 8, 2013 at 5:19 pm

    This is adorable! The rice shapes are so cute.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      November 9, 2013 at 9:28 am

      Thank you Mallory! Aren’t they sweet! 😀

      Reply
  10. bangermashchat

    November 8, 2013 at 2:04 pm

    I am totally inspired by your lunchbox ideas Elizabeth. I have some of those plastic moulds so I’m all set to try out the sushi rice shapes. They look so cute! I can’t wait to see my daughters’ faces when they see them – and the ants on a log too. I love that idea! A brilliant entry for this month’s Family Foodies. Thank you so much for sharing.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      November 9, 2013 at 9:17 am

      aww, thank you! Do let me know what your children think! 😀

      Reply
  11. Angela Darroch

    November 8, 2013 at 2:38 pm

    Oh yes – I can just imagine the lunchbox envy. Very, very cute and as you say it makes a nice change from the ‘usual’.

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      November 9, 2013 at 9:26 am

      Thanks Angela 🙂 I never like to do anything the ordinary way, me! 😀

      Reply
  12. Jen @ Blue Kitchen Bakes

    November 8, 2013 at 1:21 pm

    These look so cute and great fun for lunchboxes, I used to get sandwiches, a yoghurt and some fruit in my lunchbox when I was at school and I haven’t improvised much beyond that since. Now it’s usually sandwiches made with homemade bread, some salady bits and a cake or muffin. I’m feeling inspired now to get more creative with my lunches 🙂

    Reply
    • Elizabeth S

      November 9, 2013 at 9:16 am

      That sounds like a nice, healthy lunch box Jen, especially with the homemade bread. I’ve seen some Bento themes where shapes were cut out of the top side of the sandwich (like a heart shape letting the jam show through, etc) which were quite cute.

      Reply

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