I’ve been making bento lunch for my children for the past 2 years as they started elementary school. However, I never made cute character bento because I thought they would be too difficult. Thanks to the wonderful bento cookbook, Bento Delights: Adorable + Stylish Lunches on the Go, written by my friend Syntia of Cooking Gallery, making this cute bento was very easy and fun!
This is a great cookbook to help you make stylish and fun bentos, regardless of whether you’re a beginner or an expert. This 118-page full-color cookbook features 31 different bento recipes from character bentos to traditional bentos so you can be inspired with new bento ideas.
As you see, the cookbook is very well-organized and there are big pictures of what a final bento looks like on each featured bento and step-by-step pictures will guide you visually. The cookbook includes Bento Basics and Tools & Accessories if you are new to bento making, and there are many useful tips and tricks that you can use in your bento making right away! The cookbook also includes an additional 100 recipes at the end so you will always have bento recipe ideas for your bento every day!
Watch How to Make Cute Bento
Cute animal sandwich bento made with cheese, ham, nori. Be creative and make different sandwiches to go with different animal characters!
Simple Bento Making Tools
When I first started to make this sandwich bento, I tried to see if I can avoid spending money on bento making tools such as animal cookie cutter and nori punchers. If you’re wondering what nori puncher is, it’s a little tool to create a facial expression using a sheet of nori seaweed. Having various nori punchers help create different fun faces. I attempted to make my own handmade nori facial expression and hand-cut animal shape…but to be honest they didn’t look nice at all despite my effort. After I purchased a few bento tools, it was much easier and faster to make cute characters. If you plan to make character bentos in the future, I think the following tools are worth investing.
Animal cookie cutter Nori punchers Square (stamp shape) cookie cutter
Other Homemade Bento Ideas:
Chicken Meatball Bento Teriyaki Salmon Bento
Wish to learn more about Japanese cooking? Sign up for our free newsletter to receive cooking tips & recipe updates! And stay in touch with me on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.
