Pack a creative and colorful lunch box with my recipe for how to make cute bento. Watch my video to see how to decorate your mini sandwiches with animal characters like a frog, bunny rabbit, and baby chick!
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.
You can see the preview of the cookbook on Amazon, but here are some of the pages from the cookbook.
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.
Other Homemade Bento Ideas:
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How To Make Cute Bento
Video
Ingredients
For the Characters
- 1 Japanese or Persian cucumber (2 x 2-inch peel from a 2-inch section of cucumber)
- 1 slice cheddar cheese
- 1 slice ham
- 1 carrot
- 1 sheet nori (dried laver seaweed)
For the Sandwiches
- bread of your choice (for 3 mini sandwiches)
- 1 Tbsp strawberry jam
- 1 Tbsp egg salad (see my recipe for how to make Japanese egg salad)
- 1 tsp Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise (you can make homemade Kewpie mayo)
- 1 slice ham
- 1 slice cheddar cheese
- 1 slice tomato
- 1 slice Japanese or Persian cucumber
For the Bento Box
- lettuce
- cherry tomatoes
- octopus-shaped sausages (learn how to make octopus sausages)
- Japanese or Persian cucumbers
- oranges
- strawberries
- bunny-shaped apple (see how to make an apple bunny)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
To Make the Characters
- Gather the ingredients for the characters: 1 Japanese or Persian cucumber, 1 slice cheddar cheese, 1 slice ham, 1 carrot, and 1 sheet nori (dried laver seaweed). Then, watch my video to see how to make character faces for a frog, chick, and bunny using cutters and punches. The trick is to make all the parts first and then create the faces after.
To Make the Sandwiches
- Using a cookie cutter, cut out the bread of your choice to make a mini sandwich slices. I made enough for 3 sandwiches.
- For the jam sandwich, spread 1 Tbsp strawberry jam on one mini bread slice and top with another bread slice. For the egg salad sandwich, spread 1 Tbsp egg salad on the sandwich bread and top with another bread slice.
- For the ham and cheese sandwich, spread 1 tsp Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise on one slice of sandwich bread. Place 1 slice ham, 1 slice cheddar cheese, 1 slice tomato, and 1 slice Japanese or Persian cucumber on top. Top with another bread slice.
To Assemble the Bento
- Place the lettuce and sandwiches carefully into the bento box. Place the character faces on the sandwich and secure with little pieces of uncooked spaghetti if you want to secure the character faces on the sandwich. Fill the empty space of the bento box with cherry tomatoes. You can also pack additional bento fillers such as octopus-shaped sausages, Japanese or Persian cucumbers, oranges, strawberries, and bunny-shaped apple.
Notes
- Bento Box (To buy this bento box, click here.)
- Plastic straw
- A bear shape cookie cutter
- A bunny shape cookie cutter
- A round cookie cutter
- A square sandwich cutter
- Small scissors
- Nori punchers
- Tweezers
Hello! I know this is an old article, but I was wondering if you had methods for using the crusts that you cut off the bread when making those shapes! I know that a lot of things can be set aside as leftovers or “to be used later,” so I was wondering how excess cut bread can be used!
Hi Grace! My mom used to deep fry them and sprinkle sugar + cinnamon over to make bread crust “donuts” (パンの耳ドーナツ) for us. I usually eat them while I prepare kids’ sandwich if I was making just 2 sandwiches.. But it’s worth deep frying to make “donuts” when I make a lot of sandwiches! I also use the crust to make croutons in the oven.
ありがとございます！ Both of those sound like excellent options and ways to use things, as I do particularly love cinnamon sugar-anything and croutons on my salads and such. Thank you for both of those suggestions! It’s greatly appreciated!
Hi Grace! You’re very welcome! 🙂
Hi Nami-san,
I am a superb newbie in bento as recently got highly requested by my son to make bento for him. And came across your superb detailed, comprehensive steps-instruction to do up the dishes. Thank you so much for even sharing the freezing of different item and reheat in different methods. It helps me a lot with all information.
Just one simple question, Can I make this superb duper cute bento the night before and place in the fridge for tml early recess at 9am?
Hi Jolynn! Thank you for your kind words. If you can keep the bento to be chilled continuously until 9 am, sure, that’s okay. 🙂 When the temperature changes from cold to warm etc, the food gets spoiled, so be careful.
Excited to learn how to use bento recipes
Hi Dorothy! Hope you enjoy making bento!
Dear Nami-san, thank you for sharing your recipes and tips. I’ve always wanted to make cute bento for my daughters but I thought it’ll be too difficult and take a lot of time. But thanks for your tips, bento making is something that is not time consuming, just need some organizing so it looks appetizing. There’s certain satisfaction that my children eat home-cooked lunch, and boy how happy I am to find every single thing is eaten!
Hi Korof! I am not a mom who makes cute bentos all the time, but there are many ways to make the bento cute. I can totally relate about the feeling when the kids come home with empty lunch box! 🙂
The preview pages from the bento book look adorable.
I bet your children’s friends are so jealous of their bento lunches!
Thank you so much for your kind words, Julie! The book is great for everyone who makes bento or want to make bento. 🙂
Cute cute cute….and those bento toolss!!cute shapes and cute pastel colors.
Thank you so much, Siti! 🙂
How can you secure those tiny parts of the animal character on cucumber or ham? I am afraid it would move around when you carry your bento.
Hi Linh! I wrote in Note section, but going to move up to the last step. The cookbook recommends if you want to secure the character faces on the sandwich, secure with little pieces of uncooked spaghetti. Hope this helps!