Meal Prep Bento Recipes Ideas: 3 Dollar Bento Challenge

These 3 easy and budget-friendly meal prep ideas for bento prove that eating healthy can be delicious and fun! A little prep work on Sunday will set you up to eat healthier, save money, and reduce your stress throughout the week.

Many of us, including myself, struggle to prepare our children’s lunches. We want them to eat healthy, homemade lunches at school, but how can we achieve that when our mornings are already hectic?

Spending a few hours on meal prepping for bento lunch boxes on a Sunday might be a solution to consider. Today, I’ll show you an example of meal prepping and how I pack three days of bento using the ingredients I prepare on a Sunday morning. As a bonus, I made it a challenge to keep each bento box under $3.

Plan Your Bento Schedule

Before the week start, plan your bento schedule and visualize what each bento should look like. If you’re new to bento making, you can even draw out the bento box with compartments and write down each dish or ingredients in the section. Eventually, you’ll be able to do this process in your head.

Planning ahead will help you check on the colors of ingredients so your bento won’t look dull. It also helps cut down on frequent trips to grocery stores and save money by stretching the ingredients. Most importantly, it maximizes the nutrients, ensuring each bento includes good quality protein(s), veggies for fiber, and healthy carbs to provide energy.

Here’s my plan:

• Saturday – Shopping Day
• Sunday – Meal Prep Day
• Monday – Bento #1: Karaage Bento
• Tuesday – Sandwich Day
• Wednesday – Bento #2: Soboro Bento
• Thursday – Sandwich Day
• Friday – Bento #3: Onigirazu Bento

On Sandwich Day, you can make your children’s favorite sandwiches (my kids love grilled cheese sandwich). I have some Japanese-style sandwich recipes here:

• Tamago Sando
• Mixed Sando (Egg Salad, Tuna Salad, Ham & Cheese)
• Wanpaku Sando
• Crispy Chicken Sandwich
• Katsu Sando
• Korokke Sando

Sunday – The Meal Prep Day

This is the most important day. I set aside 2-3 hours as you will need to make several dishes at the same time.

For the meal prep recipes and bento box lunch ideas, I make sure they have a simplified ingredient list and cooking process (but it doesn’t mean less tasty!).

Here is the list of dishes I need for the week:

• Ajitsuke Tamago (Ramen Egg) (or hard-boiled egg if you prefer)
• Easy Carrot Salad
• Spinach Namul (Korean Spinach Side Dish)
• Chicken Karaage
• Chicken Soboro
• Scrambled egg
• Tuna Salad

Other food to prepare:

• Wash vegetables (carrot, snow peas or snap peas, spinach, green leaf lettuce, cherry tomato. Feel free to use cucumber slices, bell peppers, or blanched broccoli)
• Blanch any veggies that need a quick boil
• Cook steamed rice (and freeze individual portions)

A Quick Breakdown of The Meal Prep Process

In general, I prepare EVERYTHING ahead of time, focusing on food that keeps well in the refrigerator. I cook and wash everything, and place each dish or ingredient in an airtight container (I use this brand) and store it in the refrigerator. I even cook rice ahead of time and freeze individual portions in containers.

On the morning that I pack the bento, I reheat everything and let it cool before packing each dish into the bento box (Please read my Food Safety Tips for Bento).

To get everything ready in the most efficient way, I first separate my tasks into workstations and then tackle the tasks that require marinating or cooking, or take the longest, first, and work backward from there.

*If you prefer to go through the process based on steps instead of workstations, please rearrange the list I provided below to work best for you.

Washing Stations

1. Rinse rice and soak for 20 minutes << Step 1
2. Wash carrot, lettuce, tomatoes, snow peas, and spinach << Step 2

Cutting Stations

1. Cut carrots into julienned pieces << Step 4
2. Cut spinach after blanching << Step 9
3. Cut chicken before marinating << Step 12

Cooking Stations

1. Bring water to boil and boil eggs << Step 3
2. Cook rice in rice cooker or over stovetop << Step 6
3. Bring water to boil and blanch snow peas << Step 7
4. Blanch spinach << Step 8
5. Cook ground chicken for Soboro << Step 16
6. Cook scrambled eggs << Step 17
7. Deep (shallow) fry the Karaage << Step 18

Work Stations

1. Make the Ajitsuke Tamago marinade and marinate eggs << Step 5
2. Make the Carrot Salad marinade and mix with julienned carrots << Step 10
3. Make the Spinach Namul marinade and mix with blanched spinach << Step 11
4. Make the Karaage marinade and marinate the chicken for 30 minutes << Step 13
5. Measure the seasonings for Soboro << Step 14
6. Measure the seasonings for scrambled eggs and beat eggs << Step 15
7. Make the tuna salad << Step 19

Meal Prep Check List (9 containers)

Pack each dish and ingredients in a separate container and refrigerate/freeze. << Step 20

• Ajitsuke Tamago (Ramen Egg)
• Grated Carrot Salad
• Spinach Namul (Korean Spinach Side Dish)
• Chicken Karaage
• Chicken Soboro
• Scrambled Egg
• Tuna Salad
• Washed vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, blanched snow peas)
• Steamed rice (How to Store Rice in the Freezer)

Monday – Karaage Bento (#1) = $2.32

You will need the following items to pack in Karaage Bento:

1. Rice ($.30)
2. Sesame seeds ($0.02)
3. Lettuce ($.10)
4. Chicken Karaage ($1)
5. Grated Carrot Salad ($.10)
6. Spinach Namul (Korean Spinach Side Dish) ($.12)
7. Ramen Egg ($.30)
8. Cherry tomato ($.13)
9. Blanched snow peas ($.25)

Wednesday – Soboro Bento (#2) = $2.50

You will need the following item to pack in Soboro Bento:

1. Rice ($.30)
2. Chicken Soboro ($1)
3. Scrambled egg ($.30)
4. Blanched snow peas ($.75)
5. Red pickled ginger ($.15)

Friday – Onigirazu Bento (#3) = $2.20

Onigirazu (おにぎらず) is a rice sandwich similar to rice balls. It makes a fun bento box idea and you can stuff more fillings. Here are 3 kinds of onigirazu I packed on Friday.

For each onigirazu, you will need a half sheet of nori seaweed, rice, and lettuce.

1. Karaage Onigirazu ($.85)
   • Grated Carrot Salad
   • Spinach Namul (Korean Spinach Side Dish)
   • Chicken Karaage
2. Soboro Onigirazu ($.65)
   • Chicken Soboro
   • Scrambled egg
3. Tuna Onigirazu ($.70)
   • Tuna salad (a mixture of drained canned tuna, Japanese mayonnaise, salt, and pepper)

To learn how to make onigirazu, please watch the video above or check out one of the following recipes for detail instructions. Here are other onigirazu recipes you can try on Just One Cookbook:

• Spam Onigirazu
• Bulgogi Onigirazu
• Teriyaki Salmon Onigirazu
• Ginger Pork Onigirazu
• Chicken Katsu Onigirazu

I hope this meal prep plan is helpful to you. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below and I’ll try my best to answer you.

How About Snacks

Some of you have asked what kind of snacks I pack for my kids. I don’t typically pack chips or crackers for them, so their snacks are mostly fruits like grapes, blueberries, strawberries, and apple slices. If they spend a longer day at school, I’ll sometimes include Greek yogurt or cottage cheese.

More Recipes for Japanese Meal Prep (Jobisai 常備菜):

• Spinach Gomaae (Japanese Spinach Salad
• Spinach Namul (Korean Spinach Side Dish)
• Seafood Salad

Japanese Ingredient Substitution: If you want to look for substitutes for Japanese condiments and ingredients, click here.

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