japanese

Pork (or beef) and mushroom roll-ups

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This is the kind of bento item that you see quite often in homemade Japanese bentos - a simple deep fried fritter or nugget. I haven't featured a lot of these on these pages, because I know that many JustBento readers are leery of deep frying in general. However, they are quite easy to make, especially if you make them for dinner and reserve one or two for next day's bento - or even freeze a few. The general theory behind including a bit of fried food in a bento is to make it just a bit more filling and substantial. And remember, for a bento you only need one or two.

Guy Does Bento no. 1: Salmon furikake sushi bento

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The Guy makes his first foray into the world of bento making.

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Bento contents:

Total calories (approx): 630 cal (how calories are calculated)

Time needed: 5-10 minutes to assemble in the morning from pre-made components

Type: Japanese, a perennial favorite

Lower-calorie, lower-cost, beef and bean sprout burgers

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A twist on an old favorite, the mini-burger, with crunchy bean sprouts added for texture - and to lower the calorie count too.

A very Japanese spring vegetable bento

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Here's a very Japanese, vegetable based spring bento from a few weeks ago.

Chicken Nanban 2 ways

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Two ways to make chicken nanban, a sour-sweet-salty chicken that tastes great in bentos.

I know that not everyone who follows JustBento follows my other food site, JustHungry. I put my 'foundation' type Japanese recipes over there more often than not, while I have especially bento-friendly recipes here on JustBento. Today though, there's a recipe and how-to for making Japanese style rice (the method should be adaptable to other types of rice) in a frying pan. I know that the subject of whether or not a rice cooker is needed for bento-making comes up quite a lot in the forums, so if you're looking for an alternative to getting a rice cooker, or just another backup rice-making method, give the good old frying pan a try!

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