My children loved this when they were younger! Sanshoku bento is a lovely looking rice dish with three toppings – seasoned beef mince, egg and peas. It is easy to make and so yummy.
The dish is great for kids and suitable for a Japanese style lunch box too. It is so beautiful that you don’t want to break the perfect colour palette to mix the toppings into the rice, but you have to!
It is said that the Japanese first taste dishes by sight, then eat to appreciate the texture and flavour of the dish. Japanese chefs pay a lot of attention to the presentation of dishes. But you don’t have to be a chef or a good cook to make an eye catching dish like this Japanese rice bowl.
This is usually called “sanshoku gohan” (三色ご飯, tri-coloured rice) or “sanshoku-don” (三色丼, tri-coloured rice bowl) when served at home. Sanshoku (三色) means “three colours”, gohan (ご飯) is cooked rice and don (丼) is a short form of donburi (丼ぶり) which is a large bowl. So, it is a rice dish with toppings of three different colours. When you make this in a lunch box, it should be called “sanshoku bento” (三色弁当) as bento is the take out form of the meal. (No more Japanese lessons today. I promise!)
All my children call this dish sanshoku bento regardless of how it is served because that’s what I called it when I first served it to them about 30 years ago. As they were still little kids, I thought the word “bento” would excite them. It was only recently that I told Nagi what sanshoku bento meant but then she said “Well, we still call it sanshoku bento!” So here it is.
I used beef mince in this recipe but you can use pork mince or chicken mince which will be a lighter brown than the beef mince once cooked. You might find the flavour of the mince is much stronger than that of egg and peas. As egg and peas are lightly flavoured, mince needs to balance the flavours.
I personally prefer using other green vegetables in place of green peas but Nagi insisted I use green peas because (1) she loves green peas, and (2) that’s how I served it a long long time ago. You can substitute green peas with snow peas or green beans, diagonally julienned, to add a crunchier texture to the dish. You could also use chopped spinach.
The egg in this dish is the Japanese style scrambled egg called “iritamago” (炒り卵), i.e. cooked through without leaving any moisture unlike Western style scrambled eggs. (Sorry, one more Japanese word to learn!)
The carrot in the centre (i.e. garnish) is cut into the flower shape. I have a set of vegetable cutters which is just like a set of cookie cutters. But they are much smaller (about 3cm / 1.2 inch in diameter) and the edge is very sharp. The photo below shows my vegetable cutters and the corresponding shape you can get (I cut the shapes from a white radish). From left to right, the shape looks like a chrysanthemum (I think), a bellflower, a cherry blossom and a plum flower.
You might find the vegetable cutters at a Japanese grocery store. If your country has a discount store called Daiso, you might find it there, too. If you don’t have vegetable cutters, don’t worry, you can make a carrot flower using just a knife. Please see the note in the recipe.
Unlike a usual Japanese meal, we eat sanshoku bento with a spoon. This is not a rule, but it is a challenge to eat sanshoku bento with chopsticks.
I think this is a great dish for kids. There are so many things about this dish which would excite children.
- The beautiful colour combinations
- The pretty flower in the middle
- Easy to eat with a spoon
- The slightly sweet, yummy flavour
There are no rules as to what should be the toppings to make it tri-coloured. I have seen some recipes with salmon flakes in place of the beef mince, and cooked carrots instead of green peas. You can also be more creative and partition the toppings in a different way and replace a carrot flower with a different shape!
Yumiko
- 2 servings of cooked rice (refer to How to Cook Rice the Japanese Way)
- 1 cup of frozen peas
- A pinch of salt
- 2 eggs
- ½ tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp sake
- pinch of salt
- 2 round slices of carrot cut into flower shape (3mm (⅛") thickness, Note 1)
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Add oil to a small pot or fry pan over medium high heat. Add ginger and stir for 30-60 seconds until you can smell the ginger fragrance, then add the beef mince. Stir fry the beef mince, making sure to break up the beef mince into each grain (It should take about 5 minutes).
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When the beef mince is cooked through, add the remaining mince ingredients and mix together. Occasionally stir the ingredients until the liquid is almost evaporated. Be careful not to burn the mince. Turn off the heat and leave it aside until required.
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Boil 2-3 cups of water in a small sauce pan. Add a pinch of salt and frozen peas. Cook for 2-3 minutes and drain.
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Add the Iri Tamago ingredients in a bowl and beat lightly. Heat a small pot or deep small frying pan, preferably non-stick (Note 2), over medium heat and pour in the egg mixture.
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Use two pairs of cooking chopsticks together and stir vigorously (Note 3) until the eggs are cooked through. The eggs should be broken up into small pieces, like the beef mince.
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Place rice in 2 bowls. Make sure that the surface of the rice is flat and level.
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Using a spoon, place half of the cooked beef mince on the rice, covering ⅓ of the surface, then add the eggs next to the mince covering another ⅓ of the surface. Fill the remaining ⅓ with the green peas. Repeat the same for the other bowl.
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Place a carrot flower (if using) or any edible substitute in the centre for decoration. (Note 1)
1. If you have a vegetable cutter in a flower shape (see the post for samples), that would be the easiest. But if you don't, you can still make a flower carrot with a knife.
To make a plum flower shape with a knife: Slice one round slice (3mm / 0.1 inch thickness) taken from the length of the carrot. Make 5 small v-shape cuts around the edge of the round slice in equal spacing. Shape the edges of the petals by removing pointy edges.
Boil or microwave the flowers to soften them.
2. Iri tamago is meant to be cooked without oil hence non-stick pan would be the best. But if you don’t have a non-stick pan, I would recommend heating a small amount of oil in the pan and wipe excess oil off before cooking the eggs.
3. If you don’t have 2 pairs of cooking chopsticks, you can use a small egg beater or a fork. Or use whatever can break up the cooked egg into small pieces, like the cooked mince.
4. Nutrition below assumes 1 cup of cooked rice per serving.
serving: 434g calories: 701kcal fat: 29g (45%) saturated fat: 9.5g (48%) polyunsaturated fat: 2.3g monounsaturated fat: 13g cholesterol: 257mg (86%) sodium: 990mg (41%) potassium: 553mg (16%) carbohydrates: 71g (24%) dietary fibre: 4.43g (18%) sugar: 17g protein: 33g vitamin a: 46% vitamin c: 14% calcium: 6.7% iron: 34%
Hi Yumiko, when I first read the ingredients in the recipe, I thought that it was kind of bland as the rice bowl recipes I used in the past had a lot more ingredients like garlic, etc. Boy, was I wrong! This is the simplest, yummiest rice bowl one can whip up! I’m Nagi’s fan, and am now yours too!
Hi Christine, I am glad that you liked it.
Traditional Japanese dishes usually don’t use garlic and they have rather plain flavouring, yet quite tasty. These days though, people started adding garlic to the dish to give it an extra flavour.
I am loving your blog!! And I am loving that Nagi convinced you to enter the blogging world. Her blog is such an inspiration!!!
My boys are going to love this dish!!! Your reasons for why this excites kids are perfect!!! They are exactly the reasons my boys will love it!
Can’t wait to try it and more of your recipes! x
Hi Claire,
Thanks! I am looking forward to hearing from you what your boys think of this dish when you made it.
First the aroma which permeates one’s home, then the look of the dish, then the taste after appetite has been awakened! Absolutely love your Japanese lessons and the tips: I normally use either sake or mirin [or dry sherry if I am out as in my Chinese dishes!] – shall try both at once . . .and I usually make ‘plain’ scrambled eggs: the sugar and sake in the mix have to be tried soonest, even if on breakfast toast . . .
Hi Eha, thank you very much!
YUM!!!! This is one of my FAVORITES from when we were kids! Can you make it for us for the next family dinner? ?
Another favourite of yours…
Tamaki asked me to cook Bean and Pork mince Stir Fry and Karaage and Korokke next time when she comes over. Too many requests!
This dish definitely sounds like a fun lunch, even for old people like me. And I love that you are giving us Japanese lessons. I remember going on a tour somewhere in Japan, probably Osaka, where our tour guides used our time on the bus to teach us how to count from 1-10 in Japanese. They also taught us to sing Sakura. I don’t remember how to count but I remember really enjoying the experience, and I think that learning a little about the language adds an interesting dimension to the recipes. I guess I just still like to learn. I also want to tell you that I love your Ginkgo leaf logo – it’s beautiful.
Hi Susan.
I am glad that you like little Japanese explanations here and there. It might be a bit overwhelming but I sometimes can;t avoid it.
Thanks for a positive feedback about the ginkgo leaf logo. It was designed by my son and I am very happy about it. Nagi was so jealous.
I agree that food first has to look appealing before we even want to taste it. Your dish looks so very appealing. I would love to taste your rice bowl. Thank you for sharing the story 🙂 It seems like the Japanese show their love by cooking for their family.
Hi Marisa,
It is true that Japanese show their love by cooking for family. In fact not just for family but Japanese show their dedication and appreciation by serving good meal. You can see this when you visit a Japanese style accommodation called “ryokan”. They serve amazing food with best presentation and services they could offer.
I recently visited Japan, where my son has been teaching English as a second language. Because they were due to return to the states, we did quite a bit of traveling — and stayed only in ryokans. The food is truly amazing. One night we went for broke and had a Kaiseki dinner. I could not believe how many fabulous courses kept coming and coming! Even thought they were small, I could not finish everything.
My grandfather was Japanese, but I never knew him. Somehow, though, I feel a very strong tie to Japan. I love it there!
Hi Donna,
It sounds like you had a great time there traveling around Japan. You think that each dish in Kaiseki-ryori is so small that you might not become full but actually you do get full, don’t you? I love Kaiseki style meal as you get to taste so many different dishes.
Konnichiwa Yumiko-san! This is such a beautiful and flavorful dish! I agree that we eat with our eyes first (then our nose and then our mouth). I used to have a set of small cutters for making appetizers, but they long ago disappeared, but I do have cooking chopsticks! I do make western scrambled eggs, but not if I’m making fried rice. We have chickens so our eggs could not be fresher! Thank you so much for sharing your vast knowledge of food!
Konnichiwa Dorothy-san.
I have had freshly laid eggs before and it was just so different and yummy. It was so fresh that the egg york formed a complete semi-sphere when cracked it.
Yumiko, thank you for the recipes you’re sharing…but thanks even more for the explanations and narratives that go with them! It completes the picture if you will. This one I’ll make today and take to work this evening…it seems it would be the type of recipe to tolerate reheating well. Thanks again, love your website!! 🙂
Hi Leah,
Yes, it would be good to reheat. You are taking this to work so it will be the real snashoku bento, not sanshoku-don or sanshoku gohan.
Made this…and YUM!!!! It does reheat perfectly, and will become a go-to for me. Just YUM!!
Great! Thanks for writing me back after making Sanshoku Bento.
Yumiko,
Thanks for the cross cultural explanation of your meal. BTW, there are many Americans, like me, who could benefit from the challenge of eating that rice bowl with chopsticks rather than with a spoon, as it would act as a brake.
Steve
Hi Steve,
I know chopsticks would be a challenge to many people who were not brought up with them. I am not perfect in using knife and forks either I am sure.
I find that many casual Asian restaurants including Japanese restaurants offer plastic chopsticks so that they can wash and re-use. If you go to Chinese restaurants, they offer you a pair of chopsticks without pointy ends (Japanese chopsticks have pointy ends unless they are disposable). Plastic chopsticks without pointy ends are most difficult to eat rice off the bowl, I find. Even I find it tiring.
I think that the easiest chopsticks to use to eat rice would be wooden/bamboo chopsticks with pointy ends so that chopsticks are not slippery and pointy ends makes it easier to pick even one grain of rice.
This looks very nice and I will try it. The recipe seems to be a bit like me, simple ;)) Gee Nagi is bossy but if she says peas then so be it. Thank you.
Hi Ann,
You bet. Nagi can be very bossy…
I hoe you like Sanshoku Bento.