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5 from 3 votes
Inside of Karaage Bento.
Bento Box - Karaage Bento
Prep Time
10 mins
Total Time
10 mins
 
Bento Box with Karaage as a main is called Karaage Bento. It consists of cooked rice, karaage (Japanese fried chicken) and a small amount of a few side dishes. It is intended to be eaten at room temperature. I used a disposable plastic take away container that is partitioned. In this recipe, you will find how I packed the partitioned box and instructions to pack foods without partitions.

Because bento is usually made mostly from left-over dishes or make-ahead dishes, the time indicated in this recipe only shows the time to pack the bento box.

Recipe Type: Main
Cuisine: Japanese
Keyword: bento, bento box, karaage, Karaage bento
Serves: 1
Author: Yumiko
Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)
  • 1 cup Shimeji Gohan (note 1)
  • 60g/2.1oz Chikuzenni (note 2)
  • 40g/1.4oz Spinach Ohitashi Salad
  • 4-5 pieces Karaage Chicken (note 3)
  • A handful of shredded lettuce
  • 1 quarter of a mandarin (note 4)
  • A sprig of parsley
  • Soy sauce in a tiny bottle/jar/container (note 5)
  • A bento box of your choice (I used a plastic take away box with partitions, see the photo in post)
Instructions
  1. While the rice is still hot or warm, place it in the 2nd largest compartment.

  2. Put Chikuzennni in the second smallest compartment. Try to place ingredients in the way that you can see all the ingredients at one glance.
  3. Put Spinach Ohitashi in the smallest compartment and place the tiny plastic bottle of soy sauce on the side if you are using.
  4. Put shredded lettuce in the largest compartment, then Karaage pieces to fill the compartment.
  5. Place the mandarin at the corner of the shredded lettuce and a sprig of parsley on the chicken.

Recipe Notes

1. It is best to pack cooked Shimeji Gohan in a bento box while hot or warm as it is easier to shape the rice into the bento box.

Instead of Shimeji Gohan, you can have other mixed rice such as Rice with White Radish. Plain boiled rice is good too.

2. Try to pick different kinds of vegetables from Chikuzenni and pack them in the bento box.

3. Depending on the size of Karaage Chicken pieces, the total number of pieces that can fit in the space varies. In this bento box, I packed 5 pieces of Karaage Chicken, which is equivalent to about 170g of fresh chicken.

4. In this bento box, I could only fit in a quarter of a mandarin. You can use other fruits as long as they do not get squashed easily. Baby tomatoes are good as well.

5. This is exactly the same soy sauce container as those you get with take away sushi rolls. You can buy small containers at Japanese grocery stores or the Japanese discount shop Daiso. But you can use any small container to keep soy sauce.

You could also pour soy sauce onto the spinach when packing if you know that the person eating this bento will pour soy sauce on to eat it.

6. If you are packing food in a bento box that is not partitioned, I would suggest that you place Chikuzenni in a mini foil cupcake liner as a tiny amount of sauce from the vegetables might spoil the spinach and rice.