Making a bento can be hard work for the brain, but it’s very rewarding when you see the people you love eating the things you make. It’s important for me that my bento taste good and are healthy too. So here’s my guide as to how to construct a bento.

1. Never Forget The Leftovers

The best thing about a bento is that you can use it to pack your leftovers the night before, after you and your family have dinner. This is the most functional aspect of a bento–while the decoben have become popular being made from scratch, it’s original function should really to be help reduce food waste, water waste, container waste. If you pack everyone’s lunch directly from the pots and pans and serving plates from the night before, you won’t need to use extra containers or cling wraps, or wash use more storage containers than you have to. For someone who cares about how much waste is generated, that’s very important to me.

2. The Color Rule

If you want your bento to not only be healthy, but pretty too, remember to follow The Color Rule. This rule helps when deciding what to put in the bento, especially when you feel like you’re plumb out of ideas. Make sure you include something from every color of the rainbow (except blue–blue doesn’t usually occur naturally in anything edible, and even if it does, it might be difficult or expensive to buy. Like blueberries. Red cabbage is the exception–you can make it turn blue by cooking it in a basic pH environment and can be used as a natural dye if you want to make blue things.)

Not sure what? Here are some things you can use.

Red: Tomato, ham, red bell pepper, hot pepper, red skin potato, red cabbage, apple, red grapes, strawberries, raspberries, redcurrant, jams, red cherries, red onion, kimchi, pear, shrimp, tuna, hot dog.
Orange: Carrots, sweet potato, oranges, cape gooseberries, orange cheeses like cheddar, pumpkin, butternut squash, curries, salmon, ikura (salmon roe.)
Yellow: Eggs (scrambled, sunnyside up, salad), cake, bread, banana, yellow tomatoes, lemon, yellow cheese, yellow onion, potato, yellow pepper, golden delicious apples, rainier cherry, chickpeas, corn, uni (sea urchin)
Green: Leafy greens, broccoli, salad, kiwi, green pepper, asparagus, green grapes, green apples, green peas, snap peas, cucumber, zucchini, herbs.
Blue: (This one is hard so optional) Blue red cabbage, blueberries, blue cheese. blue potato, blue corn.
Purple: Purple sweet potato, taro, grapes, purple rice.
White/beige: Chicken, fish, cheese, bread, rice, brown rice, tofu.
Brown: Steak, tonkatsu, braised items, natto, unagi eel, sausage.
Black: Nori, chocolate.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a start if you’re not sure what to do!

The rule of thumb for a balanced and delicious meal is having the food groups balanced. I usually do 1 portion carb, 1 protein, 2 vegetables, a fruit, and an optional dessert.

So like the bento above–my carb is the bread (and cake), vegetables are the tomatoes and asparagus, fruit is blueberries, protein is cheese and ham, dessert is the cake (which is also a carb.)

4. The Optional Accessories

To make this clear, you don’t need any accessories or decorating at all unless you enjoy it the way I do. It’s a lot of work, but on the plus side, all the trimmings and stuff will constitute as your breakfast when you’re preparing it beforehand, or your dinner if you live alone and are preparing it for lunch tomorrow.

My accessories mostly include:
Cookie cutters, stamp molds, sandwich molds, toothpicks, vegetable shape cutters, nori seaweed punch, a precise pair of scissors (I like the ones more nail trimming), an exacto scalpel, onigiri rice ball mold.

I get them off either eBay or Amazon and, like me, you might end up amassing a small collection!