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 through the week.
Many of us including myself struggle to prepare our children’s lunch. We want them to eat healthy homemade lunch at school, but how do we do that when our morning is hectic as it is?
A few hours on meal prepping for bento lunch box on a Sunday might be a solution to consider. Today I’ll show you an example of meal prepping and how I pack 3 days of bento using the ingredients I meal prep on a Sunday morning. As a bonus, I made it a challenge to make each bento box under $3.
How to Meal Prep Bento: $3 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 through the week.
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 the bento box and write down each dish or ingredient name in the section of bento you want to pack. Eventually, you’ll be able to do this process in your head.
Planning ahead will help you check on colors of ingredients so your bento won’t look all same color, cut down on frequent trips to grocery stores, and save money by using the same ingredient but using it differently.
Here’s my plan:
- Saturday – Shopping Day
- Sunday – the 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 sandwich recipes here:
- Tamago Sando
- Wanpaku Sando
- Crispy Chicken Sandwich
- Katsu Sando (coming this Friday)
- Menchi Katsu Sandwich
- Korokke Sando
- Yakisoba Pan
Sunday – The Meal Prep Day
This is the most important day. I set aside 2-3 hours for meal prepping as you will need to make several dishes at the same time.
For the meal prep recipes and ideas I share on Just One Cookbook, I make sure they have a minimal/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)
- Grated Carrot Salad
- Korean Spinach Salad (Spinach Namul)
- Chicken Karaage
- Chicken Soboro
- Scrambled Egg
- Tuna Salad
Other food to prepare:
- Blanch snow peas
- Wash cherry tomatoes
- Wash lettuce
- Cook steamed rice (and freeze individual portions)
A Quick Breakdown of The Meal Prep Process
In general, I prepare EVERYTHING ahead of time, and this means all the food that keeps well in the refrigerator. I cook and wash everything, and place each dish in an airtight container and put in the refrigerator. I even cook rice ahead of time and freeze the individual portions of the rice in a container.
Each day that I pack bento, I reheat everything and let cool before I pack each dish into the box (Please read my Food Safety Tips for Bento).
To get everything ready in the most efficient way, I tackle the tasks that require marinating/cooking or take the longest first, and I work backward from there.
- Wash and soak the rice for 20 minutes before cooking.
- Start boiling a pot of water, and cook eggs. Make the marinade for Ajitsuke Tamago (Ramen Egg) and marinated the peeled eggs.
- Wash the vegetables (carrot, lettuce, tomatoes, snow peas, and spinach) and cut the carrot into julienned pieces.
- Start boiling a pot of water again and cook snow peas, then spinach.
- Make the seasonings for spinach and coat well once spinach is cooled. Pack in the container and keep in the fridge.
- Make the seasonings for carrot salad and coat the julienned carrot well in the container.
- Make the Chicken Karaage marinade, cut the chicken, and toss to coat. Marinade for 30 minutes.
- While karaage is marinating, cook Chicken Soboro and scrambled eggs. Let cool and pack in the container.
- Make Tuna Salad when you have a moment and put it in the fridge.
- Deep fry karaage and drain on the wire rack. Once cool, you can pack in the container.
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.
Monday – Karaage Bento (#1)
You will need the following item to pack in Karaage Bento:
- Rice
- Lettuce
- Chicken Karaage
- Grated Carrot Salad
- Korean Spinach Salad (Spinach Namul)
- Ramen Egg
- Cherry tomatoes
- Blanched snow peas
Wednesday – Soboro Bento (#2)
You will need the following item to pack in Soboro Bento:
- Rice
- Chicken Soboro
- Scrambled egg
- Blanched snow peas
- Red pickled ginger
Friday – Onigirazu Bento (#3)
Onigirazu (おにぎらず) is a rice sandwich that has been popular for the past decade in Japan. Similar to rice balls, it consists of rice, nori seaweed, and filling. The only difference is that you can stuff more fillings in Onigirazu. Here are 3 kinds of Onigirazu I packed in the bento lunch box.
For each onigirazu, you will need a half sheet of nori seaweed, rice, and lettuce.
- Karaage Onigirazu
- Grated Carrot Salad
- Korean Spinach Salad (Spinach Namul)
- Chicken Karaage
- Soboro Onigirazu
- Chicken Soboro
- Scrambled egg
- Tuna Onigirazu
- 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 onigirazu post for detail instructions. If you like the idea of Onigirazu, 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
Japanese Meal Prep (Jobisai 常備菜)
Japanese Ingredient Substitution: If you want to look for substitutes for Japanese condiments and ingredients, click here.
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