Making a Cute and Speedy Bento Lunch

When people look at my cute or kawaii bento lunches they always ask "how long did that take you?" While it is true that a really detailed charaben (character bento) may take several hours, it is possible to make a cute lunch in a reasonable amount of time. This Bob The Builder bento took me less than 10 minutes to make.

The key is planning.

Think about what foods you want to include in your lunch, which box you are going to use, and what character you want to make before you get started. Maybe your character dictates what food you include, or vice versa. This is important to understand before you start.

With this lunch I knew that I wanted to do Bob The Builder because I had purchased some cute nail-shaped food picks and wanted to use them. I found a picture of bob and decided that vegetarian lunchmeat, cheese, and nori would be my ingredients for Bob's face. These shapes are fairly simple so I cut out the shape of Bob's face, hard hat, and nose by hand.

The other important thing in quick charaben construction is having the right tools. Bob's eyes and mouth might have been time consuming to cut out by hand, but I have a face-shaped nori punch that did the job in a second. Cookie cutters of varying shapes and sizes are also a great tool. If Bob's head didn't have ears, I could have used a round cookie cutter and done the job even faster. Straws are great for cutting out tiny circles as well.