bento friday: favorite recipe roundup

This week has been kind of hectic, and I've been sick, so unfortunately I have no bento to share with you.  But!  Instead, I've put together a roundup of some of my favorite bento recipes that I use so so often, in photo essay form.  NOTE: all pictures in this post are taken from justbento.com or justhungry.com, specifically from the recipes linked.  They are used here with permission from Maki.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Maki?  Maki is my hero.  My bento-hero, at least.

One of my favorite quick and delicious bento side dishes is carrot kinpira.  So yum.  

And hey!  Look!  You can make kinpira from other stuff too!  Rock on.

Maki's chicken teriyaki recipe taught me that teriyaki sauce is super easy to make, that it's very tasty, and that it's silly to buy pre-made teriyaki sauce in a bottle.  Apparently Japanese folks think that stuff sold in stores is kind of bizarre.  

Soboro is another super tasty recipe, though it does require prep.  It's not something you throw together on a weekday morning; rather, I'll spend some time on an occasional weekend making a big batch (usually from lamb), and then freeze small portions to use later as filling in onigiri.  

Bored of teriyaki?  Lemon chicken nuggets are a tasty alternative.

Tamagoyaki is a now-and-forever staple of my bento-making.  There's a bit of a learning curve to its construction, but once you've messed up a few it'll work out fine.  Super tasty, good reheated or at room temp, veggie-friendly, and Husband loves it.  Win. 

And finally, Maki's spicy lentil snacks get fantastic reviews and are apparently super tasty, but I still haven't gotten around to making the dang things.  I even bought red lentils months ago, and yet.  So I'm putting this one on here to remind me to make the darn things, and then I can tell you how it went!

Happy bentoing!