Even I won’t try to push a bento on the snacking-est day of the year, but I really didn’t want to undo all the great low-calorie work the whole family has been doing lately.

I put together a quick menu of yum snacks that I’ll be serving on game day, and thought it would be fun to share for other low-cal ideas!

Low-Fat, Low-Calorie Super Bowl Menu

• Cheaty Mojitos: This is my favorite trick! Crystal Light now sells ‘Mojito’ mixes in big, pitcher-sized containers. Mix one with Diet Sprite or 7-Up instead of water, and add vodka or rum for a grown-up drink. Kids can even enjoy the non-spiked version, as it tastes very tropical and fun.
• Baby Carrots with Light Ranch Dip: Get a really huge bag, since these will replace the mindless potato chip snarfing.
• Smoked Salmon Sushi Rolls: Sushi is so easy to make, and I like smoked salmon the best- especially since it’s readily available no matter how far away from the coast you are (though crab stick works well, too). For a quick primer on making simple sushi rolls, watch this video.
• Steamed Wontons: Just buy standard frozen wontons and steam them on the stovetop (or in a steamer/rice cooker, if you have one); serve with Teriyaki sauce for dipping.
• Light Microwave Popcorn with White Cheddar Sprinkle: Be sure to pick up a cheese-flavored sprinkle for the top; they’re usually low-calorie anyway, and make all the difference!
• Miso Soup: For filling in empty stomachs in bulk. Make your own if you like, with dashi, Miso, nori, and tofu, or just get a few packets of instant miso soup (they taste fine).
• Caramel Rice Cakes: A very low-calorie way to satisfy a sweet tooth.

Low-calorie lunches can still be delicious

Bentos, with their small size and focus on satisfaction over quantity, are ideal tools for weight loss or weight maintenance.

Portion control is key. Frequently bento boxes are sold with no dimensions listed, or with size but not capacity (Amazon.com bento boxes are particularly bad about this). A good range of sizes for low-calorie bentos would be:

• 500 – 700 mL
• 1.5 – 2.5 cups
• about 4 inches square (very rough guide)

A very broad rule of thumb is that a well-packed bento lunch will have the same number of calories as its capacity in milliliters- a 600 mL bento will be about 600 calories- unless, of course, you’re adding butter, mayonnaise, or another high-fat, high-calorie ingredient.

As a general guide, bentos marketed for children- with faces, like the ubiquitous panda/pig/frog/duck face version, or printed with child-like messages- or described as for ‘lighter appetites’ will be smaller. Bentos with the words ‘for men’, ‘dinner’, or ‘picnic’ will be oversized.

Low-Calorie Sized Bentos at Amazon.com

Low-Calorie Sized Bentos at Bento&co (double-check the sizes on each box- their keyword search is a little buggy)

Avoid ‘snack’ or ‘onigiri’ bentos, which are really sized for a small snack and won’t hold enough to fill you up at lunch.

Shopping Ideas

Each week, I buy these items without even thinking about it, and I’m never at a loss for a low-cal bento:

• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1 small box of blueberries
• 1 large box of strawberries
• A bunch of green or red grapes
• 2-3 oranges
• 1 head of lettuce

Weight Loss Bento #1: Smoked Salmon Sushi Wraps (348 calories)

Weight Loss Bento #1: Salmon Sushi Wraps

This bento is packed with 1 cup of sushi rice (recipe) in the larger bottom half of a 580 mL Kotobuki bento. The top layer includes blueberries in one little cup and about 2 slices of smoked salmon in another little cup. I buy huge quantities of smoked salmon at Costco, since it’s my favorite bento protein (and much cheaper that way!).

I included a very small divider with wasabi and filled a plastic container with teriyaki sauce. The flavor of teriyaki sauce complements the salmon nicely, and is a little more interesting than soy sauce.

I cut a sheet of nori into four long strips and packed them in a Ziploc baggie, tucked in beside the bento box, and threw in an orange.

At lunch time, you take a sheet of nori and pack it with a little rice and a little salmon. Roll it loosely, and instant sushi! It’s a great way to prevent the sogginess pre-made sushi rolls take on after a long morning in a bento, and the wrapping slows down the eating process to give you time to feel full.

Calorie Count

1 cup of sushi rice: 165 cal
2 oz smoked salmon: 66 cal
1 sheet nori: 10 cal
3 tsp teriyaki sauce: 16 cal
1/2 cup blueberries: 42 cal
1 orange:  65 cal

Total: 348 calories

A low-calorie bento packaged and ready to go!

Today’s baby dinner bento features two little pumpkins to get us all in the Halloween spirit!

I shaped about half a cup of sushi rice into a ball using plastic wrap, then dusted it with black sesame seeds for color. On top of the rice went Pumpkin #1, which I cut out of a fruit snack (the organic ones from Archer Farms at Target are mine and the baby’s favorite).

Around the rice went a sliced strawberry and one wonton with some of my homemade nitsume sauce. I’m glad I made a double batch of nitsume last weekend; it lasts forever and goes great with anything savory that could use a touch of saltiness.

Pumpkin #2 was an easy creation of half a Clementine orange with a leaf pick in the top. Simple but effective!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I try to remember to make my lunch the night before, but often find myself completely stuck in the morning with no lunch to grab out of the fridge.

This is my go-to lunch even when I DO make it the night before, to be honest, because it’s so easy, low-cal and tasty (and the ingredients are all pantry and freezer).

In the bottom half of the bento I put sushi rice from the freezer that’s gotten one minute in the microwave, still in its plastic wrap. Every time I make sushi rice, I put one cup of rice in plastic wrap, flatten it out, and freeze it. I generally make 4 or 8 cups at a time.

On the side of the rice is the simplest tuna (or salmon) salad ever: take on vacuum pack of tuna and mix it with kewpie, or mayo, and a little teriyaki sauce.

Dried apricots, cherry tomatoes, and a lettuce leaf go into the top of the bento. If I don’t have fresh tomatoes, I just use jarred roasted red peppers. If I don’t have lettuce, I just leave it out!

It takes about 5 minutes to put it all together, and that usually includes washing the bento. The approximate calorie count is 350-400 cals, and it’s very filling!

What are your go-to grown-up bento tricks?

Let's Make This Lunch!

1. Plan Your Bento

I like to come up with one ‘cute’ idea to incorporate into a kid bento box. Any more than that, and my bentos just look like a mess; with no cute idea, they look exactly like adult bentos (which is sometimes just the way it is).

For this bento, I decided I wanted to create a little ocean with fish playing in it.

2. Lay Out Your Equipment

The Hardware

Will you use matching containers or muffin cups in alternating colors? Do you plan on using tiny cookie cutters, special scissors, or picks? Now is a good time to get them where you can see them.

For this bento, I set out:

- A blue bento box
- Internal divider
- Silicone cups in shades of blue
- Large circle cookie cutter

3. Lay Out Your Food

The Software

Try to add something white, yellow, red, green, and black to your bento (food ideas by color). I also like to have 1/3 protein and carbs, 1/3 fruit, and 1/3 vegetables in each box. For this bento, I laid out:

- Cream cheese and blue food coloring, for the water
- Goldfish Crackers, for the fish
- Cherry tomatoes
- Baby carrots
- Rye bread, turkey, lettuce, and cheese, for the sandwich
- Black and green grapes
- A clementine orange

4. Prepare Your Food

Making Water from Cream Cheese and Blue Food Coloring

Once you have all of your food and containers out, prepare any foods that require assembly. For this box, that meant making the sandwich, adding the blue food coloring to the cream cheese, and cutting the carrots into flowers (okay, I didn’t do that, but I meant to do that).

Putting together the seafaring sandwich

A little box of eight gel food coloring colors- plus an inexhaustable supply of cream cheese to put it in- is a fantastic decorative tool.

5. Assemble and Decorate

Some assembly required

At this point, you can be as creative as you’d like. Arrange all your ingredients in your smaller containers and within your bento. Cut any last-minute decorations (flowers from cheese? goldfish jumping in a cream cheese lake?) and fill the box until it is packed firmly but nothing is squeezed in.

For the last part of this bento, I cut the sandwich into a circle, layered the ‘water’ on the outside, and added the jumping goldfish before packing all of the items into the bento.

Let your imagination run wild!

Ready for lunchtime!

TIPS

• Using rye bread instead of white or wheat bread gives you a great background for strong colors
• A lettuce leaf under any component of your bento adds green, fills out the box, and looks appetizing
• Fill your bento completely; the idea is that when closed, nothing will move a centimeter. Keep grapes and small tomatoes on hand to shove into the cracks!
• Gel food coloring is ideal for creating more colorful edible artwork

The very best part of making a bento lunch for your own kid is adding your own special touches. Once you have the basics down, you can let your creativity take charge!

After picking up some adorable panda picks, leaf picks and animal picks- plus a new baby panda bento box!- I knew I had to bring the panda picks and panda bento together at last. Today’s baby bento features steamed wontons from the Asian market down the street, carrot flowers, kiwi slices, and lots of black grapes. There were some pieces of watermelon hiding under the grapes, I promise!

Whenever I’m pressed for time, I absolutely love to make frozen wontons for lunch or dinner. You can microwave them if you place wet paper towels below and on top of the wontons on a plate. Heat for one minute, then flip and heat another minute. They aren’t as perfect as wontons that come from a steamer basket, but hey- a two minute dinner is a two-minute dinner!

Even though I try hard to remember to freeze pre-portioned leftover rice every time I make a batch, inevitably I find that little half-full plastic container of Thursday’s sushi rice shoved all the way to the back of the fridge on Saturday (there should be a word for all those little half-full plastic containers that get shoved to the back of your refrigerator, shouldn’t there?).

I decided to turn my leftover rice into a Rice Salad (recipe below), and it turned out- surprisingly- great! It came together from all the ingredients I normally have on hand in the pantry and could really be varied endlessly based on what you have on hand- or what else is in those little half-full containers at the back of the fridge. Best of all, my two-year-old loved it, which sends it into A+ territory for me.

I love Sherimiya’s use of lettuce as an edible background (I try to steal from her whenever possible), and since the massive package of fun bento supplies I ordered in a weak moment arrived from All Things For Sale, I decided to step up my presentation game a little! I made one bento for the baby and one for myself… although, now that I look at them again, I wish I’d added a couple of little pandas to my own ‘mature grown-up’ lunch.

The baby bento has tuna rice salad with black grapes and a little clementine packed in his new little panda bento. The mom bento has the same with a few extra grape tomatoes, edamame, and the very last of the sliced strawberries. I may have added a Ghiradelli chocolate square at the last minute, but you didn’t hear it from me.

My bento was packed in my new super-fun and crazy cheap ($4!) blue oval bento. I love the addition of a movable divider and the clear plastic lid; I get to admire the contents every time I look in the fridge!

Tuna Rice Salad

Note the many wonderful substitutions this little salad will drink up. I’ve listed the ingredients I ended up using first, with substitutions in parentheses. If you use long-grain rice instead of prepared sushi rice, mix the vinegar with a tablespoon of sugar before adding it to the salad.

2 cups leftover sushi (or long-grain) rice
2 tbs dark sesame oil (or vegetable oil)
1 tbs rice vinegar (or any white vinegar)
7-8 grape tomatoes, quartered (or 2 full-sized tomatoes, diced)
1 container of vacuum-packed tuna (or vacuum-packed salmon)
1/2 cucumber, diced (or 1/2 bell pepper, or 1/2 cup shredded carrots, or 1/2 onion, or all of the above!)

Mix everything together. That’s it- and it keeps all week in the fridge!

This little bento would make a good snack, but it served very well as a light dinner for a not-very-hungry toddler.

The schoolboy is a Baybel cheese (he wouldn’t eat it, though, so it had to be turned into flowers at the last minute!).

A few plain crackers, green and black grapes, and watermelon completed this fast little bento.

Happy weekend, everyone!

For a fun little snack yesterday, I threw together all the orange-y things I could find into the small half of my little white Kotobuki bento box.

The most entertaining part to make was the little cream cheese sandwich, which I made by tinting cream cheese with a little orange gel food coloring (definitely the most fun part of the proceedings!). The little pumpkin got his own bed of carrot sticks, a Baybel cheese with a moon carved out of it, and a tiny mozarella leaf.

It wasn’t a balanced snack in the least, but I figured a one-color snack every once in a while wouldn’t hurt anyone!

Happy Halloween bento-ing!

I took some time this weekend to make a huge batch of my favorite Japanese sauce, nitsume (or ‘tsume’). You may have encountered it- dark, sweet, and deliciously salty- on your eel roll at a sushi restaurant. I’ve never made it before, but it couldn’t be easier (recipe follows), and is delicious on everything.

Today’s grown-up lunch bento contains a layer of sushi rice topped with poached chicken and peppers drizzled with nitsume. The smaller half of my little white Kotobuki is filled with steamed bok choy sautéed in a screaming hot pan with even more nitsume and sprinkled with sesame seeds. A little container of dried apricots fit perfectly in among the bok choy.

When I was finished with this bento, it looked so depressingly adult that I had to go back and add some fruit-leather-and-mozzarella flowers, just to cheer it up!

Nitsume
2 cups dashi (or chicken stock)
1 cup of soy sauce
1 cup of mirin
1/2 cup of sugar

Put all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced in volume by half (about three hours). Let cool completely and store in the fridge for up to a month.