This mums’ kicking serious lunchbox goals with her bento creations and is making us all want to lift our lunch box game a little OR A LOT!
Bondi based mum Tamae Parker is putting her bento creating skills to good use with her daughter’s bento lunch box – and it’s inspiring many mums to try their hand at it too!
Mum’s bento lunch boxes go viral
I first spotted Tamae’s creative, almost too cute to eat bento lunch boxes in the Lunchbox Ideas Australia Facebook group, where her delicious cat bus creation was causing quite a inspirational stir – many of us begging her to tell us how we can all replicate it at home.
How amazing! What a treat to open your lunch box every day!
Good news is, Tamae has continued to share her bento lunch boxes on both the Facebook page, as well as on her Instagram account. PLUS, if you’re keen to learn how to nail a bento box technique, tune into Tamae’s YouTube channel where she’ll be uploading tips and tricks.
Tamae says her most popular bento box to date has been the catbus, and we can see why. The catbus inari sushi and sausage flower makes for on tasty lunch box combo!
Closely followed by Molang, a French cartoon of a Korean created rabbit that kids are crazy for. – for those playing at home still stuck at Paw Patrol and not quite up to Molang stage yet.
Bento lunch box for beginners…
So you might think there’s lots of faffing about when it comes to delivering a five-star bento lunch box, but there really isn’t. When asked about how she goes about making her daughter’s lunch boxes Tamae offers some great tips and inspiration:
- Cook your sushi rice the night before and roll sushi rolls fresh in the morning.
- Mix up your food! Edamame beans, mini potato hash browns, even cold gnocchi are all devoured by kids.
- Think outside the box – you can wrap ham or cheese around your bread to create a coloured shaped sandwich. Yum!
- Keep your unused mini fish shaped plastic bottles of soy sauce (from takeaway sushi) for your kids bento lunch box.
- Mayonnaise is excellent for sticking nori (seaweed) shapes like eyes and mouths onto other food.
- Head to Daiso or eBay for patterned parchment paper, food picks and sandwich cutters. There’s LOTS of treasures to be found for a minimal cost.
- If you’re not as talented as Tamae in sushi rolling, a Sushezi roller will save you a lot of sticky rice frustration. Trust me. Best product EVER.
Not just sushi...
Tamae has turned her hand to pasta filled bento lunch boxes too. I adore this Peppa Pig themed bento. Tamae cut Peppa Pig shapes from slices of ham with scissors (no, we won’t discuss the irony #awks) and placed it on top of a mountain of delicious Peppa shaped pasta.
HOT TIP: Tamae says she bought the Peppa pasta while she was in the UK but you can totally get your hands on some from eBay if you’re prepared to part with your cash for international shipping. #WINNING
Bento for all!
If reading the hundreds of comments on Tamae’s social posts is anything to go by, the consensus is we’d ALL be happy munching Tamae’s carefully created bento boxes on the daily. They’re certainly packed with love!
Umm… Can you make me lunch?
The question we all want to ask is Tamae, can you be our mum too? Kudos to you and your winning bento lunch box ways, we’re sure your daughter LOVES opening her lunch box everyday!
If bento isn’t your kids thing and it’s sandwiches all day every day, that’s totally cool too. Here’s 53 scrumptious sandwich ideas to keep the #lunchinspo wheels oiled in your kitchen too!
