Tempura Bento 天ぷら弁当

Eating tempura at home is a treat in our house.  Since deep frying requires my full attention and I cannot help my children with their activities during this time, we only get to eat tempura on special occasion.
When I do make tempura for dinner, my children gets so excited and requests Tempura Bento for their lunch the next day.

On previous day, we had: Shrimp Tempura,

and Vegetable Tempura for dinner.

If you don’t mind deep frying at home, making tempura is very easy.  Just chop veggies and prep shrimp ahead of time and deep fry right before the meal.

And don’t forget to check my step-by-step tutorial for how to make shrimp straight for frying!

Lunch Next Day:

• Shrimp Tempura and Vegetable Tempura over steamed rice
• Various fresh fruits

Now some of you may feel strange to see Tempura in a lunch box.  Doesn’t tempura have to be eaten hot?  I’ve received several questions about how to keep lunch warm and how does it taste when the food is cold/at room temperature, etc.
To make the long story short, bentos are mostly sold/eaten at room temperature in Japan.  We choose and pack the food that taste good at room temperature, and we season the food a little bit extra so that the room so temperature food tastes better.
To keep the tempura from getting soggy, reheat the tempura in the (toaster) oven to make it crisp, let it drain and cool completely.  You can close the bento box only after all the food is cooled so that there will be no condensation formed inside the bento box.  However, please note that it’s impossible to keep it crisp and crunchy as when it first came out of the deep fryer.
It’s also about preferences, and you can definitely use a thermal lunch box to keep your food warm.  I answered to those frequently asked questions in my Bento FAQ.  Please feel free to ask me if you have any other questions regarding bentos.
Thank you so much for reading, and have a nice day!

Tempura Bento

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

5 mins

Total time

15 mins

Author: Namiko Chen

Serves: 1 Bento

Ingredients

• Shrimp Tempura
• Vegetable Tempura
• Dipping Sauce
• Steamed rice (Defrost Frozen Rice)
• Kiwi
• Raspberries
• Grapes

Instructions

1. Reheat tempura in the toaster oven until heated through. Set aside to let cool.
2. Pack rice and let cool.
3. Wash fruits and cut if necessary.
4. Start packing cooled foods into bento box.
5. Cool down completely before closing the bento box.

Notes

Recipe by Namiko Chen of Just One Cookbook. All images and content on this site are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without my permission. If you’d like to share this recipe on your site, please re-write the recipe in your own words and link to this post as the original source. Thank you.