Healthy, Quick & Easy Bento Box

I really enjoyed this cookbook. The pictures are beautiful, the book is well laid out with easy to understand instructions and easy to find ingredients.

Beautiful presentation! So organized! I love that multiple styles of cooking/palettes are included, the nutrition information and serving information is all included. The recipes are unique and not overly complicated.

I received Healthy, Quick & Easy Bento Box as part of a NetGalley giveaway.

Bento boxes are long-held tradition in Asia, particularly Japan, but are a comparatively new phenomenon in the west. Using a small selection of a variety of foods, diners can enjoy an array of flavors and nutritional benefits that can be easily altered from week to week. This cookbook provides a range of ideas for entrees and side dishes, to accommodate a wide variety of tastes.

Like the other books in this series, the presentation is very appealing and fun, with beautiful photography and vivid colors. As far as quibbles go, I do wish their had been more vegetarian entree options, as they are heavily weighted towards meat and seafood (though it should be noted that the side dishes are very vegetable-forward). Fun book for a practical, flexible dining option that I hope takes off in the West.

A cool idea for a cookbook that requires a high degree of attention to detail and ultimately doesn’t live up to its name.

As a frequent consumer of Japanese and Chinese takeout, I was stoked when I got this cookbook ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. I was also a little skeptical because it claimed to be quick and easy which is all the way up my alley.

Let me start by saying the recipes I made were tasty, so there’s nothing inherently wrong with the recipes, the problem is that the book is titled quick and easy and it’s very much not.

To me quick and easy means a few things.

First, quick generally means I can get everything done in 30 min or so. Each individual component is relatively quick to make, but if you’re not pretty talented in the kitchen, it’s a lot to try and assemble the components all at once, so I had to rattle off several short recipes one after another which makes the overall process not quick in the slightest.

Second, easy to me means that I’ll be able to get the recipes completed by shopping at my local food lion, Walmart, or equivalent grocery store (not everyone has a Publix, Whole Foods, or Wegmans nearby). These recipes required very specific Asian ingredients that are not super common in the average cupboard. I had to travel to two grocery stores to get everything I needed which took away all the ease.

Lastly, easy also means, no advanced cooking techniques. For the most part, these were simpler recipes but some of them (such as poaching chicken) are not.

There was one other issue with this as well. This seems like a cookbook designed for the meal prepping crowd, but various components do NOT heat back up well (yes I eat Japanese leftovers for breakfast, and yes my wife has informed me how weird I am for it). That adds another level of difficulty. You’d have to take the bento box apart, reheat items separately, then reassemble the bento if you want that nice presentation.

Like I said, good food, so if you’re willing to put in the effort for that beautiful presentation, it would definitely be a good buy, but not if you’re looking for something quick and easy.

Quick, and healthy ideas for lunch packed easily into a bento box with recipes that can make lunch fun again. Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for allowing me to read and review.