Hellobee

When you first begin to pack bento lunches for your children (or yourself), it can be very tempting to try every tool or decoration technique that crosses your path. Any bento-related web search will turn up hundreds of boxes filled with cute characters, elaborate landscapes, and other beautiful scenes.  There’s no denying that if you’re artistically inclined it can be a fun challenge to fix lunch this way, but if you’re anything like me, that sort of effort in the morning isn’t sustainable for more than a day or two — or ever. My mornings are just too rushed!

But what if you want to pack a pretty lunch without crossing all the way over into full-fledged food art? There are many pieces of equipment that allow you to create attractive lunches fairly easily, but my favorite technique is one that requires nothing besides the food itself — all you have to do is arrange food neatly.

Divide the Box

Before adding food to the bento box, take a second to mentally divide the box into two, three, four or more areas. Then designate a section for each of the foods you’re planning to pack in the lunch box. This division doesn’t need to be incredibly strict of course, but if you keep the foods you’re packing in their sections, it will lend a sense of order to your lunch. Silicone baking cups are a great tool to use to help divide up the space in a bento box.

Taking a second to think through where each item will go also allows you to place the foods in a visually harmonious arrangement. For example, if you have red apple slices, strawberries and sugar snap peas, it would make sense to place the green peas between the red berries and apples to provide some visual contrast.

Neat and Tidy

When it’s time to place the food in the box, take a few extra seconds to line it up or arrange it neatly. Look at these two boxes:

This box isn’t bad — it’s divided into sections and the colors contrast nicely, but compare it to this box:

This is the same box, holding exactly the same food, but because it’s orderly, it’s much more pleasing to the eye. To start, I stacked the crackers into a tidy row. Then, I took five seconds to flip two of the apple slices over so that the white inside would contrast with the green skin. And finally I arranged the carrots into a neat pile.

I’m not suggesting that you go too crazy with this. (Definitely do not get out the tweezers to arrange frozen peas!) Often if I’m packing multiple layers of something, I’ll just toss the bottom layer into the box any which way and then arrange the top layer as neatly as possible. Just a little effort goes a long way.