[Recommended for making lunch boxes! ] Delicious ways to use frozen foods

Many people make bento boxes to save money and stay healthy.

However, making it every day is time consuming and difficult. We recommend using frozen foods to make making daily lunches easier.

By using frozen foods, you can reduce the effort and time required to prepare meals, and reduce the burden of making bento boxes.
We sell a variety of frozen foods, including main dishes, side dishes, and frozen vegetables.

We'll show you how to use frozen foods wisely, recommended side dishes, and recipes with a little extra effort.

Advantages of using frozen foods as side dishes for lunch boxes

Advantages of making lunch boxes

The advantage of making lunch boxes is that you can save money. The average lunch cost for a typical office worker is around 600 yen.

If you make a bento using what you have in the refrigerator or leftovers from dinner, you can save money by making a bento for about 100 to 300 yen per meal.

Also, if you only eat out or buy lunch boxes from convenience stores, you often end up lacking in vegetables, which tends to lead to nutritional imbalances. With bento boxes, you can make your own nutritionally balanced meals. You can lighten the seasoning and adjust the amount of rice, so you can make meals that are low in calories and good for your health.

Furthermore, you don't have to spend time going out to eat or go shopping for lunch, so you can use your lunch breaks and breaks more effectively.

Advantages of using frozen foods

Lunch boxes save money and are good for your health, but it can be a pain to make them every day. Busy mornings mean you don't have time to make it, and preparing it the night before is time-consuming.

Therefore, we recommend using frozen foods. By using frozen foods, you can make them without much effort or time, reducing the burden of making bento boxes. Just take it out of the freezer, defrost it in the microwave, and pack it in your lunch box, making it useful on busy mornings.

Frozen foods of various types and flavors are sold at reasonable prices. There is a wide variety of dishes, including not only main dishes made with fried foods, meat or fish, but also side dishes such as boiled dishes and marinated dishes. There are also many frozen vegetables such as mixed vegetables, spinach, pumpkin, and edamame.

By judiciously using frozen foods, along with leftovers from dinner and pre-made side dishes, you can create delicious, well-balanced bento boxes without much time or effort.

Tips for using frozen foods for lunch boxes

Frozen foods are useful when making time-consuming side dishes. Fried chicken, hamburgers, and fried foods are standard side dishes for bento boxes, but they take a lot of effort and time. With frozen foods, you can simply heat them up, so you can quickly make time-consuming side dishes.

Frozen foods are also useful when you are missing one more item or when you have a gap. Small items such as shumai and meatballs are useful as side dishes to fill in the gaps.

Another key point is to use frozen vegetables such as broccoli and green beans to enhance the color.

Frozen foods that can be defrosted naturally are also available as products that are even easier to use. Products that can be thawed naturally don't require the time or effort to thaw, so just take them out of the freezer and pack them into your lunch box.
It will be ready to eat in about 3 hours after being taken out of the freezer, so it will be thawed just in time for your lunch break.

Recommended frozen foods that are convenient for lunch boxes

There are a variety of frozen foods available, but here are some recommended frozen foods that are convenient to keep in your freezer.

Recommended main side dishes for frozen foods

·hamburger
One of the popular side dishes for both children and adults. It comes in a variety of flavors, such as Japanese-style ponzu sauce and demi-glace sauce, and can be arranged with cheese, so it's easy to use.

·fried
Fried chicken takes time and effort, but frozen food is convenient because it is easy to make. It's not too big, so it's easy to put in your lunch box, and it stays delicious even after a while.

・Shrimp gratin
It's sold in a cup, so you can just pour it in and it's easy to use. If you add meat or boiled foods, your bento will tend to turn out to be a brown side dish. Adding shrimp gratin makes it even more colorful.

·croquette
You can easily make croquettes, which are the most time-consuming of all fried foods. The batter stays crispy even after a while, so you can eat it deliciously even if you put it in your lunch box. There are a wide variety of croquettes, including meat croquettes, vegetable croquettes, and cream croquettes.

·Spring roll
It is a standard Chinese side dish. It's long vertically, so it's easy to put in a lunch box, and the surface stays crispy and delicious even after a while.

Recommended side dishes using frozen vegetables

・Spinach ohitashi
Adding green vegetables like spinach adds color. Since it is blanched, you can eat it just by lightly cooking it. It is also delicious when mixed with sesame seeds.

・Edamame
Convenient for filling small gaps. It's delicious just by itself, but if you mix it with ham or broccoli, it will become more voluminous and look better.

・Simmered pumpkin
Frozen pumpkin is sweet, fluffy, and delicious. In addition to boiled dishes, it can be used in a variety of other dishes such as salads and stir-fries.

・Simmered vegetables
You can easily make stews using mixed vegetables such as taro, carrots, burdock, and lotus roots. It's already pre-processed, so all you have to do is take out the amount you want to use, heat it, and season it.

It is important to consider nutritional balance and include vegetable side dishes. You can easily make one side dish using frozen vegetables.

Frozen foods such as kinpira burdock, boiled hijiki, and stir-fried vegetables are also on sale. You can use frozen foods without the hassle of cooking, so please make good use of frozen foods to make lunch boxes.

Even more delicious with a twist! Arranged recipes using frozen foods

By making some changes to the frozen foods that you usually put in your lunch box, you can turn them into a side dish with a different flavor.
Introducing an arrangement recipe that is easy to make.

Shrimp mayo style using shrimp shumai

☑【材料】エビシューマイ、ケチャップ、マヨネーズ、コンデンスミルク、牛乳、マスタード

Warm the shrimp shumai in the microwave. Just mix all the seasonings, add shrimp shumai and toss to complete. It's easy to make and perfect for busy mornings.

Fried namul

☑【材料】から揚げ、ホウレン草、ニンジン、もやし、すりゴマ、醤油、酢、ゴマ油、塩・コショウ

Warm the fried chicken in the microwave and cut it in half. Cut the carrots into strips and boil them in boiling water.
Boil the bean sprouts and spinach, and cut the boiled spinach into bite-sized pieces.
Mix all the seasonings, add the fried and boiled vegetables and toss to complete.

Fried sweet and sour pork

☑【材料】から揚げ、ピーマン、玉ネギ、ニンジン、酒、砂糖、ケチャップ、鶏がらの素、塩、片栗粉、ゴマ油

Cut the peppers, onions, and carrots into bite-sized pieces and fry them in a hot frying pan with sesame oil.
Warm the fried chicken in the microwave and add it to the frying pan.

Once the vegetables are cooked, mix the seasonings and add them to the frying pan.
When the sauce comes to a boil, add the potato starch dissolved in water, and when it thickens, turn off the heat and it's done.

Hamburger and mixed beans stew in tomato

☑【材料】ハンバーグ、ミックスビーンズの水煮、トマト、ピーマン、トマトジュース、塩・コショウ

Warm up the hamburger in the microwave. Cut the tomatoes and peppers into 2cm cubes.
Add tomato juice, hamburger steak, and mixed beans to a pot and simmer over medium heat for about 5 minutes.
Add the cut vegetables, bring to a boil, then season with salt and pepper.

rice cutlet burger

☑【材料】ひとくちカツ、ご飯、野沢菜漬け、白ゴマ、大葉、ソース

Warm up the bite-sized cutlet in the microwave and pour the sauce over it. Mix finely chopped nozawana pickled vegetables and white sesame seeds with rice and shape into a thin round shape to make burger patties.
Layer the rice patty, shisoba, bite cutlet, shisoba, and rice patty in that order, then insert a pick or toothpick into the dough to make sure it doesn't lose its shape.

Conclusion

Homemade lunch boxes have many benefits, such as saving money and being able to make them with nutritional balance in mind.

However, if you make it every day, it becomes tiresome and difficult to continue.
Therefore, we recommend that you use frozen foods to make bento boxes without spending much time or effort.

It can be difficult to make side dishes for bento boxes on busy mornings, so try using leftovers from dinner, leftover side dishes, and frozen foods to create fun and delicious bento boxes.