Miso Beef Bento
I’m going to have to do a monkey bento soon. My two kiddos have been watching so much Curious George lately that I can’t get Will Ferrell’s voice out of my head. Maybe a monkey bento will help. Haha yeah right…
I decided to try the miso marinade again with beef this time. I dumped all the ingredients into a ziplock bag with a round steak and let it soak overnight then broiled it this morning. It didn’t brown on the edges as well as I liked, but since I was cooking in the morning I had no time to re-broil them.
The marinade is from Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go:
Ingredients
- 4 oz steak
- 1 1/2 Tbsp miso
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp sake
- 1 tsp mirin
Instructions
- Combine miso, sugar, sake, and mirin.
- Marinate steak in mixture for about 1 hour, then grill or pan fry meat.
I added in a boiled red potato chopped into cubes with garlic salt sprinkled on top:

The picture isn’t the best, but you can still tell what it is right?
Maybe this week I can go buy the stuff I need for a homemade lightbox at last. For the other layer I put tofu sprinkled with red shrimp flakes with a strawberry soy sauce bottle and some broccoli and cauliflower with carrot stars. This photo came out terrible too, but that’s what happens when one falls asleep early when they should be making bento!

Since I didn’t have time to eat much breakfast I packed a side bento to eat earlier in the day that has baby carrots, cucumber kim chee, and ahi poke. I’ll probably eat this around 10:30 and then eat lunch at 1 or 2.

A miraculously all Core meal! There is sugar in the steak, but so little that it doesn’t count since the bento book says to scrape off the marinade before broiling. Obviously I couldn’t find time for a pirate bento, but I’m fine with this since I still haven’t even seen Dead Man’s Chest.











My name is Crystal Watanabe and I'm 32 years old, living in Honolulu, Hawaii with my husband and two children. I have an addictive personality and that's a terrible thing when you're into cute bentos. I own over 200 bento boxes and way too many bento accessories!. 