How To Make A Cute Emoji Bento Box Lunch Box

Weight out 280g of your sushi rice. Place this into a sieve and rinse under cold water for about 3-4 minutes, or until the water runs almost clear. Then drain.

Pop the rice into a pan and add boiling water, about an inch above the rice, so it is completely covered.

Cover the pan with a lid and simmer for 10-15 minutes on a medium heat, until the rice is just soft but, to taste, has a slight crunch.

Turn off the heat and leave to steam for a further 10 minutes with the lid on.

Prepare the sushi vinegar (this will smell very strong but don’t worry, it won’t be that strong to taste!) Add 35 ml of rice vinegar, 1.5 tbsp castor sugar and 1.5 tsp salt into a microwavable dish. Heat in the microwave for 10-20 seconds, or until the sugar has dissolved.

Once the vinegar mixture is cooled, carefully fold into the rice. This is what will give it that great sticky texture.

Half your rice at this stage, so you have some for the roll and some for the rice balls. Pop it into separate bowls.

Line a tray with greaseproof paper and cover the tray using one of your bowls of rice. To do this, pop spoonful’s onto the paper then flatten with the back of the spoon. You want about 1.5 cm in thickness, with even coverage.

Place this and the other bowl of rice into the fridge until cool.

Remove your cooled rice on the tray from the fridge.

Open your packet of Nori Seaweed sheets, you get about 10 in a pack which is great value! Place one sheet on top of your rice, in the centre

Prepare your veg and fillings at this stage, we steamed then cooled our veg that would go in our boxes, and cut out veg to fill the sushi. We cut 2 carrots, ½ an avocado and ½ cucumber into thin long strips for the centre of the sushi, do the same no matter which veg you choose.

Next, cut the salmon. Use a sharp knife to cut into thin strips to go into the sushi, as there was so much salmon, we cut small pieces for Sashimi.

To make our Nigiri Sushi, where the fish lays on top of the rice, we will need to butterfly prawns. To do this make a small slit in the underneath near the head, and using your knife push down on the top to flatten the prawn. We did this for 3 of our prawns, and left the others whole to add to our box.

Wrap your bamboo matt in cling film. Now’s time to flip your sushi rice, so the seaweed touches the matt (be brave! Use a hand over the centre to flip, use a tray if needed)

Position your fillings into the centre of the rice, we added carrot and cucumber at the side, with salmon and sushi ginger in the centre.

Now, let’s get rolling! It is a lot easier than it looks. Make a first roll, squeezing your hands quite tightly so the sushi sticks together. Once you have made one half turn, keep rolling and pushing the matt forward, and the roll with develop. Once it has become whole, give it a few little squeezes to make sure it’s set.

The edges won’t be neat at this stage, that’s expected. Take a sharp knife (and we mean sharp, the sharper the better, dip in boiling water if needed.) And slice of the two ends of the sushi, then make 1 cm –ish slices from the roll.

Fill a bowl with warm water, you will need to keep dipping your hands clean whilst making your rice shapes.

Using the other half of your rice you set aside, take a pinch-full and using your hands, squeeze to make a ball. You have to squeeze quite hard to make the rice bind together. We made 4 balls and set them aside for decorating.

To make the Nigiri shapes, squeeze the ball together in your hand, to make an oval shape, then flatten the top and bottom, so you get a raised rectangle. Place a prawn or piece of sushi on top, and cutting a strip of seaweed, wrap around to secure. It’s great as everything sticks together easily.

To make our panda, we made two small balls for ears, then cut out two half circles from seaweed for ears, two circles for eyes, a little nose and smile. You literally just place the seaweed on the ball, the stickiness ensures it stays on.

We cut out emoji faces, with heart eyes and little smiles, and a cat.