Teriyaki Bento Recipes
The first time we tried out this sauce and created a cohesive dish was in second year of university. On a bit of a health kick and trying to avoid all those sauces with sugar as the main ingredient, we wanted to replicate the deliciousness of Lee Kum Kee’s teriyaki sauce without all the not so nice extras. Anyway, low and behold, the quick and simple Teriyaki Bento Bowl with homemade Teriyaki Sauce.
The recipe makes multiple servings, but if you don’t have that many people to cook for, why not half it and save that for lunch the next day. Or alternatively, use our servings toggle to drop it down for a 1 person recipe. Although, it wouldn’t hurt to save some for the next day .. this dish tastes delicious cold as it starts to turn into a poke bowl kind of vibe.
Teriyaki Bento Bowl Suggestions
We’ve been very open with this recipe. Well, in the ingredients and method we focus on sushi rice and salmon, but this dish is so versatile you can easily switch and substitute ingredients wherever and whenever. Throughout this post, we’ve given variations of how you can adapt this dish, whether it’s the carb source, protein source and your micronutrients. Hey, if you did want to turn this into a Teriyaki Poke Bowl, add some extra toppings;
- Charred sweetcorn
- Smashed avocado with lime or lemon. Or if you have ponzu, add 1-2 tsp of ponzu to 1 avocado for two servings.
- Pickled ginger
- Fried onion and/or garlic
- Seeds
- Coriander
- Spring Onions
- Edamame
- Mango
- Pineapple
- Red Onion
You may also want to substitute half of the rice for some cooked kale for a healthier option. Or feel free to use brown rice for some extra fibre!
Here you’d be marinating your protein or veg in Teriyaki sauce, but there are other options. If Teriyaki isn’t your thing why not try these to marinate in:
- Sesame Shoyu Sauce
- Ponzu Sauce
- Sriracha Mayo
Top tip: We like to marinate in one and drizzle another over our rice or noodles.
In our Teriyaki bento bowl recipe, we detail a spinach dish that can be served warm or cold. This is traditionally known as Goma-ae – a Japanese side dish using vegetables with a sesame dressing. The sesame dressing compliments the hint of sesame in the Teriyaki sauce – if you are using this ingredient – wonderfully. Our main tip here is to play around with the ingredients of the sauce, add more or less where you feel like.
Okay so we know a bento bowl is traditionally made with rice but why not switch things up a bit?
Teriyaki Bento Stir Fry
To make a stir fry with the sauce, you’ll need some more ingredients. Here’s a list of ingredients we like to include:
- Peppers,
- Onions,
- Long stem broccoli,
- Mangetout,
- Sugar snap peas, the list is endless.
- Pick your protein – if you’re vegetarian, stick to the selection of vegetables mentioned prior, you may also want to include a more hearty veg as a replacement for the meat i.e. aubergine, sweet potato, broccoli, green beans etc.
Method:
- Simply grab a wok and heat on high with two tablespoons of oil,
- Add the onions and lightly saute,
- Add your protein or fish or any vegetable that will take slightly longer to cook. If using aubergine or sweet potato, you may want to pre cook in the oven until tender but still holds its form.
- Add in the sauce and fold through the vegetables in the wok or pan.
- Serve with rice or noodles. If serving with noodles you’re welcome to add them to the wok (if cooked) to also fold into the sauce.
- Garnish with coriander, spring onions, sesame seeds and chilli oil if desired.
Do I have to use rice in my bento bowl?
Not at all! If you check out the Teriyaki Stir Fry version above, we gave the option to use noodles. In this recipe we’ve used sushi rice, but feel free to mix it up! We included sushi rice as it had additional steps to make sure you get truly authentic sushi rice. This how to guide on how to make sushi rice was taught to us by Make My Sushi. This page is super helpful, it gives information if you wanted to make sushi rolls out of the rice too and includes a quantity calculator for making sushi rolls!
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- Teriyaki Salmon with Sushi Rice & Pickled Vegetables
Speaking of sushi rolls. Why not twist up the ingredients you’d usually put into this bento bowl and create Teriyaki Sushi Rolls.
Using the Teriyaki sauce as a marinade, let your salmon or cooked vegetable – aubergine works well – marinate in the mixture for 20 minutes minimum. Neatly slice in rectangles and make nigiri or use as a filling for sushi rolls!
Alternatively, you can go completely rogue and create a noodle bowl. Our personal favourite with this sauce is Teriyaki Udon Noodles. For this, you can simply grab a package of pre made udon noodles. Essentially the same as the Teriyaki Stir Fry but using udon noodles. We also like to shred our chicken into the Teriyaki Sauce mixture and prefer a simple garnishing of pickled ginger and spring onion, when we make this version. Of course with a little drizzle of chilli oil.
Another favourite little twist on this dish of ours is using sticky rice and making Teriyaki Chicken served with Sticky Rice. So sticky rice is a little different to make as well. The quantities aren’t the same. If you feel like making sticky rice, check out our how to guide on making sticky rice here.
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- Teriyaki Chicken with Sticky Rice
Depending on how much sauce you use in comparison to your protein chosen will result in how saucy your overall dish is. Because we’ve used the Teriyaki sauce in a bento bowl, we’ve not made it super saucy. However, if you were to make a stir fry, we’d definitely recommend more sauce.
Tips
- Cooking the sauce: Be careful not to let the sauce burn when cooking in the pan. If you can use a wok, constantly mix your sauce around. And if do decide to cook your protein in the pan, use a little oil to help prevent the sauce from sticking when you pour it in!
- Baking the salmon: If you’re making large quantities of salmon, we recommend just marinating the salmon and then baking in the oven with foil for 10-15 minutes. Remove the foil, glaze with the now sauce and cook for further 5 minutes or so. You want the salmon to be flushing pink in the middle.
- Making a stir fry: If you’re going to make a stir fry, bulk up on the making of the Teriyaki sauce. It’s always better to have more sauce on hand than less.
| Servings |
servings
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- 600 g sushi rice
- 830 ml hot water
- 118 ml rice wine vinegar optional
- 2 tbsp sugar optional
- 2 tsp salt optional
- 4 servings protein/fish/veg of choice beef, chicken, salmon, aubergine, tofu
- 250-300 g teriyaki sauce shop bought or click ingredient for homemade recipe*
- vegetable of choice spinach (large bag), broccoli head, green beans, asparagus etc.
- pinch salt
- 3 tbsp sesame seeds
- 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp mirin alternatively use rice wine vinegar
- 1-2 tsp miso paste
- 4 spring onions optional
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds optional
- drizzle chilli oil optional
Ingredients
Step one: Sushi Rice
Step two: Teriyaki main
Vegetable Side
Garnish
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- If you're making our homemade Teriyaki sauce, ensure it's already made before starting this dish. If you have not yet made it, this should be the first step in creating our bento bowl! Check out our Teriyaki sauce recipe.
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
- This is an optional step. In the Teriyaki sauce recipe, you can reserve some of the mixture to keep as a marinade. This can be used on our salmon to let marinate until we're ready to cook. If you didn't see this before making, or want a marinade, do a quick one of soy sauce, garlic and ginger powder. Ensure the salmon is evenly coated in the marinade and cover the bowl with cling film.
- Let's put on our sushi rice! When making sushi rice, we go with 3 cups rice to 3.5 cups water.** This is not the same as cooking normal rice. Place the rice until it reaches a boil (5 minutes) and then simmer for a further 20 minutes or so. Alternatively, prepare sushi rice as stated on packaging.
- While the rice is cooking we'll prepare our pickling liquid for our vegetables; carrots, cucumbers, radishes, daikon (whatever you choose). Mix equal parts water, sugar and wine vinegar together in a bowl if using a tablespoons or other. Otherwise go with a base as stated in the ingredients; dissolve sugar with the hot water and then add in the vinegar.
- Prepare your vegetables that we will be pickling. Thinly slice the ginger, carrots and cucumber either julienne, ribbons, diced or whatever you like to eat. Add in the sliced vegetables to the pickling liquid and place aside.
- We're now going to prepare the vinegar mixture for our sushi rice. Combine hot water with the sugar and salt to dissolve, then add in the vinegar. You cannot substitute the rice wine vinegar in the sushi rice.
- Hopefully at this point, your rice will be on simmer and about 15 minutes into it's cook. We'll now place start to cook our salmon. Toss the salmon with the half of the Teriyaki sauce and place on a tray lined with foil. Cover and place in the preheated oven for 12 minutes or so.***
- While the salmon cooks in the oven, we'll make the dressing for our Gomaae. Grab a mortar and pestle and lightly grind up the sesame seeds. It's okay if it's not perfect.**** Combine soy sauce, sugar, mirin and miso paste into a large bowl. Whisk to combine and add in the grinded sesame seeds.
- Lightly saute or boil your chosen vegetable with salt, in our case, spinach. Once cooked place in the bowl with the dressing and toss to combine.
- Remove your rice from the heat. Start to break up the rice with a wooden spoon only! In choppy movements. Pour in the vinegar mixture and continue to chop this through the rice.
- Remove salmon out of the oven, and remove the foil. Glaze each salmon fillet with a tablespoon more of the Teriyaki sauce and place back in the oven without covering it back up. We'll allow this to cook for a further five minutes allowing the tops to get nice and sticky. Any leftover sauce will still be needed.
- Start to assemble your bento bowl! We know, finally! Layer your rice onto the bottom. Place your pickled vegetables on one side and your Gomaae on the other. Remove your salmon from the oven and place on top of the rice. Drizzle with leftover Teriyaki sauce and garnish with spring onion, coriander and chilli oil. Enjoy!!!
*We use our homemade Teriyaki Sauce in our bento bowls!
**This is for 4 servings, within the post we've linked to a really handy site that has a sushi rice serving converter so feel free to check for ratios for smaller portions. Or larger. Go big or go home.
***If you do not want to bake, simply heat 1 tablespoon of oil into a pan and start to cook salmon (skin side down if relevant). Add in all of the sauce into the pan after a few minutes and continue to glaze the sauce over the top of the salmon as it cooks.
****If you don't have a mortar and pestle to grind the sesame seeds, use half the amount stated in the ingredients and add 1tsp of sesame oil instead.
Comments (4)
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