Bento Picnic

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Bento Picnic

Your resource for learning how to use Washoku - the Japanese tradition of designing complete, balanced meals - to make everyday healthy & delicious!

Farm-to-table bento cuisine in Austin TX since 2015. We are on sabbatical as of February 2023, but please visit our website and join our mailing list to be notified of updates.

06/17/2025

✨ Thanks to everyone who stopped by the preview party + chef demo at yesterday!

What fun it was to bring our very first clickable prototype to life with a few of my favorite summer recipes!

* Sautéed Summer Squash
* Easy 7-Minute Tzatziki
* Light & Bright Vegan Pesto

And even more fun to share samples with 325 (!) curious souls while answering all kinds of questions like:
🌿 How I keep my pesto bright green (no sad brown dip here!)
🥒 The trick to sautéed squash that isn’t a soggy mess
⏱️ My go-to no-cook, savory summer snack

If you missed it — you can grab the free recipe PDFs .

👉 And join the waitlist to get the deets about our next market event in Cedar Park on July 12th!

PS. 💛 Shout-out to for the creamiest greek yogurt and the freshest produce — summer squash, cucumber, basil, and kale — that made these recipes sing!

12/07/2024

Holiday baking just got SO much easier! 🎄🍵

My highly-requested Matcha Cake Cookies are finally up on the blog—and you won’t believe how simple they are to make!

Recreate this best-selling cookie at home with just a box of gluten-free cake mix, matcha tea powder, and five pantry staples. 💚

Bonus: The dough is freezer-friendly, so you can enjoy fresh-baked cookies whenever you want!

Click the for the recipe and start baking!

09/29/2024

Friendlys Persian Pop-Up 🌈 A colorful (and delicious!) way to start a leisurely Sunday in ! 🙏🏻 Thank you

06/16/2024

Happy Father’s Day (and belated Mother’s Day) to Nick & Julie!

I could not have bootstrapped Bento Picnic without them.

Here they are finishing the install for the custom cabinetry that my Dad built for the bento shop in 2018.

Thank y’all for everything you did to support my dreams! 🙏🏻❤️

05/25/2024

Hellooo from the UK 🇬🇧✌️

The last three days in London have been a ball! 🪩

1️⃣ 😋 Charlie & I have eaten so well thanks to , , , , & 🙏🏻

2️⃣ 👀 We saw Ian Mckellan as Falstaff (!) and had a sighting of the King himself at Buckingham Palace 👑

3️⃣ 👣 And we’ve trekked all over the city via lovely green spaces 🌳 🦆

➡️ Now we’re in Bath & we’ll be checking out the oldest farmers market in the UK (!) tomorrow

I’ll be sure to share what goodies we find along the way! 👩🏻‍🌾

04/10/2024

I find my way into home kitchens wherever I go!

While I was in India, I was delighted to take a private cooking class in South India, and another in North India. I highly recommend them both!

1️⃣ with Payal in Rajasthan (North India)

2️⃣ with Jacob in Kerala (South India)

Both Payal and Jacob customized their menus based on what Charlie and I were interested in learning.

They’re both passionate about making Indian cooking accessible and they guided us on how to flow between recipes to create complete meals.

And they both taught us specialities from their respective regions and took us to their local markets.

The big difference between the classes is that Jacob provided us with printed recipes and he had all the raw ingredients cut and measured out ahead of time. Whereas Payal talked us through the steps and she involved us in the entire prep process, starting from scratch.

Both approaches were really helpful and quite complimentary. Thanks to them, we feel much more confident cooking with Indian spices than before, and we’re still cooking a lot of Indian food now that we’re back home! 🙏🏻🇮🇳

04/02/2024

Thali is like the Indian version of & has strong parallels to principles of , Japanese menu design!

Every features a variety of regional specialties & includes all six tastes, known in Ayurveda as Shadrasa: sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter, astringent.

According to the Ayurvedic tradition, a meal is not complete unless it is a full-sensory experience with a balance of all 6️⃣ tastes — because each ‘rasa’ (taste) is not incidental, but rather an indication of the properties of the ingredients. ⚖️ So getting a balance of all the tastes at each meal is important for keeping our doshas in check! ✔️

➡️ Swipe right to see the that I have been enjoying as I travel thru India!

1️⃣ Homestyle thali that I learned to make in Jaipur with Payal of (North India)

2️⃣ Fancy Rajasthani thali at in Jodhpur (North India)

3️⃣ Thali served on a banana leaf a vegetarian restaurant in Thodupuzha, Kerala (South India)

4️⃣ Unbelievably inexpensive thali from .yoga.centre in Tamil Nadu (South India)

04/01/2024

Here’s my for ❤️

Dear Tamil Nadu
Modern comforts shine less bright
Now that we’ve met you

Natural beauty
Teeming with dualities
Ripe with life lessons

Lessons that sound trite
But have given way to new
tenderness in Charlie’s eyes

Like NOTHING matters
EXCEPT for experiencing
EVERYTHING fully

Since when we’re present
No matter what we’re doing
Love pours from our being

03/25/2024

I can’t get enough of all the tropical fruits in India. 😋 ➡️ Swipe right to see who stole my pineapple the other day… 🤣🍍🐒

02/25/2024

Piggy backing on my last post, I wanted to share more about .yoga.centre’s impressive dining program.

Biksha (Isha’s dining hall) serves flavorful yogic cuisine. A team of local chefs run the kitchen like clockwork and an army of volunteers help serve the food.

A typical meal includes:
🌾 Rice (my favs are lemon rice with nuts, coconut rice with herbs & sweet black rice)

🍛 Pongal (SO many kinds of millet!) always served with some kind of saucy dish (ie. curry or sambar) And sometimes chutney too!

🫘 Legumes (ie. black chickpeas, mung beans, lentils — usually tossed with with shredded coconut, turmeric and curry leaves)

🥕 A raw veggie or salad (ie. carrot, cucumber, or green pepper salad)

🍠 A cooked veggie (usually a starchy veggie or some kind gourd in a flavorful sauce)

🌶 A pickle (chili lime, tamarind, or ginger)

🍉 Fruit (ie. Baby bananas, papaya, watermelon, pineapple)

😋 Many times a savory congee, kitcheri, or sometimes sweet porridge called Sanjeevini

🫓 Occasionally, instead of millet, they serve homemade bread like roti or idly (Which I love!)

🟤 And sometimes a sweet treat like a sesame ladoo or a mini banana cake

The meals are made with high-quality vegetarian ingredients — many of them grown on site. 🧑🏽‍🌾 In fact, in the last 10 months the 5-acre organic farm at the ashram has supplied the dining hall with 22 tons of fresh produce! (Pictured is turmeric that I helped harvest last month.)

The dining hall is open for ashram residents twice per day, offering brunch & dinner for thousands of people at a time. 🕖 Doors for dinner open at exactly 6:50 PM and everyone is seated within 8 minutes! ➡️ Then the whole hall gets flipped for the next batch to enter at 7:35 PM. And if that’s not wild enough, we all sit on the floor in silence 🧘🏻‍♀️ and eat with our hands. ✋

Well, most of us… I broke down and bought a spoon after the first month of struggling to eat hot soupy food by hand. 🥄😜

02/18/2024

SABBATICAL UPDATE ✨
A year has gone by in the blink of an eye, and I’ve been missing your lovely faces more than you know. 💕

Since closing the bento shop, I’ve established a daily yoga & meditation practice. 🧘🏻‍♀️ As a lifelong busy body, keeping this commitment to an inward journey — much of it spent in stillness and silence — has been remarkable.

In 2023, I went to .yoga.centre in Tennessee 3 times to attend their yoga and mediation programs. 🎊 And to kick off the new year, I hopped on a plane to India so that I could do an 8-day silent meditation retreat with at the Isha ashram in the Velliangiri Foothills — in the middle of a mountainous jungle in Southern India! 🏞

I am actually still in India — volunteering to support the ashram’s day-to-day activities — where I’ve had a different job each week! So far my duties have included:

👩🏻‍🌾 Taking part in their annual turmeric harvest! In total we harvested more than 2️⃣ TONS of organic turmeric as part of the ashram’s impressive farm-to-table program.

🐮 Working at the dairy farm in the center of the ashram 💩 I mostly collected loads of dung which gets used as fertilizer for the vegetable fields.

🌺 Stringing fresh flowers together to make malas to adorn all the temples and to use as offerings 🌺

🍛 Helping serve 2 meals per day to thousands of ashramites in the dining hall — which is WILD. I’ll tell you about what an impressive operation it is in another post soon. 🤗

Funny enough, I haven’t done any cooking at all. This is officially the longest span of time I can remember in my adult life where I haven’t cooked a single thing. Needless to say, I’m relishing this opportunity to be immersed in a new culture and learn to do things I’ve never done before!

I have more to share, and I promise I will continue to keep you posted. 🤗 But I have limited internet/cell service, plus they disallow photography at the ashram as a way to encourage us to be present, so that’s all for now.

PS. On the bento front 🍱 I’m also pursuing an opportunity that would allow me to continue sharing my love for cooking & Washoku with you soon, so stay tuned! ❤️

12/19/2023

NEW RECIPE! Miso Banana Bread with Cinnamon Gomashio

Grain-free & refined sugar-free, these muffins are simple to make ➕ the perfect balance of sweet, nutty and umami!

The aroma that they fill the house with is enough to warm even the grinch’s heart ❤️💚

😘 to get the recipe!

12/10/2023

📍 Ogikubo, Tokyo

11/06/2023

I went to Japan for the first time when I was 26 — over 13 years ago! Little did I know that it would be such a formative journey, and I would come home inspired to embark upon the labor of love that turned into .

With over a decade of hindsight I can appreciate fully the set of circumstances that made it life changing.

Follow the link in my bio to find out the 7️⃣ ways that Japan changed my life! 🌱🇯🇵🙇‍♀️

03/01/2023

Our chefs Leanne & Leah prepared a dinner party in collaboration with for the lovely folks from UT’s yesterday evening!

Featuring produce by & , Local wagyu from & Wine pairings by

Huge thanks to Taz Jamal of for making service such a breeze ✨

02/16/2023

Get 20% off our ENTIRE WINE & SAKE INVENTORY now thru Saturday 2/18, while supplies last, for dine-in or takeout.   Come shop the sale in person, or use the discount code below to place your order through our online shop (link in bio)!  Use code closeout20 to get 20% off ALL SAKE & WINE 💗🥂

02/15/2023

✨Closeout Sale✨

We're offering discounts on our ENTIRE WINE AND SAKE INVENTORY from Tuesday 2/14 - Saturday 2/18, while supplies last.  You can come shop the sale in person, or use the discount codes below to place your orders through our online shop (link in bio)  ✨ Spend $35 to get 10% off, use code closeout10 ✨ Spend $150 to get 15% off, use code closeout15 ✨ Spend $300 to get 20% off, use code closeout20

Get amazing deals on our limited edition merchandise too!

✨ $3 for One / $5 for Two  Saba San's Stemless Wine Glass [50% Off]  *If you'd like to buy a set of 10 or more glasses, come into the shop to get the glasses for just $2 each.* 
✨ $4 each Bento Kitty Greeting Cards designed by Austin TX [Originally $5] 
✨ $5 each Saba San's 2-Bottle Jute Wine Bag  Custom Screen Printing by Austin TX [Originally $7] 
✨ $5 each Custom Saba San's Wine Key Sturdy Double Hinge Corkscrew made by TrueTap, Available in Teal or Pink! [Originally $10] 
✨ $12 for One / $30 for Three Saba San's Candles, Ginger Pine or Jasmine Sencha  Hand-Poured by .co Austin TX [Originally $19 each] 
✨ $16 each Saba San's 6-Bottle Jute Wine Bag  Custom Screen Printing by Austin TX [Originally $20] 
✨ $16 / 2oz Bottle
Medicinal Mushroom Extracts
Organic, Triple Phase Extraction from .official South Carolina
[Originally $36]

02/13/2023

It’s time to rally around these lovely humans to make sure they have new opportunities lined up after Bento Picnic’s final day of service on 2/18. I can speak to how respectful ➕professional all of them are, and I also want to provide some additional insight into their individual ambitions in order to attract personalized leads that align with each of their skills and interests.

✨ Bruno - Reliable high schooler looking for an evening/weekend job opportunity in the Holly Neighborhood
✨ Blanca - Key Holder/Kitchen Opener with incredible craftsmanship & a sixth sense for pastry looking for AM BOH opportunities
✨ Hannah - Newly-licensed esthetician seeking a spa-setting to begin her practice in Austin
✨ Lucas - All-around team player & avid horticulturist open to BOH or FOH restaurant work, or possibly farm work 💪
✨ Keiry - Clever line cook looking to continue learning, ideally under the tutelage of a Spanish-speaking chef
✨ Maribel - Experienced prep cook/dishwasher with a heart of gold seeking full-time BOH position in East Austin
✨ Caleb - Friendly, helpful gentleman with 3 years welding experience at top-competing highschool shop in the nation looking to apply himself to a career in residential renovation/ metal work
✨ Kari - Considerate chef with a decade of experience running independently-owned kitchens seeking leadership opportunities in restaurants or catering
✨ Juan - Hardworking cook with 100% on-time arrival stats looking for a steady AM BOH position

To recruit any of these Bento Picnic team members, please fill out the Employment Opportunities form (link in bio).

Thank you 🙏🏻
- Leanne

Address

Austin, TX

Website

http://bentopicnic.com/

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Our Story

We are a local company making healthy Japanese-style bento boxes available in Austin. In the Washoku tradition of Japanese homemakers, all of our bento boxes incorporate five colors, five tastes, and five elements to deliver truly delicious, nutrient-rich meals.

Our meals and snacks feature a variety of organic vegetables, whole grains, high-quality proteins, and housemade pickles and sauces. And we love helping people keep commitments to their health by offering gluten-free, vegan + dairy-free options! We are located at 2600 E. Cesar Chavez St. where we are open for lunch and dinner Monday - Saturday . We also operate a kiosk inside the Austin Bouldering Project and offer catering all around town. Visit us online at www.bentopicnic.com to see our complete menu!