Speed tip: Pre-fill sauce containers

Pre-filling sauce containers with your most commonly used sauces saves time when you’re packing lunch. I keep shelf-stable sauces (like Tabasco, soy sauce, tonkatsu sauce, Lizano sauce and Worcestershire sauce) in a magnetic spice tin on the kitchen wall for easy access when I’m packing lunch (see photo below). Perishable sauces (like salad dressings, sanbaizu, and dumpling dipping sauce) go in little containers in the refrigerator. That way I can just grab one and quickly throw it into the bento box or lunch bag, instead of taking the time in the morning to fill just one for each individual lunch. I started doing this during our nine months of gluten-free eating (my husband had been misdiagnosed with celiac disease), to be able to throw little plastic fish full of gluten-free soy sauce into my husband’s work bag in case he picked up sushi. Some of the containers (like the little pig above) are labelled with the kind of sauce they contain. (To fill containers like these, squeeze the container, submerge the mouth into a small dish of sauce and release. Repeat until enough sauce has been sucked into the container — no need for a funnel.)

READ MORE:

• Need for speed: A mommy’s lunch manifesto
• How to pack a bento lunch and use “gap fillers”
• Choosing the right size bento box
• Packed lunch food safety
• Biggie’s list of top speed tips, tutorials and equipment reviews