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School’s out for summer! Even if that doesn’t actually change anything in your day-to-day, you’ve got to admit summer break is more than a calendar item for students. It’s a state of mind.

For me, that state of mind has less to do with making travel plans or reading goals — it’s more “assemble a lunch box and eat it while staring at open water.” Your mileage may vary, but I think a train ride to someplace and back is a perfectly viable way to spend a few hours. Even berry-picking is more fun when you bring a blanket and make a day of it.

When it comes to picnics and lunch boxes, it’s kind of hard to beat the Japanese — they really have all the hits: Fried chicken, egg sandwiches and creamy potato salad are all bento standards, as typical there as they are stateside. Cold noodles, various pickles and rice balls stuffed with all manner of fillings are also par for the course.

The seaweed salad, hijiki no-nimono, is another side dish you could expect to find in a Japanese bento box, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it more local with Oregon Coast-grown dulse instead of hijiki and fava beans instead of shelled edamame. Though it is available locally from makers like Ota Tofu or Bui Natural Tofu, I didn’t have any aburaage (deep-fried tofu) on hand so I used yuba (aka tofu skin or bean curd skin, the layer of protein that forms on boiling soy milk) instead. Serves 2-4 as a side dish

Notes: To prepare fresh fava beans, first remove the pods, then blanch the shelled beans for about 30 seconds before plunging them in ice water to stop the cooking. To get the tough skins off, I just pinch a little hole in one end and then gently squeeze until the shiny, tender beans pop out. It is very fiddly work, but fresh favas are worth it. (You can use thawed frozen ones if that’s more your speed.)

Yuba is a pantry staple in my kitchen because it’s shelf stable and lasts forever if stored properly (in an airtight container in the cupboard). I get the Chinese style that comes rolled like cigarillos, but flat sheets are also standard. Feel free to substitute 1 flat brick of aburaage if you can’t find yuba.

Ingredients

¼ cup usukuchi (light) soy sauce

¼ cup mirin (cooking rice wine)

2 tablespoons sugar

½ cup dried dulse seaweed

3 rolled sticks or sheets of yuba (dried tofu skin)

1 cup cooked and peeled fava beans (about 2 pounds in the pod)

1 teaspoon sesame oil

¼ cup julienned or shredded carrots

Instructions

1. Add the soy sauce, mirin and sugar to a medium-sized bowl and whisk until the sugar dissolves. Set aside.
2. Rinse the dulse well in a fine sieve, then soak the dulse and yuba in hot water for a minute or two, until they soften up just enough to slice thinly. Drain, coarsely chop the dulse and slice the yuba (crosswise, if using rolls) into ⅛-inch strips. It’s OK if the yuba pieces stay coiled up a bit, they’ll continue to relax in the dressing. Add the dulse and yuba to the soy sauce mixture, stirring gently until evenly coated, then add the shelled, peeled fava beans.
3. Heat the sesame oil in a small skillet over medium heat and cook the carrots until slightly tender, about a minute or two. Transfer the cooked carrots to the bowl with the other ingredients and give everything another stir. The salad will taste best if you let it marinate at least an hour before serving, which gives you plenty of time to pack the rest of your picnic and head out the door.

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/06/05/superabundant-recipe-summer-break-bento-lunch-box/