Tupperware Lunch-n-Things

Tupperware Lunch-n-Things

Orange box closed

I've had this box for a long time, but it used to be blue. Blue with a badly cracked top. So my local Tupperware dealer made it disappear and replaced it with the latest color - which is apparently that same color of orange that was popular in the 70's along with Avocado and Harvest Gold. Go figure. Wouldn't have been my first choice, but it's starting to grow on me. I'm just glad the top is a nice opaque white instead of more orange. The whole effect is rather like a Creamsicle, which isn't a bad association.

Anyway, this is a very nice design that Tupperware has offered for years and years but is now apparently trying to kill. It doesn't appear in their catalogs and is practically impossible to find on their website. It's widely available on Ebay and other online stores, however.

The built-in dividers keep things nice and neat, but you need just the right combination of food for the compartment sizes. If this were my only lunchbox I would find that too constraining but it's a good option for certain types of lunches, especially "tall foods" (see examples below). It's fully microwavable (including the lid) and dishwasher safe, which makes it perfect for storing dinner leftovers. However, the grooves in the lid do not seal the tops of the compartments very well if the box is not kept level. As a lunchbox it works best for cold foods, or at least foods that don't have a lot of liquid.

As bento boxes go, this is a big box - over 900 ml. In Japanese terms, that's a "man-sized" bento box (and a hungry man at that). For me, it's big enough for a good-sized lunch plus a hefty mid-afternoon snack. Although it was originally marketed as a child's lunchbox, it would be much too big for young kids. Perfect for a teenager, however.

	Length	Width	Height	Volume	Footprint
Large Compartment	4.9"	4.75"	2"	480 ml	23 sq"
Medium Compartment	3 "	4.75"	2"	240 ml	14 sq"
Small compartments (2)	3"	2.3"	2"	120 ml	7 sq"
Total (exterior size)	11.25"	5"	2"	960 ml	55 sq"

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What's it good for?

Food that is too tall for the average bento box
Sandwich or wraps with multiple cold sides and snacks (cheese, fruit, nuts, olives, dessert, etc.)
A big salad with dressing container, olives, croutons, toppings, the works - and still room for a side dish or afternoon snack.
Mostly cold food with one hot food in a removable cup for microwaving.
Snacks and finger foods for a family picnic or car trip.
Dinner leftovers - multiple types of food can be kept separate from each other and reheated all at once.


	Cold Lunch with Dumpling Sides Usually I make my dumpling lunches in a two-tier box, one tier for hot food and one for cold. But if you really want a hot side dish in a mostly cold lunch, it's easily accomplished by putting the microwavable food in lift-out inner containers. In this case, I put 4 frozen shu-mai Chinese dumplings in silicone cups. Main compartment looks like salad, but it's actually wraps made with lefse. The lefse turned out to be too fragile, so I wrapped lettuce around the outside to hold them together. I think the filling was cottage cheese and smoked salmon. Those are carrot sticks under stars cut out of jicama. The fourth compartment holds edamame and sweet pickled ginger, which turned out to be delicious together. I put it in a silicone cup in case I wanted to heat it, but decided it was just fine eaten cold.
	Cold Lunch with Steamed Bun: Another Variation That large compartment just cries out for a complicated salad, which is what that really is under the car-shaped eggs, strawberry and avocado slices. The little honey bear holds salad dressing. That's actually more of the salad in the upper right - spinach with olives and feta cheese. The other two compartments are holding favorite side dishes that need a little extra height. The steamed bun is too tall to fit comfortably into most Japanese bento boxes. It needs to be reheated, but is easily lifted out and reheated separately. The little "mini-toasts" seem like they are just made for cute lunches, but are tricky to fit into my other boxes. They fit perfectly into the small square compartment.
	The Obvious Sandwich Finally I got around to the usage that this box was clearly designed for: a sandwich in the main compartment with three side dishes. I wanted to bring a particularly delicious leftover as a hot side dish, but obviously I don't want to heat up the whole lunch. Fortunately, one of my oversized Dollar Tree silicone cups exactly fits in the mid-size compartment. If you look very closely you can see the dark red rectangular outline around the curried vegetables with ravioli. I lifted that cup out and microwaved it. This turned out to be an awful lot of food, by the way. I saved the sandwich for an afternoon snack, but ended up eating it just before I left work as an early supper.
	Another type of sandwich with Tall Food Those little applesauce cups are just a bit too tall for most Japanese bento tiers, but fit nicely into this capacious American box. There's even room to squeeze in another little silicone cupcake liner full of nuts and dried fruit. The big square sandwich compartment works nicely for wraps (which are really just another kind of sandwich). Carrots in one of the small compartments, and a tiny salad in the other one topped with piquante peppers stuffed with feta cheese.