Korean Recipes & Food Ideas

Bulgolgi, or Korean-style gilled beef, has a way of making people fall in love with it after the first bite. Thinly sliced beef seasoned with a mixture of savory-sweet flavors and cooked until incredibly tender will do that to you. In this recipe, we’re taking all the key flavor elements of bulgogi and bringing them to your weeknight kitchen. It all starts with an ingenious, make-ahead marinade, made with a surprise ingredient of pears, to both season and tenderize affordable flank steak.

Rachel Yang, the James Beard Award-nominated chef behind Seattle’s Joule, Revel, and Trove restaurants, and Portland, Oregon’s Revelry, is a force. Her food— undeniably Korean at its roots, unabashedly creative in practice — combines noodles, dumplings, barbecue, and hot pots with flavors from all over the globe.

When you hear “pancakes for dinner,” you probably don’t think of bindaettuck, the traditional Korean mung bean pancakes. But while they may require ingredients you haven’t used before, they’re just as quick and easy to make. At Revel in Seattle, chef Rachel Yang offers ever-changing twists on tradition, from sweet corn pancakes (crusted with corn flakes, natch) in the summer to everything bagel-spiced pancakes with whitefish in the winter.

When Seattle chef duo Rachel Yang and Seif Chirchi debated what angle to take on their third restaurant, Trove, they couldn’t ignore what their customers wanted: Korean barbecue. Per usual, though, they didn’t want to make it strictly traditional — which is how Trove became known as the Korean-ish place where you take friends to grill lemongrass-smothered tri-tip, tamarind-tinged duck breast, or za’atar-crusted pork belly on a Korean-style tabletop grill.

Here's how to make a delicious, one-pan, ​bulgogi-style rice bowl on a busy weeknight.

Sometimes fusion food just works. Case in point? These chicken quesadillas with a spicy gochujang sauce. Drawing influences from both Mexican and Korean cuisine, this mash-up is a real winner. To make these quesadillas, you’ll first need to cook up some chicken breast. If you have leftover chicken breast (or a store-bought rotisserie chicken in the fridge), you’re already one step ahead of the game. Gochujang, the Korean fermented chili condiment, is the true star of the show here.

If you’re tired of eating the same ol’ sandwich for lunch every day, switch things up this week with a flavorful burrito instead. From rice and Korean BBQ beef, to fresh herbs and kimchi, this burrito will keep you happy and full until dinnertime. Perhaps the best part of this recipe is the fact that you don’t even have to turn on your oven or stove.

If I see potatoes on a breakfast menu, I’m probably going to order them. My favorite potato dish is diner-style hash browns done properly, all shredded and crisped up on a griddle until golden-brown on the outside and fluffy on the inside. But do you know what tops diner-style hash browns? Adding kimchi to the mix. This unexpected combination is so good I almost ate the entire pan in one sitting.

Fusion foods are created when ingredients, flavors, or a technique from one cuisine combine with those of another. I like to call these kinds of dishes “When Harry Met Sally” recipes. These recipes are born when you think two different things can’t possibly be friends because something will inevitably get in the way. But those two flavors keep bumping into each other (sometimes in your dreams) because — despite their differences — it’s just meant to be.

Bulgogi is a beloved Korean dish of spicy grilled beef, and one of the first Korean dishes I tried — and loved. My homemade version here is an easy, weeknight riff on the classic dish. It’s become one of my husband’s very favorite, please-make-this-at-least-once-a-week meals. And that’s cool, because it’s a breeze to throw together, especially if you use a couple of my favorite weeknight shortcuts.

Zucchini bread, zucchini chips, zucchini, zucchini, zucchini. Our goal this week has been to give you a few fresh ideas for this most ubiquitous of summer squash, recipes to wake you up instead of making you hit the snooze button one more time. This stir-fry from Michael Natkin of Herbivoracious is exactly what you need: it’s fast, needs only five ingredients, and has a spicy kick.

Back when I was working graveyard shifts as a hospital pharmacist, cooking dinner was the absolute last thing I wanted to do when I got home. Fortunately, I learned that I could quickly toss some ingredients into my slow cooker and pass out, confident that I’d wake up when things started smelling good — like these slow-cooked, Asian-spiced ribs.

This popular soup, called Yukgaejang in Korea, packs a lot of flavor and is great for the cold winter days to come. The base for the soup is beef brisket, which falls apart wonderfully in your mouth when cooked right. The soup also uses sesame oil and is spiced with Korean red chili flakes and chili paste. Time to hit your grocery store!

I love the fall. The weather is getting cooler, my slow cooker happily takes its semi-permanent place on my kitchen counter while my oven always seems to be occupied roasting something. There are a handful of comfort food dishes that I crave in fall, and this Korean Curry Rice is one of them. This mild dish uses beef short ribs, and it is cooked with carrots, potatoes, and serve over white rice. As a kid, I have fond memories of walking into our kitchen and smelling curry simmering on the stove.

I recently bought a tub of gochujang to make these kimchi deviled eggs for a party. I’ve never used the condiment before, but quickly learned it was an incredible thing to work with. Gochujang is a fermented Korean paste made with red chilies that adds a hint of spice without overpowering your dish. It’s perfect for sauces and marinades. These four bloggers have excellent recipes that utilize gochujang.

Hot off the grill, this spicy Korean chicken will not disappoint. Using chicken drumsticks and chicken thigh meat doused in a spicy, flavorful marinade, this grilled chicken needs to make an appearance on your dinner table soon! The summer is in full swing and I’m loving every minute of it.

We'll show you how!