Korean Recipes

Recent decades have seen a worldwide embrace of Korean cuisine. That’s because the country brings an enormous amount of flavor and unique combinations to the table, with a little something for everybody.

The food here now blends complex techniques developed for the royal court with regional flavors crafted by cooks from around the land. These two strands are now being further innovated through the fusion of many different global influences.

The Most Famous Korean Dishes

• Kimchi: You can’t discuss Korean food without mentioning Kimchi. This staple is a spicy and tangy fermented food—typically with a base of napa cabbage or radishes. This is brought together with chili, garlic, ginger, and fish sauce. The flavor is a signature of Korean cuisine, and it reappears in dishes served around the peninsula.
• Bibimbap: The texture and flavor layered on top of a humble bed of rice makes this dish a frequent favorite. Fried vegetables, beef, and an egg are brought to full life with gochujang, a chili paste.
• Bulgogi: A favorite for Korean BBQ lovers, bulgogi is marinated beef sliced extremely thin. These are then grilled or stir-fried. You’ll find them flavored with all kinds of flavors from soy sauce to sugar to sesame oil.
• Sundubu Jjigae: This spicy stew brings together soft tofu with seafood or pork. It’s typically served near boiling temperature, with a raw egg cracked into it right before it hits the table. This and other stew like it form an important pillar of the country’s overall menu.

Banchan: Korean Side Dishes

Korean meals are almost always served with side dishes. Called banchan, these offer pops of flavor and color that help reset the palate and highlight certain dimensions of the food. And their flavor can often be too intense to be included in every bite of your meal. This allows a level of variety in the experience that few cuisines can compete with.

Common banchan dishes are kimchi, pickled vegetables, seasoned spinach, fish cakes, and steamed egg.

Banchan are shared collectively, pointing to Korea’s culture of communal meals.

Korean Street Food

While many Korean meals are eaten in large groups around tables with plenty of banchan being replenished throughout the experience, another major element of the country’s gastronomy is centered on street food.

These are affordable pops of flavor that express significant regional variety. Favorites include tteokbokki (stir-fried rice cakes with gochujang) and pajeon (savory pancakes). This is where lots of innovation happens—with fusion approaches bringing all kinds of new styles.

Diverse and favoring intense flavor, Korean food is now a global force to be reckoned with by any foodie worth their salt.