Easy Korean Army Stew (Budae Jjigae)

Learn how to cook this easy Korean-American hot pot recipe. Korean Army Stew transforms simple everyday ingredients like noodles, kimchi and veggies into a mouth-watering spicy stew. Budae Jjigae is perfect for sharing and entertaining too – if you have a table top cooker, why not cook it all together with friends!

Why We Love This

This is such an easy recipe to make at home because it’s so flexible! Make use of the ingredients you have, or the ones you love the most, and make it your way! If there’s something you don’t like, or it’s not easy to source, you can leave it out. 

This addictive recipe is the perfect remedy on a cold winter’s night, when you just want a fiery, spicy dish to warm you up from the inside out! (That said, we’re so addicted we’ll eat it on a steamy summer’s afternoon. So I guess this one is just about perfect to enjoy all year round.)

All you need are a few tasty ingredients, a hotpot or deep frypan, and some hungry friends to eat it all up! 

What is Korean Army Stew?

This spicy Korean army base stew is made with of a range of tasty ingredients cooked in a spicy broth. The simmering blend of gochujang (spicy Korean chilli paste), gochugaru (spicy Korean chilli flakes / hot pepper powder), rice wine, sugar, garlic soy sauce and chicken stock will set your mouth watering before you even take a bite!

A blend of east-meets-west, this spicy Korean hot pot recipe infuses the flavour-packed intensity of Korean cuisine with American processed foods such as spam, sausages and cheese. 

This is probably one of our most cooked recipes in our Wandercook’s household. We always have most of the ingredients on hand to whip up a batch for lunch or dinner. Somehow we think the base has a spicy-peppery-tomato flavour, and with the addition of spam, sausages and cheese it tastes like a hotdog stew!

If you’ve eaten everything and just have the soup left, save it and pop in some two minute noodles or veggies the next day, it’s even more delicious.

If you’re looking for a non-spicy hot pot, we’d recommend Japanese Shabu Shabu Hot Pot.

What You’ll Need

For the base stew:

Grab the sugar, soy sauce and garlic then add the key ingredients:

• Stock: You can use powdered, bottled or fresh stock. It’s up to you and how much time you have on your hands. We used chicken stock but we’ve also used dashi / anchovy stock for a more umami base. If you’re making a veggo version, just use vegetable stock or seaweed stock.
• Gochujang: One of the key ingredients to the dish, this Korean hot pepper / chilli paste is where the flavour is at. It has more of a tomato / sweet taste than chilli heat, although you can buy an extra hot version. We’ve found these now at most supermarkets or online.
• Chinese cooking wine: You’ll find this at Asian supermarkets or even online. It adds complexity to the dish, and a dash of sweetness. You can substitute with dry sherry, mirin or sake if you have those in the cupboard instead.
• Korean red chilli flakes: Known as Gochugaru, you’ll be able to find it at Asian grocers and online. It may also be labelled as hot pepper powder. To substitute, halve the amount and use cayenne pepper or regular chilli powder.

For the main hot pot ingredients:

Here are a few signature inclusions, feel free to pick and choose!

• Processed meat: Think spam, frankfurters, little smokies, sausages or ground meat
• Cheese: You can use pre-sliced cheese, but we like spreading generous amounts of grated cheese aaaalllll across the top
• Korean rice cakes (tteok): There are two main shapes often used in Korean dishes like this and Tteokkboki, the sliced disc version and cylinder rice cake. We prefer the cylinder version and usually buy these fresh or frozen from our local Asian supermarket. If you can’t find them, you can substitute with gnocchi in a pinch.
• Instant ramen noodles – just plain ol’ regular instant ramen or udon noodles
• Fresh kimchi – store bought or easily make your own at home.
• Green onion – aka spring onion
• Tofu – soft or firm, both work well. We usually prefer firm tofu which holds its shape better in the hot broth
• Mushrooms – enoki, oyster or shiitake  (or all three if you’re a mushroom fiend like us!)
• Boiled eggs – sliced in half
• Baked Beans – Dollop in a couple of spoonfuls or a quarter of a cup – not too much as the sauce is quite sweet.
• Vegetables – If you’re vegan or vegetarian, stock up on more vegetables by popping in carrot, eggplant, zucchini, or even broccoli. While it may not be traditional, it’s just as tasty!

How to make Budae Jjigae:

To prepare the rice cakes:

1. If you’re using Korean rice cakes (tteok), place in a bowl and cover with hot water to soften them first while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

To prepare the hot pot:

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2. Add all the stock ingredients into a large electric fry pan, wok or shallow pot, mix together over low heat. 
3. Layer your main ingredients in the pan (in artful sections, or mixed in all together – it’s totally up to you!)
4. Turn up the heat and layer everything with generous amounts of cheese. Cook on high heat until ingredients such as noodles and frankfurts are cooked through. Serve your Korean Army Stew just how you like it – either hotpot style in the middle of the table and allow everyone to help themselves, or dish out into individual bowls.

Wandercook’s Tips

• If you have a shallow pot, fondue pot, or an electric fry pan like us, this dish is fun and easy to cook on the table, which makes it perfect for friends to enjoy delicious food and fun conversation! But you can also just as easily cook it on the stove and dish out into small individual bowls. 
• We keep the rice cakes and frankfurts in the freezer so we’re never too far away from our next army stew fix!
• In the below recipe we’ve included quantities for stock ingredients, but not for the main ingredients. This is because it really depends on how much you want to cook (and/or how hungry your friends are). You can easily prepare as much or as little as you like, and add more ingredients to cook as you go if your friends are still hungry or completely, totally, hopelessly addicted.

FAQs

Variations & Substitutes

• If you can’t source gochujang, you can make a paste out of regular red chilli flakes mixed with sugar and a dash of soy. (Use 1 tablespoon of chilli flakes for every tablespoon of gochujang required). 
• You can swap the chicken stock for dashi powder (1 tsp for every cup).

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