Tteokbokki Recipe – Korean Spicy Rice Cake Stir Fry

Tteokbokki is a super popular street food dish in Korea, thanks to a handful of superstar ingredients. This fiery tteokbokki recipe features mouthwatering Korean chilli flakes, gochujang spice paste and dashi stock, smothered over chewy rice cakes. Masshisoyo!

Why We Love This Korean Tteokbokki Recipe

We love tteokbokki because it is surprisingly easy to make at home. The stock base can be prepared in minutes, and will fill your kitchen with the mouthwatering aroma of Korean spices. With its blend of red chilli and fermented soybeans, gochujang paste gives this dish a distinctive fiery punch all of its own.

On top of all that is an extra scoop of Korean red pepper flakes to bring that saucy flavour and heat to an all-new level.

And finally, the ‘tteok’ in Tteokbottki are the chewy Korean rice cakes that soak up all that gorgeous sauce.

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What is Korean Tteokbokki?

Korean tteokbokki (sometimes romanised as dukbokki) is a spicy dish of chewy rice cakes in a thick chilli sauce made with a base of seaweed and/or fish stock and gochujang red chilli paste.

We’ve adapted this recipe from Maangchi’s by substituting homemade seaweed and anchovy stock (known as yuksu in Korean or dashi in Japanese) for dashi stock powder, so you can satisfy those spicy Korean rice cake cravings FAST.

What is the stock base for Korean Tteokbokki?

There are two styles of stock flavour you can use as a base for this Korean flat rice cake recipe:

• Konbu dashi – has a softer, seaweed based flavour
• Katsuo dashi – has an intense anchovy kick

For the best flavour experience we recommend the stronger anchovy version. The smell is strong (to say the least) while cooking, but doesn’t taste “fishy” in the final product – instead it gives the dish a mouth-watering umami kick.

How spicy is this Tteokbokki Recipe?

Overall, Korean Tteokbokki is quite a spicy dish! We often eat this dish with a glass or two of water nearby, but it also goes amazingly with beer. This dish is a real mouth melter if made to traditional heat levels, which is awesome for all those spice lovers out there. We’ve toned our easy tteokbokki recipe down slightly, but if you need to reduce the spice even further you can cut back on either the chilli flakes and/or gochujang.

How to make Korean Tteokbokki Recipe – Spicy Rice Cake Stir Fry

• If you haven’t already soaked your rice cakes overnight, you can pop them in boiling water now and let them sit for 10-20 minutes to soften.
• Meanwhile, fire up a wok, add the water water and bring it to the boil with the dashi stock powder. Add in the gochujang, red chilli flakes, sugar and soy sauce and mix into a luscious, fragrant soup.
• Pop in the rice cakes and bring back to the boil, then simmer for around 10 minutes until the rice cakes are softened. Keep an eye on the wok and stir frequently so nothing sticks. You’ll know it’s done when the sauce becomes thick and glossy and the rice cakes are nicely chewy (go on, test one, you know you want to!).
• If the rice cakes aren’t soft enough, add in a little more water and continue to cook until ready.
• Just before serving pour in the sesame oil and give it all a good stir.
• Serve piping hot and delicious!

How to make Tteokbokki sauce thick?

The trick to a nice thick sauce is low to medium heat and patience!

Can you reheat this Korean Tteokbokki Recipe?

Yes, we’ve had leftover Tteokbokki before and we generally recommend trying to eat everything by the next day. This is because the rice cakes do thicken up and soak up most of the sauce, so they end up losing their chewy texture and becoming a little mushy.

What ingredients can you put in Korean Tteokbokki?

We love adding boiled eggs and fresh spring onion in ours but here are some other ideas if you want to amp up your dish. Why not try adding:

• kimchi
• chicken
• thinly sliced pork
• fish cakes
• ramen noodles
• cheese (incredible!)
• vegetables – cabbage, bok choy, broccolini, red bell pepper / capsicum would all be great additions
• sausage 

Tteokbokki Recipe Tips

• For the best chewy tteok texture be sure to soak the rice cakes before cooking. You can either soak them slowly overnight, or speed up the process by soaking in boiling water for 10-20 minutes before cooking.

Variations & Substitutions

• You’ll usually find street tteokbokki made with long round rice cakes that look like chewy cylinders. But there are other varieties available such as the flat style rice cakes we used in our version. Korean tteok can often be found in local Asian grocery stores (we managed to find some in the middle of Amsterdam – and the gochujang to go with it!) so you should hopefully find some near you. But if you’re struggling to find them, you can easily swap for ramen noodles or two-minute noodles.

★ Did you make this recipe? Please leave a star rating below!

Tteokbokki Recipe – Korean Spicy Rice Cake Stir Fry

Tteokbokki is a super popular street food dish in Korea, thanks to a handful of superstar ingredients. This fiery tteokbokki recipe features mouthwatering Korean chilli flakes, gochujang spice paste and dashi stock, smothered over chewy rice cakes. Masshisoyo!

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Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Course: Snack

Cuisine: Korean

Servings: 2

Calories: 325kcal

Author: Wandercooks

Cost: $10

Ingredients

• 150 g Korean rice cakes round or flat, soaked overnight or prepared as below
• 3 cups water
• 1 ½ tsp katsuo dashi stock powder
• 2 tbsp gochujang
• 1 tsp Korean red chilli flakes
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp raw sugar
• 1 tsp sesame oil

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

• If you haven't already soaked your rice cakes overnight, you can pop them in boiling water now and let them sit for 10-20 minutes to soften.
• Meanwhile, fire up a wok, add the water water and bring it to the boil with the dashi stock powder. Add in the gochujang, red chilli flakes, sugar and soy sauce and mix into a luscious, fragrant soup.
• Pop in the rice cakes and bring back to the boil, then simmer for around 10 minutes until the rice cakes are softened. Keep an eye on the wok and stir frequently so nothing sticks. You'll know it's done when the sauce becomes thick and glossy and the rice cakes are nicely chewy (go on, test one, you know you want to!).
• If the rice cakes aren’t soft enough, add in a little more water and continue to cook until ready.
• Just before serving pour in the sesame oil and give it all a good stir.
• Serve piping hot and delicious!

Notes

Tteokbokki Recipe Tips

• For the best chewy tteok texture be sure to soak the rice cakes before cooking. You can either soak them slowly overnight, or speed up the process by soaking in boiling water for 10-20 minutes before cooking.

 

Variations & Substitutions

• You’ll usually find street tteokbokki made with long round rice cakes that look like chewy cylinders. But there are other varieties available such as the flat style rice cakeswe used in our version. Korean tteok can often be found in local Asian grocery stores (we managed to find some in the middle of Amsterdam – and the gochujang to go with it!) so you should hopefully find some near you. But if you’re struggling to find them, you can easily swap for ramen noodles or two-minute noodles.

 

Adapted from Maangchi

Nutrition

Calories: 325kcal | Carbohydrates: 70g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 3g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 354mg | Potassium: 105mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 6.6% | Vitamin C: 3.3% | Calcium: 2.5% | Iron: 4.6%

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Where We Learned This Recipe

This feisty dish first exploded into our lives while roaming the streets of Nampodong in Busan, South Korea.

Nampodong is MADE for wandering and eating and shopping – so naturally it was an irresistible lure for two hungry Wandercooks.

We knew the minute we found the tteokbokki hot spot. A spicy aroma filled the air as vendor after vendor worked at massive hot plates.

Thick, spicy, saucy red tteokbokki surrounded us on all sides, some with boiled eggs thrown into the mix, others with green onion, slices of eomuk fish cakes and others with seafood.

Luckily for us, tteokbokki is not only available almost everywhere on the streets of Korea, it’s also super easy to make at home.

Which is very, very good news for the old spice lovin’ taste buds, don’t you think?