Ignite your taste buds with this 20 minute rabokki, the ultimate Korean street food fusion! Packed with chewy tteok rice cakes and ramen noodles in a fiery gochujang sauce.
In This Post You’ll Learn
Why We Love This
Rabokki is the perfect weeknight dinner or no fuss homemade lunch – ready in just 20 minutes!
The epic combination of chewy rice cakes and ramen noodles is made even better with the fiery gochujang sauce.
Like all good homemade recipes, you can tweak the spice levels to make it hotter or calm it down. You can even add extra ingredients to make it your own, such as veggies, kimchi, tofu or dumplings.
Tteokbokki is one of Laura’s FAVOURITE all time dishes. She loves anything with noodles and fish cakes. Combine these altogether and this dish is the new winner.
Related: Non-Spicy Tteokbokki / Tteokkochi / Yaki Udon
No one likes soggy ramen noodles or mushy rice cakes.
The key is in how and when you pop these into the dish.
For the rice cakes:
– Frozen is best. We use the frozen “garaetteok” style, also known as the cylinder type rice cakes. You can also buy the flat ovalette rice cakes dried or frozen, but buy frozen if you can.
– Don’t Defrost them. We throw them straight in while frozen, and find this gives you a nice chewy tteok by the end of cooking without the mushyness.
For the ramen noodles:
– Add them at the end. They’re instant noodles for a reason, they only take a few minutes to cook. So don’t be putting them in at the same time as your rice cakes!
– Stop cooking when sauce is still a little runny. While the noodles will help to thicken the sauce, it will continue thickening once you’ve turned off the heat. So for a saucier finish, stop cooking earlier.
What is Rabokki?
Rabokki (also known as rapokki / 라볶이) is a fusion of two popular South Korean street food dishes: Korean tteokbokki and ramen (known in Korean as ramyun or ramyeon).
In Korea you’ll usually find it at bunsikjip snack bars or pojangmacha street stalls, but it’s also very easy to make at home.
Rabokki starts with a fiery gochujang sauce seasoned with gochugaru chilli flakes, soy sauce and garlic. Along with chewy garaetteok rice cakes and instant ramen noodles, it’s sometimes made with Korean fish cakes known as eomuk along with cabbage and spring onion.
What You’ll Need
- Garaetteok (가래떡 / Korean Rice Cakes) – These are the chewy cylindrical rice cakes you’ll find in other Korean dishes like dakgalbi. We usually buy them frozen from our local Asian supermarket. The best place to look for them is the fridge or freezer section of Korean convenience stores or Asian groceries, but you can also find them dried.
- Ramen Noodles – We use dry instant ramen noodles (known as ramyun in Korea) for this recipe, but you can also use shelf fresh noodles cooked to packet directions. Sub with homemade udon noodles if you like! The key is to make sure they’re wheat based noodles, which have that delicious chewy texture and will hold their shape in the broth much better than rice noodles.
- Korean Fish Cakes / Eomuk – We buy these frozen from Asian grocery stores that focus on Korean or Japanese ingredients. They often come in long sheets, which you can cut into rectangles or triangles. You can also buy a mix of shapes in Korean odeng kits (similar or Japanese oden hot pot) if you want to mix it up a bit!
- Gochujang / Korean Hot Pepper Paste – One of the key flavours in Korean cuisine. While it is spicy, it has more of a well-rounded, sweet tomato flavour rather than just pure chilli heat. (Note: You can buy an extra hot version if you want!). It’s available at Asian groceries, well stocked supermarkets in the international aisle, or online. If you can’t source it, 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.
- Gochugaru / Korean Red Chilli Flakes – It may also be labelled as Korean hot pepper powder. Most brands have clear packaging so you can see the product inside (which is important). Ideally you should buy the flakes, NOT the powdered version. Look for it at Asian supermarkets or online. Sub with half the listed amount of cayenne pepper or regular chilli powder.
- Dashi Stock Powder – Known as yuksu in Korean or dashi in Japanese. The Japanese version tends to be more widely available and there are two main styles you can choose from: kombu dashi (vegan friendly, less intense flavour made from seaweed) or katsuo dashi (more intense umami flavour, made with anchovy). Sub with vegetable or chicken stock if you prefer.
Other Ingredients – You’ll need soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil for the sauce, along with boiled eggs (or soft boiled ramen eggs with runny yolks), spring onions / green onions and toasted sesame seeds to garnish.
How to Make Korean Ramen and Tteokbokki at home:
First, gather your ingredients: See recipe card below for measurements.
- Add the gochujang, gochugaru, sugar, garlic, dashi powder and soy sauce into a large wok or saucepan. Pour water over and stir until evenly mixed, then bring to the boil (around 2-4 minutes).
- Add the tteok rice cakes and bring back to the boil, then simmer for around 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the rice cakes have started to soften.
- Now add in the fish cakes, cabbage, spring onion / green onion and boiled eggs.
- Finally, place in the instant ramen noodles. Continue cooking for another 5 – 10 minutes until the sauce starts to thicken and the ramen noodles are cooked through.
- Just before serving, stir in the sesame oil. Transfer to serving plates and garnish with more spring onion / green onion and sesame seeds.
Wandercook’s Tips
- Extra Flavour – Use the packet of flavouring from your noodles to tweak the taste of your dish. We love using the Korean Kimchi Ramyun flavouring, or you might like the popular and spicy Nongshim Shin Ramyun.
- Storage – Store in the saucepan in the fridge ready to reheat the next day, or store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.
FAQs
We usually put the whole pot in the fridge overnight with the lid on, and will reheat the next day on the stove. We pour over around 1/2 cup of water loosen up the sauce, as the rice cakes and noodles will have soaked a lot up. Then reheat on low-medium for around 5 minutes, or until simmering nicely. We find this way softens the rice cakes nicely.
You can also reheat in the microwave, but still add a little extra water and give it a quick stir before heating it up.
Note: It won’t be as good the next day, and the ramen noodles will be softer, but still delicious!
Rabokki is plenty filling on its own, but if you want to round it out with extra side dishes we recommend serving with a range of light Korean banchan side dishes like pickled daikon, bean sprout salad (sujku namul) or seasoned spinach (sigeumchi namul).
If you struggle with spice, you can reduce the heat level by using less gochujang and/or gochugaru, and might also like to add a little extra stock to cool it down even further.
P.S. If you love non spicy Korean recipes, check out our gungjung tteokbokki with soy based sauce!
Variations
- Make it Vegan – Omit the eggs or swap for veggies or vegan kimchi, swap fish cakes for firm tofu and use kombu dashi for the stock.
- Add Dumplings – Such as Japanese style gyoza will make the dish go even further!
- Add Cheese – Add a handful of grated cheese or a few slices of mozzarella for extra cheesy goodness.
- Add Kimchi – The extra funky flavour of homemade kimchi really kicks up the flavour!
- Make it a Rosé Rabokki! – Stir through half a cup of heavy cream just before you switch off the heat.
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Equipment
Ingredients
For the rabokki sauce:
- 3 cups water 750 ml / 25.36 fl oz
- 1 ½ tsp dashi powder sub chicken stock powder
- 2 tbsp Korean hot pepper paste / gochujang Korean chilli paste
- 1 tsp Korean hot pepper flakes / gochugaru
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 garlic clove chopped finely
For the rabokki fillings:
- 150 g Korean rice cakes (tteok) 5.29 oz (if dried – soak overnight, if frozen, use as is)
- 120 g ramen noodles 4.23 oz / 1 packet ramyun
- 150 g Korean fish cakes / eomuk 5.29 oz, defrosted and sliced into triangles
- 1 cup cabbage roughly chopped
- 2 spring onion sliced diagonally
- 2 boiled eggs
To garnish:
- 1 spring onion / green onion some reserved as garnish
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- ½ tbsp sesame seeds toasted or fresh
Instructions
- Add the gochujang, gochugaru, sugar, garlic, dashi powder and soy sauce into a large wok or saucepan. Pour water over and stir until evenly mixed, then bring to the boil (around 2-4 minutes).3 cups water, 1 ½ tsp dashi powder, 2 tbsp Korean hot pepper paste / gochujang, 1 tsp Korean hot pepper flakes / gochugaru, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp soy sauce, 1 garlic clove
- Add the tteok rice cakes and bring back to the boil, then simmer for around 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the rice cakes have started to soften.150 g Korean rice cakes (tteok)
- Now add in the fish cakes, cabbage, spring onion / green onion, boiled eggs then finally the instant ramen noodles. Continue cooking for another 5 – 10 minutes until the sauce starts to thicken and the ramen noodles are cooked through.120 g ramen noodles, 150 g Korean fish cakes / eomuk, 2 spring onion, 2 boiled eggs, 1 cup cabbage
- Just before serving, stir in the sesame oil. Transfer to serving plates and garnish with more spring onion / green onion and sesame seeds.1 spring onion / green onion some reserved as garnish, 1 tsp sesame oil, ½ tbsp sesame seeds
Video
Recipe Notes
- Extra Flavour – Use the packet of flavouring from your noodles to tweak the taste of your dish. We love using the Korean Kimchi Ramyun flavouring, or you might like the popular and spicy Nongshim Shin Ramyun.
- Storage – Store in the saucepan in the fridge ready to reheat the next day, or store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.
- Make it Vegan – Omit the eggs or swap for veggies or vegan kimchi, swap fish cakes for firm tofu and use kombu dashi for the stock.
- Add Dumplings – Such as Japanese style gyoza will make the dish go even further!
- Add Cheese – Add a handful of grated cheese or a few slices of mozzarella for extra cheesy goodness.
- Add Kimchi – The extra funky flavour of homemade kimchi really kicks up the flavour!
- Make it a Rosé Rabokki! – Stir through half a cup of heavy cream just before you switch off the heat.
Nutrition
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