Korean Food Guide: 10 Dishes to Know and How to Cook Them

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This Korean food guide starts with the 10 dishes worth knowing first, then shows how Koreans eat them and how to cook them abroad. The short version: a Korean meal is rice, a soup or stew, and a spread of small shared side dishes called banchan (반찬), held together by three fermented pastes and one chili powder.

Get those building blocks right and the rest of the cuisine, from barbecue to street snacks, starts to make sense quickly. Below you’ll find the dishes, the pantry, the table manners, a bibimbap recipe card, a glossary and the mistakes foreigners make most often.

Korean food guide: the 10 dishes to know first

You could spend years working through Korean regional cooking. You don’t need to. These ten dishes cover the flavors, techniques and eating habits that show up across the whole cuisine, and you can find all of them in Korea and in most Korean restaurants abroad.

Dish	What it is	Heat	How Koreans eat it	Easy at home?
Kimchi (김치)	Fermented vegetables, usually napa cabbage with chili, garlic and fish sauce or salted seafood	Medium	At almost every meal, as a side and as a cooking ingredient	Yes, needs a few days to ferment
Bibimbap (비빔밥)	Rice topped with seasoned vegetables, meat and egg, mixed with gochujang	Mild to medium (you add the paste)	Single-bowl lunch, sometimes in a sizzling stone bowl (dolsot)	Yes
Bulgogi (불고기)	Thin beef in a sweet soy and garlic marinade	None	Pan-cooked or grilled, eaten with rice or wrapped in lettuce	Yes
Samgyeopsal (삼겹살)	Unmarinated pork belly grilled at the table	None (sauces vary)	Korean BBQ with friends, wrapped in lettuce with ssamjang	Yes, in a pan
Kimchi jjigae (김치찌개)	Stew of sour kimchi, pork and tofu	Medium to hot	Everyday home meal, shared from one pot	Yes
Tteokbokki (떡볶이)	Chewy rice cakes in a sweet-spicy gochujang sauce	Hot	Street snack and comfort food	Yes
Japchae (잡채)	Sweet potato glass noodles stir-fried with vegetables and soy	None	Holidays, parties and as a banchan	Yes
Naengmyeon (냉면)	Thin buckwheat noodles in icy broth (mul) or chili sauce (bibim)	None (mul) to hot (bibim)	Summer meal and an after-BBQ finisher	Medium, noodles are easy to buy
Korean fried chicken (치킨, chikin)	Double-fried chicken, plain or glazed in sweet-spicy yangnyeom sauce	None to medium	Delivered at night with beer	Medium, the frying takes care
Gimbap (김밥)	Rice and fillings rolled in dried seaweed (gim) and sliced	None	Picnic food, quick lunch, road trips	Yes

Which Korean dishes are not spicy?

Plenty. Korean food has a fiery reputation, but a big share of what Koreans eat every day has no chili at all. Bulgogi, japchae, gimbap, galbi (marinated short ribs), samgyetang (whole small chicken soup with ginseng), mul-naengmyeon and baek kimchi (white kimchi made without chili) are all safe if you don’t handle heat well. You can also ask for less spice when you order (the phrase is in the glossary below).

What to order on your first night in Korea

If you only have one dinner, make it Korean BBQ. It shows you banchan, wraps, dipping sauces, shared eating and the after-meat rice or noodles in one sitting. For lunch the next day, a bowl of bibimbap or a kimchi jjigae set at a simple restaurant shows you the everyday side. Our first-time Seoul itinerary for 3 days marks the neighborhoods where these meals are easy to find.

How a Korean meal works: rice, soup and banchan

A Korean meal isn’t served as courses. Everything arrives at once: a bowl of rice (bap, 밥) for each person, a soup or stew, and banchan spread across the middle of the table. In Korean the word for “meal” and the word for “cooked rice” are the same word, bap, which tells you where the center of gravity sits.

What is banchan?

Banchan are small side dishes, and a normal restaurant table might have anywhere from a few to a dozen. Expect kimchi, seasoned spinach or bean sprouts (namul), braised potatoes or lotus root in soy (jorim), a little stir-fried fish cake, maybe a rolled omelette or a small pancake (jeon). They’re there to be picked at between bites of rice, not finished one by one like a starter.

Why everything is shared

Stews, grilled meat and banchan go in the middle and everyone eats from them. At home that often means everyone dips into the same stew pot. Restaurants usually give you a small personal bowl and a ladle, and that’s the polite move for guests. Rice is the exception. Your rice bowl is yours, and you don’t share it.

Spoon or chopsticks?

Koreans use a long metal spoon (sutgarak) for rice and soup, and flat metal chopsticks (jeotgarak) for banchan. Unlike in Japan, you leave the rice bowl on the table instead of lifting it to your mouth. Don’t stand chopsticks upright in the rice, because that echoes the way food is offered at ancestral rites. Our guide to Korean dining etiquette and the 9 mistakes foreigners make goes through the rest, including who starts eating first.

The Korean pantry: 6 ingredients that make food taste Korean

Korean cooking runs on jang (장), a family of fermented soybean and chili products. These were traditionally made at home in large earthenware jars called onggi, and they still sit at the base of most dishes. Buy these six things and you can cook most of this guide.

Ingredient	What it does	Closest swap abroad	How to store it
Gochujang (고추장)	Thick fermented chili paste: sweet, savory and hot. Base for tteokbokki, bibimbap sauce and marinades	None really. Sriracha or chili paste lacks the fermented sweetness	Fridge after opening
Doenjang (된장)	Fermented soybean paste, funkier and saltier than miso. Base of doenjang jjigae and ssamjang	Red or brown miso, though it tastes milder and sweeter	Fridge after opening
Ganjang (간장)	Soy sauce. Jin-ganjang is the all-purpose kind, guk-ganjang is the lighter, saltier soup soy	Regular soy sauce for jin-ganjang. Use a little less for guk-ganjang dishes	Cool cupboard
Gochugaru (고춧가루)	Sun-dried red chili flakes, fruity and only moderately hot. Essential for kimchi and stews	Mild chili flakes plus a little sweet paprika, as a stopgap only	Freezer keeps the color and aroma
Sesame oil (참기름, chamgireum)	Toasted, nutty finishing oil for namul, bibimbap and dipping salt	Any toasted sesame oil (not the pale cold-pressed kind)	Cool, dark cupboard
Garlic and scallions (마늘, 대파)	The aromatic base of almost every dish, used in quantities that surprise newcomers	Any fresh garlic. Thick leeks can stand in for Korean large scallions (daepa)	Fresh

How to tell gochujang, doenjang and ssamjang apart

Gochujang is red and sticky. Doenjang is brown and coarse. Ssamjang (쌈장), the dip you get at BBQ restaurants, is basically the two mixed with garlic, sesame oil and sometimes sesame seeds. If you only have room for one tub, buy gochujang, then add doenjang once you start making stews.

The broth Koreans use instead of stock cubes

Many soups and stews start with a quick broth of dried anchovies and dried kelp (myeolchi yuksu, 멸치육수), simmered for roughly 15 minutes and strained. Asian grocers sell both, plus ready-made broth packs that work like tea bags. Plain water works for kimchi jjigae if you’re short on time, because the kimchi and pork bring plenty of flavor.

Kimchi explained: types, ageing and what to do with sour kimchi

Kimchi isn’t one dish. It’s a method: salt a vegetable, season it, and let lactic acid bacteria ferment it. Koreans keep several kinds in the fridge, and many households have a separate kimchi refrigerator built to hold steady fermentation temperatures. The autumn tradition of making a winter’s worth of kimchi together, kimjang (김장), is on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list, inscribed in 2013.

The kinds of kimchi you’ll meet most

• Baechu kimchi (배추김치): the napa cabbage version most people picture.
• Kkakdugi (깍두기): crunchy cubes of Korean radish, the classic side for beef soups.
• Oi sobagi (오이소박이): stuffed cucumber kimchi, eaten fresh and most popular in warm months.
• Chonggak kimchi (총각김치): whole small radishes with their greens.
• Baek kimchi (백김치): white kimchi without chili, mild and refreshing.
• Pa kimchi (파김치): scallion kimchi, sharp and pungent.

Fresh vs sour kimchi: which one to use

Freshly made kimchi is crunchy, salty and bright, and it’s good as a side dish. As it ferments it turns sour and softer, and that’s when it becomes a cooking ingredient. Very old kimchi, called mugeunji (묵은지), is prized for stew. If a jar in your fridge smells sharply sour, that’s your cue to cook with it, not to throw it out. (Throw it out if it’s slimy, fuzzy or smells rotten rather than tangy.)

Two recipes make the most of sour kimchi. Our kimchi jjigae recipe in 6 steps with pork and tofu is the everyday stew, and our kimchi fried rice guide explains why sour kimchi beats fresh in the pan. If you’re curious about the nutrition side, read whether kimchi is healthy, including the gut upside and the salt catch.

How Korean BBQ works at the table

At a Korean BBQ restaurant you cook the meat yourself on a grill set into the table, or the staff do it for you at busier or more upscale places. Meat is ordered by the portion, called inbun (인분), and many places expect you to order at least two portions, so solo diners sometimes get turned away at BBQ spots. Banchan, lettuce, sliced garlic, green chili and dipping sauces arrive before the meat.

Samgyeopsal, galbi, bulgogi or chadolbagi?

• Samgyeopsal (삼겹살): thick-cut pork belly, unmarinated. The default night out.
• Moksal (목살): pork neck, leaner and chewier than belly.
• Galbi (갈비): short ribs, pork (dwaeji galbi) or beef (so galbi), usually marinated in sweet soy.
• Bulgogi (불고기): thin marinated beef, often cooked on a domed pan rather than an open grill.
• Chadolbagi (차돌박이): paper-thin beef brisket that cooks in seconds.

How to make a ssam wrap in 4 moves

1. Lay a lettuce or perilla leaf flat in one hand.
2. Add a piece of grilled meat, a dab of ssamjang, and a slice of raw or grilled garlic.
3. Top with a little kimchi, scallion salad (pa-muchim) or green chili if you want it.
4. Fold it into one bite-sized parcel and eat it in one go. Biting a ssam in half is how the filling ends up in your lap.

What Koreans order after the meat

The meal isn’t over when the meat is gone. Common finishers are fried rice made on the grill with leftover kimchi and meat (bokkeumbap), a bowl of doenjang jjigae with rice, or cold naengmyeon to cool down. BBQ is also a drinking meal for many groups. If soju is on the table, read our Korean drinking etiquette guide with 7 soju rules before you pour your own glass (you don’t, by the way).

Jjigae, guk and tang: Korean stews and soups decoded

Soup is part of nearly every Korean meal, and the vocabulary tells you what kind you’re getting. Once you know the four words below, a Korean menu becomes far easier to read.

Type	Texture	How it’s served	Examples to try
Jjigae (찌개)	Thick, strongly seasoned, more solids than liquid	Bubbling in one pot, shared or as a set meal	Kimchi jjigae, doenjang jjigae, sundubu jjigae (soft tofu), budae jjigae (army stew with ham and noodles)
Guk (국)	Thinner, lighter broth	One bowl per person next to the rice	Miyeokguk (seaweed soup), kongnamul-guk (bean sprout soup), tteokguk (rice cake soup)
Tang (탕)	Long-simmered, often bone or meat broth	Individual bowl, often a full meal	Seolleongtang (milky ox bone soup), galbitang (short rib soup), samgyetang, gamjatang (pork spine stew)
Jeongol (전골)	Hot pot with neatly arranged ingredients	Cooked at the table for a group	Beef, mushroom or seafood jeongol

Why Koreans eat seaweed soup on birthdays

Miyeokguk is traditionally eaten by new mothers after giving birth, and by extension it became the birthday soup. Many Koreans still get a bowl on their birthday morning. Tteokguk plays a similar role at Lunar New Year, when a bowl symbolically adds a year. Our explainer on Korean age vs international age covers how that counting system worked.

Hot soup in summer?

Yes. On the hottest days of the year, called boknal, many Koreans eat samgyetang, a small whole chicken stuffed with sticky rice, garlic, jujube and ginseng. The logic is fighting heat with heat. If you’d rather cool down, mul-naengmyeon is the other summer classic. Our best time to visit Korea guide shows what each season feels like on the ground.

Korean street food and drinking food: what to look for

Korea’s street and snack food is cheap, fast and built for eating standing up. Markets such as Gwangjang Market in Seoul and the stall-lined streets of Myeongdong are the famous places to try it, but every neighborhood has a tteokbokki shop and a convenience store with a hot food counter.

Street snacks to try first

• Tteokbokki (떡볶이): rice cakes in red sauce, often sold with fish cake.
• Eomuk (어묵): fish cake on skewers in hot broth. You can usually sip the broth while you eat.
• Sundae (순대): Korean blood sausage stuffed with glass noodles, dipped in salt.
• Twigim (튀김): battered fried vegetables, squid or boiled egg, often dunked in tteokbokki sauce.
• Hotteok (호떡): a griddled pancake filled with brown sugar, cinnamon and nuts, a winter favorite.
• Bungeoppang (붕어빵): fish-shaped waffle filled with sweet red bean, another cold-weather classic.
• Gyeran-ppang (계란빵): a small sweet bread baked with a whole egg on top.

Hotteok and bungeoppang stalls tend to appear when the weather turns cold, which is one more reason to look at our list of things to do in Seoul in winter.

What is anju, and what is a pojangmacha?

Anju (안주) is food made to go with alcohol, and in Korea drinking almost always comes with food. Classic anju include haemul pajeon (seafood and scallion pancake, traditionally paired with makgeolli, a milky rice wine), dried squid, jokbal (braised pig’s trotters) and fried chicken. Chimaek, from chikin plus maekju (beer), is the name for the fried chicken and beer combination. A pojangmacha (포장마차) is a tented street bar or stall serving drinks and anju late into the night.

The instant noodle question

Instant ramyeon (라면) is a real part of Korean eating, not just student food. Koreans add egg, scallions, cheese or leftover kimchi, and some restaurants cook it to order. Our ranking of the best Korean instant ramen from mild to Buldak hot helps you pick packs at your local Asian grocer.

How to cook Korean food abroad: where to buy and what to swap

Korean home cooking is easier to reproduce abroad than many cuisines, because the hard parts (the fermented pastes) come in tubs and keep for months. Fresh produce is where you’ll need to improvise.

Where to buy Korean ingredients outside Korea

Start with a Korean supermarket if there’s one near you. In North America that often means H Mart, the large Korean grocery chain. Pan-Asian grocers usually carry gochujang, doenjang, gochugaru, frozen rice cakes, glass noodles and dried seaweed. Many big supermarkets now stock gochujang in the international aisle. Online Asian grocery shops fill the gaps, but check the shipping rules for fresh kimchi and refrigerated items in your country.

Swaps that work, and ones that don’t

• Korean radish (mu): daikon works well. It’s a little more watery.
• Short-grain rice: any Japanese-style short-grain or sushi rice is the same type of rice Koreans eat. Long-grain rice is too loose for bibimbap and gimbap.
• Perilla leaves (kkaennip): shiso is the nearest look-alike but tastes different. Use lettuce for wraps if you can’t find perilla.
• Asian pear in marinades: grated apple works. Kiwi tenderizes very fast, so keep it to short marinades.
• Salted shrimp (saeujeot) for kimchi: fish sauce is the usual substitute. Vegetarian kimchi can skip both and lean on salt and kelp broth.
• Rice syrup or corn syrup (jocheong, mulyeot): honey or plain sugar does the job.
• Gochugaru: this is the one to hunt down. Cayenne or crushed red pepper is far hotter and will turn kimchi bitter and fierce.

A worked example: a Korean weeknight dinner in about 40 minutes

Here’s what a realistic Korean home dinner looks like when you cook it in a kitchen abroad, using one tub of kimchi and supermarket staples.

1. Minute 0: wash short-grain rice and start it in a rice cooker or pot.
2. Minute 5: start kimchi jjigae: fry sliced pork belly, add sour kimchi and a spoon of gochugaru, then water or anchovy broth.
3. Minute 15: while the stew simmers, blanch spinach for 30 seconds, squeeze it dry and season it with salt, garlic and sesame oil. That’s your first banchan.
4. Minute 25: make a quick rolled omelette (gyeran-mari) with egg and chopped scallion, or simply cut sheets of seasoned seaweed.
5. Minute 35: add tofu to the stew, simmer briefly, then bring everything to the table at once with kimchi on the side.

That’s a complete Korean table: rice, stew, kimchi and two banchan. It costs you one shopping trip and very little technique. The next step up is the bibimbap below, which turns the same blanched-vegetable method into a one-bowl meal.

Common mistakes foreigners make with Korean food

Most of these come up at the table in Korea, and some in your own kitchen. None will cause a scene, but avoiding them makes the food taste better and the meal go smoother.

• Ordering banchan: they come with the meal. Ask for refills instead.
• Eating the BBQ lettuce like a salad: it’s for wrapping meat. Ask for more when you run low.
• Using cayenne instead of gochugaru: your kimchi or stew will be harsher and much hotter than intended.
• Making kimchi jjigae with fresh kimchi: it tastes flat. Let it sour first, or add a splash of kimchi brine and a pinch of sugar.
• Lifting the rice bowl: in Korea it stays on the table, and you eat rice with the spoon.
• Pouring your own drink in company: Koreans pour for each other, and younger people pour for older ones.
• Leaving bibimbap unmixed: it’s designed to be stirred together, sauce and all.
• Ignoring the salt: stews, jang and kimchi add up. Balance a meal with plain rice and lighter namul, and check the sodium on store-bought products if you’re watching your intake.
• Assuming everything is spicy, or nothing is: the same restaurant may serve mild bulgogi and fiery buldak (fire chicken). Read the menu or ask.

What about vegetarians and allergies?

Korean food looks vegetable-heavy, but meat, anchovy broth and fish sauce or salted shrimp turn up in places you might not expect, including most kimchi and many stews. Korean Buddhist temple cuisine is the traditional plant-based option, and some restaurants in Seoul specialize in it. If you have an allergy, carry a card in Korean that names the ingredient, because a spoken request can get lost in a busy kitchen.

Korean food glossary: Hangul, romanization and meaning

These are the words and phrases you’ll see on menus and hear at the table. Romanization follows the Revised Romanization system Korea uses on its road signs. If you want to read menus yourself, our plan to learn Hangul’s 24 letters in one weekend pays off quickly, and portions are counted with Sino-Korean numbers, explained in our guide to native and Sino-Korean numbers.

English	Korean	Romanization	When to use it
Cooked rice; a meal	밥	bap	Rice at every meal. “Bap meogeosseoyo?” (Have you eaten?) is also a greeting
Side dishes	반찬	banchan	The small shared plates that come with the meal
Thick stew	찌개	jjigae	Menu word for stews like kimchi jjigae
Soup	국	guk	Lighter individual soups
Long-simmered soup	탕	tang	Bone and meat soups such as galbitang
Savory pancake	전	jeon	Pancakes such as pajeon, common at holidays and with makgeolli
Lettuce or leaf wrap	쌈	ssam	Wrapping BBQ meat. Ssamjang is the dip that goes in it
Food eaten with alcohol	안주	anju	Bar and pub menus
Portion (per person)	인분	inbun	Ordering BBQ: “samgyeopsal i-inbun” is two portions of pork belly
Excuse me! (to call staff)	여기요	yeogiyo	Calling a server in a restaurant. Polite and normal
This one, please	이거 주세요	igeo juseyo (polite)	Pointing at a menu item or photo
Not spicy, please	안 맵게 해 주세요	an maepge hae juseyo (polite)	Asking for less chili when the kitchen can adjust it
More side dishes, please	반찬 더 주세요	banchan deo juseyo (polite)	Asking for banchan refills
Thank you for the meal (before eating)	잘 먹겠습니다	jal meokgetseumnida (formal)	Said before eating, especially when someone else is paying or cooked
That was a good meal (after eating)	잘 먹었습니다	jal meogeotseumnida (formal)	Said after eating to the host, or to staff as you leave
The bill, please	계산해 주세요	gyesanhae juseyo (polite)	At the end. In many places you pay at the counter by the door

For more survival language beyond the table, see our list of 20 basic Korean phrases for travelers.

FAQ

What is the most popular food in Korea?

There’s no single official answer, but kimchi is eaten at nearly every meal, and rice is the base of almost all of them. For dishes, kimchi jjigae, samgyeopsal, fried chicken and tteokbokki are everyday favorites you’ll find everywhere. Bibimbap and bulgogi are often the best-known abroad.

Is Korean food very spicy?

Some of it is, but a lot isn’t. Gochugaru and gochujang bring heat to stews, kimchi and tteokbokki, while bulgogi, galbi, japchae, gimbap and most clear soups have no chili at all. At restaurants you can often ask for less spice, though some dishes are made in batches and can’t be adjusted.

What should I eat on my first trip to Korea?

Plan one Korean BBQ dinner, one market visit for street food, a bibimbap or kimchi jjigae lunch, and a fried chicken night. Add a bowl of naengmyeon in summer or hotteok from a street stall in winter. That covers the main styles of Korean eating in a few days.

Can I make Korean food without a Korean grocery store?

Yes, if you can get gochujang, soy sauce, sesame oil and ideally gochugaru, which many Asian grocers and online shops sell. Bulgogi, bibimbap, japchae and kimchi fried rice all work with otherwise standard supermarket ingredients. Kimchi itself is the dish that most rewards proper gochugaru.

How long does homemade kimchi last?

Kept cold in a sealed container, kimchi keeps for a long time but keeps changing as it ferments, getting more sour. Eat it fresh as a side dish early on and use it for stews and fried rice once it’s sour. Discard it if you see mold, a slimy texture or a rotten rather than tangy smell.

Do you tip at restaurants in Korea?

Tipping isn’t a custom at ordinary Korean restaurants, and the price on the menu is what you pay. In many casual places you settle the bill at the counter near the exit rather than at the table. Some upscale or hotel restaurants add a service charge, which will be shown on the bill.

Your Korean food plan: a 7-step checklist for what to cook and eat next

Work through these in order and you’ll go from reading menus to cooking a full Korean table at home.

1. Stock the core pantry: gochujang, doenjang, soy sauce, gochugaru, toasted sesame oil and short-grain rice.
2. Buy a jar of kimchi and taste it fresh, then leave part of it in the fridge to sour for stew.
3. Cook bibimbap using the recipe card above. It teaches you namul, the base of most banchan.
4. Make kimchi jjigae once your kimchi turns sour, and use the leftovers for kimchi fried rice.
5. Try a Korean BBQ restaurant near you and practice the four-move ssam wrap.
6. Learn the table phrases in the glossary, starting with yeogiyo and jal meokgetseumnida.
7. Plan your eating trip by season: naengmyeon and samgyetang in summer, hotteok and stews in winter, and songpyeon (half-moon rice cakes) during the autumn harvest holiday, explained in our guide to Chuseok, Korea’s 3-day harvest holiday.

Once those are done, the next dishes to tackle are japchae for a party, homemade gimbap for a picnic and, when you’re ready for a weekend project, your own napa cabbage kimchi.

Related reading

• Kimchi Jjigae Recipe (김치찌개): 6 Steps, Pork and Tofu
• Is Kimchi Healthy for You? The Gut Upside and the Salt Catch
• Best Korean Instant Ramen: 8 Packs From Mild to Buldak Hot

Sources k-korea.blog

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