Bulgogi Recipe
How to make the famous Korean Beef Recipe

Bulgogi is one of South Korea’s most well-known dishes and is often the first one people try.  Bulgogi sauce is based on soy sauce with a few extra ingredients added for enhanced flavour.  

Once you have made the sauce, you can keep it in the fridge for months, then when you want to add some flavour to beef, pork or chicken, you can just simply add a few tablespoons of Bulgogi sauce.

The sauce is widely used throughout my site and Korean cooking, so it’s a great sauce to make. I have split the recipe into the sauce and then the beef so you can choose to make just the sauce or go on and make a delicious Korean Bulgogi beef.

The Sauce

I have used the following ingredients for the bulgogi sauce:

• 300ml Soy sauce 
• 1 medium Apple 
• 1 Asian Pear (use 2 normal pears if Asian pears are not available) 
• 1 medium onion 
• 5 cloves of Garlic

Put all the ingredients into a blender, I whisk until they are very small. Then keep the sauce into jars. The bubbles will set in a short time, this sauce can be kept in the fridge for several weeks.

Making Beef Bulgogi

Ingredients:

• 400g sliced beef
• 1 Carrot
• Half Onion
• 3 Mushrooms (Enoki mushrooms if you can get)
• Bulgogi sauce

To make the Bulgogi beef I use about 400g of beef for 2-3 people. Thin sliced is best (2-3mm) I ask my butcher for sliced feather-blade, but cubed beef is good, and can be cut into smaller pieces very easily.

I add a thin sliced carrot, half an onion sliced and 3 mushrooms, I pop this all into bowl and add about 5 tablespoons of the sauce from the jars followed by a teaspoon of honey (you may want a bit more honey if you like a sweeter flavour).

I mix this all together and put into a freezer bag then into the fridge to marinate overnight. (You don't need to, but I feel it improves the flavour. If you are short of time I recommend a minimum of 30 minutes to marinate.)

To cook the beef, put some oil in a pan and a bit of sesame oil. Then fry marinated mixtures until well cooked and serve on a plate, this probably needs about 10 – 15 minutes.

This Bulgogi recipe is best eaten with rice for main dish or make a cold bulgogi salad and some side dishes. 

You can make lettuce wraps like the picture below,  add rice and meat to a piece of lettuce, add some Ssamjang if you have any and enjoy it. You can serve lettuce wraps with most Korean meat dishes.

Very delicious and really easy to make. Give it a go and tell me what you think!

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