Korean street food is a cultural icon around the world with their eye-catching snacks. From savory to sweet, these popular recipes will help you create delicious Korean street food easily at home reminiscing the flavor from the Korean street food vendors.
Korean street food has brought to the world a trendy sensation recently along with other Korean cultural influences; k-pop, k-drama, k-movie, k-beauty, and k-fashion.
How Korean street food began
Street food is an important part of Korean people’s life. It started during the Korean war in the 50s, to provide affordable meals to people in a lower standard. The menus were limited back then: tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes), boiled fish cake skewers, and hotteok are the most commonly seen dishes.
However, over the time the popularity of street food has extended to all classes of Koreans regardless of their economical status. The number of street venders have increased and even retail outlets specializing the street food had emerged.
These days, street food has become an important part of Korean food culture. You can find popular Korean street foods not only on the major streets in the cities, many markets, school districts, and town events will host street food fairs and festivals in all parts of south Korea around the year.
It’s entertaining to watch street food vendor’s hands moving very fast making their signature dish right in front of their customers. New menus are constantly being developed and draw attention from people to try out.
Here are 18+ popular Korean street food recipes that you already have tried before when you visited Korea, or never had but intriguing you to try out.
All of these street food recipes are easy to recreate at home and will bring the nostalgia of Korean experience you had or want to have.
Popular Korean Street Food Recipes
1
Hotteok Recipe (Korean Sweet Pancake)
Hotteok (Korean sweet pancake) is light and chewy fried yeast dough filled with cinnamon brown sugar syrup. With this recipe, you can easily make a must-try Korean sweet snack at home.
Dakgangjeong is a crispy Korean chicken coated with a sticky, tangy, sweet, and spicy sauce. Chicken thigh pieces are deep-fried twice and glazed with a dakgangjeong sauce made with gochujang and chili sauce
Learn how to make delicious homemade mandu (Korean dumplings) from scratch with these step-by-step instructions. Filled with pork, cabbage, chives, and Korean sweet potato noodles, these mandu couldn't be more delicious. Recipe makes 40 large dumplings.
This Korean scallion pancake originated from Busan. Traditionally this pancake is made with mixed seafood, but that is optional. Using two different types of flours makes the pancakes very crisp on the outside.
Kimbap is Korean seaweed rice roll including rice, vegetables, and seaweed. This recipe makes beautiful Korean kimbap easily. It serves as a perfect finger food.
Mini seaweed rice rolls (mayak gimbap, kimbap) are addictive. These rice rolls are perfect gluten-free, vegetarian & vegan dish. Serve with a mustard dipping sauce
Tteokbooki is a spicy Korean rice cake dish and it is a quintessential Korean street food. This recipe will make sweet, spicy, and chewy rice cakes with easy homemade tteokbokki sauce.
Gimmari are crispy Korean fried seaweed rolls and a common Korean street food. Seasoned glass noodles are wrapped in seaweed, and deep-fried to golden crisp.
Dalgona is a traditional Korean sugar candy made with sugar and baking soda. This nostalgic candy recipe is popular via social media because of how it is made – in a soup ladle!
These Rice cake skewers (Ttoek-kkochi) are another variation of popular Korean street food. The rice cakes are pan-fried on skewers and glazed with a delicious sauce made with gochujang.
These sweet potato rice donuts are made with fresh sweet potato and rice flour. They make soft and chewy donuts coated with cinnamon sugar. Omit the wheat flour if you want them to be gluten-free.
Bindaetteok (Korean mung bean pancakes) are made with ground pork, mung bean puree, mung bean sprouts, and kimchi. There's no added flour in the recipe, which makes this savory snack a wonderful gluten-free dish!
Beat eggs in a large mixing bowl and add the shredded cabbage, carrot, green onion, and a pinch of salt; mix well.
Melt 1 tablespoon of butter on a skillet over medium low heat. Spoon in a portion of egg and vegetable mixture, and spread it around to about the size of your sandwich bread. (You can make two egg pieces at a time)
Cook the egg omelette 2-3 minutes on one side and flip. Cook until golden brown. Transfer the omelette to a plate and repeat the next batch.
Heat ham slices briefly, about 30-60 seconds; set aside.
Melt remaining tablespoon of butter and toast the sandwich bread until golden and crisp.
To assemble the toast
Put a piece of egg omelet on the toast. Sprinkle about 2 teaspoon of sugar (or however much you desire), and squirt some ketchup on top. Place a slice of ham and a cheese on top and top with the another toasted bread.
If you like your toast crunchier, add shredded cabbage between the layers of the condiments and ham.