Korean Spicy Rice Cakes (Tteokbeoki) – Asian Recipes At Home (2024)

Make our easy Korean spicy rice cakes (tteokbeoki) recipe. Korean spicy rice cakes (tteokbeoki) is a very popular street food in Korea. This is the perfect spicy appetizer or snack.

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Korean Spicy Rice Cakes (Tteokbeoki) – Asian Recipes At Home (1)

Our family just loves this recipe. It is so easy to make. This recipe also has a lot of great elements, such as spiciness, chewy texture, and umami-rich sauce. Our recipe is made of rice cakes, fish cakes, gochujang, Dasida beef flavor soup stock, and a few other common ingredients that are probably in your pantry already.

How Korean rice cakes (tteok) were made a long time ago

Before rice cakes were made automatically in machines and readily packaged at grocery stores, my mom remembers taking soaked rice to the rice cake (tteok) processing house where they had machines to specifically make fresh rice cakes (tteok). Tteokbeoki was traditionally made with leftover pieces from the rice cakes used to make Korean Rice Cake Soup (tteokguk).

My mom remembers her dad preparing their rice to take to the rice cake-making shop. He would soak the rice overnight and rinse the rice well. Then the next day, mom remembers them taking the rice to a rice cake (tteok) processing house. The owners of the rice cake (tteok) house would usually help their customers with the rice cake-making process. Mom remembers seeing her freshly made rice cake come out of the machine, they would then cut the fresh rice cake (tteok) from the machine, let it drop in a bucket of cold water, and then finally package it up and take it home to cook in their recipes. How cool?! After making Korean Rice Cake Soup (tteokguk) from nicely sliced and fresh rice cake, they would cut up the leftover rice cake into pieces to make Korean Spicy Rice Cake (tteokbeoki).

Rice cakes made for tteokbeoki today are easily found in Asian markets in the frozen aisle ready for you to thaw and use. There are also many different sizes and shapes of rice cakes available today.

Korean Spicy Rice Cakes (Tteokbeoki) – Asian Recipes At Home (2)Korean Spicy Rice Cakes (Tteokbeoki) – Asian Recipes At Home (3)

Rice cakes are used in many different Korean recipes

There are many different Korean recipes that utilize rice cakes. Here are some other dishes that use rice cakes:

  1. Non-spicy rice cakes (tteokbeoki) made with soy sauce (check out our recipe here)
  2. Korean rice cake soup (tteokguk) (check out one of our recipes here)
  3. A lot of Koreans also like to put rice cakes into their ramen (we added it to our instant ramen hack recipe)

We hope you enjoy our Korean Spicy Rice Cakes (Tteokbeoki) recipe!

Need more spicy recipes to try?

  • Spicy Korean Cucumber Salad
  • Korean Spicy Poke Salad (Sallet) Side Dish (Muchim)
  • Spicy Korean Pork Belly and Squid Stir Fry
  • Korean Cold Noodles with Spicy Sweet and Sour Gochujang Sauce

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Korean Spicy Rice Cakes (Tteokbeoki) – Asian Recipes At Home (4)

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Make our easy Korean spicy rice cakes (tteokbeoki) recipe. Korean spicy rice cakes (tteokbeoki) is a very popular street food in Korea. This is the perfect spicy appetizer or snack.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Rinse the rice cakes and drain well.
  2. Put a medium-sized pan onto medium-high heat. Add in olive oil and the rice cakes, stir well and cook until the rice cakes get soft (about 6-8 minutes). Add about a tablespoon of water at a time, so the rice cakes don’t burn to the bottom of the pan.
  3. Next, add the fish cake pieces and stir fry for another 2 minutes.
  4. Add the remaining ingredients to the frying pan and cook for another 2 minutes. Continue adding a tablespoon of water at a time to ensure nothing burns to the bottom of the pan.
  5. Sprinkle with sesame seeds (optional). Enjoy!

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Asiandeliciouseasyfish cakesKoreanKorean reciperice cakesspicy

Korean Spicy Rice Cakes (Tteokbeoki) – Asian Recipes At Home (2024)

FAQs

Why is my homemade tteokbokki not chewy? ›

Though all rice cakes taste like pounded rice (even the ones made with brown rice vary little in their taste), the specific shape dramatically affects the texture. Thin slices are significantly less chewy than large, cylindrical rice cakes that are genuinely toothsome in the degree of their chewiness.

What is tteokbokki sauce made of? ›

Tteokbokki sauce is made of Korean red pepper paste (gochujang), Korean red pepper flakes (gochugaru), sugar, soy sauce, and garlic. It's traditionally combined with anchovy stock to create a flavorful base for rice cakes, but water or other stock can be used.

Are Korean rice cakes healthy for you? ›

Rice cakes are generally a healthy snack if you opt for whole-grain options, especially when paired with avocado, fruit, or nut butter. Cynthia Sass is a nutritionist and registered dietitian with master's degrees in both nutrition science and public health.

Do Korean rice cakes need to be soaked? ›

“Otherwise the rice cakes are dried very hard and you have to cook them a long time to make them smooth,” she said. In addition, soaking removes any excess starch on the surface of the cakes, which Maangchi likes to do so that it doesn't thicken her dish too much.

How to tell if tteokbokki is bad? ›

If you notice a sudden change in color or visible mold growth, or if the cakes have a strong, unpleasant odor, they have likely gone bad. Another sign of declining quality, while not necessarily a sign of expiration, is tteok that is hard or crumbly rather than moist and springy.

Do Korean rice cakes need to be refrigerated? ›

A: Avoid direct sunlight and store in a cool place. You do not need to keep it in the refrigerator. However, after opening the inner package (individual wrapping paper), it should be stored in the refrigerator.

What does tteokbokki mean in English? ›

Tteok means rice cake and bokki stir-fried food. Combining these two words forms the term tteokbokki, or “stir-fried rice cake.” Ask Koreans what food makes them most nostalgic about their childhood and tteokbokki is the first thing they'll say.

What is a substitute for tteokbokki? ›

Photo: Penne-bokki - substitute of tteokbokki, a traditional korean dish, instead of using rice cakes we use penne pasta mixed with fishcakes and a hard boiled egg. Uses a sweet chilli sauce.

What is the Chinese version of tteokbokki? ›

Shanghai stir-fried rice cakes have a sweeter flavor due to the addition of hoisin sauce. Unlike the Korean stir-fried rice cakes recipe called tteokbokki, this Shanghai-style rice cake recipe is less spicy, sweeter, and has less sauce.

What do rice cakes do to your body? ›

Rice cakes may raise your blood sugar, particularly if you eat multiple servings in one sitting or if you choose sweet-flavored varieties that contain added sugar. They're mostly carbs and have very little protein and fiber to slow the effect of these carbs on your blood sugar.

Do rice cakes spike blood sugar? ›

Some rice cakes are really not a good choice at all. Rice is a high glycemic index grain, even when it's whole grain (brown), so it can spike blood sugar levels. What's more, some brands add sugar or corn syrup to their rice cakes.

How to know when tteokbokki is done? ›

Let it simmer and keep stirring until the rice cake turns soft and the tteokbokki sauce thickens and looks shiny, which should take about 10 to 15 minutes. If the rice cake is not soft enough, add more water and continue stirring until it softens.

Do I soak tteokbokki in warm or cold water? ›

Do I need to soak tteokbokki rice cakes? If you have fresh rice cakes you don't need to soak them. If you are using ones that are packaged or frozen, give them a soak in warm water to loosen them up and rehydrate them a bit.

What does Bokki mean in Korean? ›

' tteok ' is the Korean word for rice cake and 'bokki' is the Korean word for something fried.

Is tteokbokki supposed to be very chewy? ›

Tteokbokki is chewy rice cakes cooked in a red, spicy broth. It's a popular Korean street food.

Why is tteokbokki hard to chew? ›

Overcooking: If you overcook the rice cakes, they can become hard and chewy. Make sure to monitor the cooking time and remove them from the heat as soon as they are tender and slightly chewy. High heat: Cooking the rice cakes at too high of a heat can also cause them to become hard.

What texture should Korean rice cakes be? ›

Tteokbokki: Korea's Favorite Street Food

The texture of the rice cake is chewy and bouncy, and super satisfying.

What makes glutinous rice flour chewy? ›

If you've eaten glutinous Japanese rice flour before, you've likely noticed it has a sticky and chewy texture. It gets this consistency because it has a lot of amylopectin starch.

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