Dakgalbi is a delicious, spicy grilled chicken dish that’s a popular choice for friends who are getting together to go out to eat. In Korea it’s communal dish that’s cooked and shared among a small, intimate group of people, so it naturally stimulates conversation and a good time. It’s impossible to eat dakgalbi in silence!
When you go to a restaurant with your friends and family and order dakgalbi, they’ll bring out a large pan filled with the dakgalbi ingredients as well as some side dishes. While the pan cooks on the tabletop, you and your friends can munch on side dishes and talk, and maybe order some drinks, too. The dakgalbi will cook nicely and the waitress will tell you: “Now you can eat!”
When you’re almost completely finished, you can ask the waitress: “We’d like some stir-fried rice please.” She’ll bring out some rice, mix it with the leavings in the pan, and quickly fry up some spicy, stir fried rice. She might divide the rice into portions and serve it to everyone at the table, or she might just leave it in the pan and let everyone dig in. For many people I know, this is their favorite part!
Don’t have a dakgalbi restaurant near you? Now you can make it at home! Invite your family and friends over, and prepare all the ingredients.
“Are you guys ready to eat dakgalbi?” you can ask.
“Yes, yes!”
Bring out the pan filled with vegetables, chicken, rice cake, and the sauce, and cook it at the table. Your house will be full of an irresistible, delicious aroma, laughter, and conversation, I guarantee!
This is an updated version of my earlier recipe, posted in 2013. This version is simplified by skipping gochujang and mirim, but I add some milk for the chicken to marinate. After I posted my old recipe in 2013, I learned adding some milk to chicken removes the not only the smell but also make it tender.
Ingredients
Serves 2 to 3
For chicken and marinade:
- 1 pound deboned chicken thigh (or drumsticks), cut into small bite sized pieces
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
For the seasoning sauce:
- 12 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon peeled and minced ginger
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- ½ cup water
- ⅓ cup gochu-garu (Korean hot pepper flakes)
- 2 tablespoons rice syrup (or corn syrup, or sugar)
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
Veggies and rice cakes:
- 4 ounces sliced rice cake (1 cup), soaked in cold water at least 10 minutes
- 8 ounces cabbage, cored and cut into bite sized pieces
- 4 ounces (½ of large onion), sliced
- 1 small carrot (about ⅓ cup), peeled and sliced
- 1 or 2 green chili peppers, sliced
- ¾ cup peeled sweet potato, sliced into ¼ inch thick bite size pieces.
- 12 perilla leaves (or basil leaves), cut or ton a few times
- ½ cup water
- 1 bowl of rice (optional)
- ¼ cup chopped fermented kimchi (optional)
Directions
Marinate chicken:
- Combine the chicken, milk, soy sauce, and ground black pepper in a bowl and mix all together with a spoon.
- Cover and set aside.
Make seasoning sauce:
- Combine the minced garlic, ginger, soy sauce, water, gochu-garu (Korean hot pepper flakes), rice syrup, and ground black pepper in a bowl. Mix well with a spoon and set aside.
Cook and serve:
- Spread the cabbage on the bottom of a large, heavy, and shallow pan or skillet.
- Add onion, carrot, green chili pepper, sweet potato, rice cake, and perilla leaves in that order.
- Add the chicken in the center. Pour the seasoning sauce over the chicken and spread it with a wooden spoon. Add 1/2 cup water.
- Cover and cook for 3 to 4 minutes over medium high heat until it starts boiling. Turn down the heat to medium. Open and stir with wooden spoon so that the pan doesn’t burn and the ingredients and sauce mix evenly. Cover and cook another 13 to 15 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the chicken and sweet potato are cooked thoroughly.
- Keep the heat low during the meal. Cook, stir, eat, and talk. The pieces will be hot, so be careful! Turn off the heat when the chicken and potato are totally cooked.
- Give a bowl to each diner. They can each take some out of the pan into their bowl, and eat. When it’s almost totally finished, make some fried rice by adding some rice and chopped kimchi to what’s left on the grill. Stir with a wooden spoon over medium heat for a few minutes. Serve in separate bowls, or give everyone a spoon and let them eat from the pan together.
Maangchi's Amazon picks for this recipe
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Haha! Awesome! This turned out just like I remembered it in Korea (except I made mine spicier – with the hotter gochujang). I really disliked the food “trends” in Korea. 닭갈비 was big in Gyeonggi-do… so many 닭갈비 restaurants… then they mostly disappeared. The same was true with “Red Samgyupsal” (PLEASE post a recipe for that!) and Buldak (Hong Cho buldak – I made your recipe, but there was no comparison). They all disappeared. Anyhow, my massive 14 inch cast iron skillet worked just fine. I even doubled the recipe so my wife could have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Deeee-licious! Thank you!
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Wow! As long as the cast iron skillet, you can make this forever! : ) It looks so nice!
Thank you. Your compliment means a lot to me. ^^
Hi Maangchi! I love your videos and I even watch them when I’m doing intermittent fasting for my diet. I really want to make dakgalbi and I’m wondering if I have to soak my frozen rice cakes in hot water first before adding to the pan with vegetables and chicken. Or do I just thaw the frozen rice cakes in the refrigerator and add to the pan?
Thanks for making such awesome videos! ❤️
How many pax does this serve?
Made Dakgalbi for the second time today. This time I had garaetteok and perilla leaves available, only left out the sweet potato, as combined with rice it contains carbohydrates more than enough.
Substituted the green chillies with green bell pepper, as the local chillies are hotter than the korean ones, and with the gochujang it´s spicy enough for me.
For marinating the chicken (breast this time), I added a little salt, minced garlic, some white wine, and a couple of drops of sesame oil to the soy sauce, then pan fried it before adding to the veggies: the result was very tasty, I can only recommend this.
I’m glad to hear that your Korean cooking is going well! I hope that there are some Korean ingredients easily available to you in Ecuador! I found 4 stores submitted by my readers: https://www.maangchi.com/shopping/ecuador
Kam sa ham ni da! Yes, I´m improving, and the main ingredients I can get in the korean groceries in Quito. My preferred store is Seoul Market, which I submitted to you myself. Only thing which seems impossible to get is korean pear: wanted to make Bulgogi.
Can you find any other types of pears? I have made bulgogi with other pears before, and the end result isn’t really that different :). You can even try using apples – I would stick to a sweet, less-tart variety though. Hope this helps!
I shred kiwi fruit for bulgogi. It’s not as tart as North American/European apples and adds a nice gloss to the meat as it cooks.
Just a note – video show 1 teaspoon of kosher salt in the sauce but the printed recipe leaves that out. The salt is needed.
Just made this for the second time and YUM. Substituted kabocha squash for the sweet potato since I had some and don’t like sweet potato, and it was YUM. What a great recipe! Thanks. Was also thrilled to find huge perilla leaves – not so common here in Japan.
Yesterday I made Dakgalbi.
Instead of drumsticks, I bought whole chicken legs: cost me a helluva time to debone them, but afterwards cooked the bones to make a deliciousss broth for Dak-kalguksu. Left the chicken meat with seasoning in the fridge over night, and stir fried it before putting it in the veggies: to enhance the taste. Also fried the onions before, as I love the taste of fried onions.
Unfortunately, had to do without garaetteok and perilla leaves, as I don´t have them available locally. Sure got them on my shopping list for my next trip to Quito, though.
Don´t have Mirim (Jap. Mirin) either, but used dry white wine with sugar as a substitute, as I do when cooking Sukiyaki, which works perfectly. Mirin in fact is sweetened Saké.
The result was very yummie. Made a double portion, so I had it with rice for lunch yesterday and today, and put the rest in the freezer for future occasions. Not everybody´s taste, though, as it does get a little spicy… ;)
Thank you, Maangchi, for this wonderful recipe!
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You used chicken legs for many different dishes! All the dishes sound good to me! The spicy dakgalbi looks great!
For the Dakgalbi, what can you substitute for the Perilla leaves. My Thai wife and family moved back to Thailand, and I can’t find that item.
I would use some basil or celery leaves if perilla leaves are not available.
can i not put in the hot pepper flakes??
Hi Maangchi!
This looks so good. Inquisitive minds are wondering if you’re able to disclose which DakGalbi place was your fav in Toronto. :)
Thx.
M.
It’s “Joon” restaurant located on 605 Bloor Street West,Toronto but I’m not sure if they are still open.
hello dear maangchi we love korean food almost everyday i made korean dishes.but i have real problem in finding some korean ingrediants in israel. for example perilla leaves is impossible to find here, may be i can use a substitute? i enjoy your videos it is easy to learn from you thanks alot
zipi
It looks like I’m the only one here who thought this was too spicy!
I loved this recipe. Thank you so much! But next time I will only use 1/4 cup hot pepper flakes. I will have a hard time finishing this! hahahaha
I’m not sure if it’s just because I’ve been outside of Korea for about 7 months or if it’s just a really spicy recipe. I used to eat the normal 닭갈비 at 유가네 all the time in Seoul and it was never too spicy. I almost can’t eat this. It tastes amazing, but it’s way too spicy.
It could be the hot pepper paste or flakes since there are different levels of heat for either. If it were me, I’d leave out the flakes instead of the paste because there’s seasoning in the paste. just my opinion.
Hello! Thanks for the great post. We really love Dakgalbi and planning to serve this dish in our next gathering. May we know how to make the sauce for more people? The above should be for 2 persons? What if we have 20 guests coming over? Do we times the above recipe with 20? Please advise and thanks
Hello ! Maangchi!! I just registered and I couldn’t wait to leave a reply here! :D
Oh my goodness, I used to live in Chuncheon! And I remember dakgalbi – yum, and naengmyun, mmm!
That sounds good too :) everything sounds good
Here
Lol
I made this for dinner tonight. WOW! It was really good! Spicy spicy! Luckily, we like spicy food and this hit all the right notes for me. I used boneless chicken thighs since that was what I had in the fridge and it came together really well. I love that it has so many veggies in it. Thanks for another winning recipe, Maangchi!
Made this for the first time last week and it was amazing! The flavour is so authentic. Really delicious and easy to make!
Maangchi I love your blogs and your recipes (and my fiancé thanks too!). Also your instructional videos are fantastic. So fun to watch because you’re so cute and charming!
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I stayed in chuncheon for a few months and this is my favourite dish!!
Yes, the city of Chuncheon is famous for dakgalbi in Korea. When you made this dish, you probably had good memories.
I taught in Korea 12 years ago and I love this dish so much! I tried to make it once but it turned out very badly. Tonight I made this recipe.
THANK-YOU SO MUCH!
It was so delicious and just like what I had in restaurants in Daejon. I am so happy to know how to cook this and my husband loved it too!
I am so happy to hear that you enjoyed this recipe! You lived in Korea for 12 years! No wonder you want to make Korean dishes at home! Happy cooking!
Hi Maangchi! i can’t wait to make this dakgalbi ! thank you for the recipe and i’m sure when i make it it will be very delicious because i really like spicy food but i don’t have perilla leaves what can i do please?? and then can i put normal potatoes offset sweet potatoes because in my town it’s rare to find it ?
I am a U.S. service member who has lived in Korea for almost 2 years. Just discovered Dakgalbi a few months ago and my wife and I have tried to replicate our favorite restaurant in Pyeongtaek city. When I made this recipe tonight, it was very very close. much closer than any other recipe we’ve ever done. thank you for sharing. It was delicious.
I made this yesterday after a Korean friend recommended the dish. It was gorgeous! Thanks for a great blog. The video really helped me cut up the drumsticks as I’ve never done that before.
I had two problems. My local grocery stores don’t have perilla leaves.
Also instead of hit pepper flakes I bought a packet of dried red chillis that we’re way hotter. Even though I used a 1/3 of the amount they still made the dish a bit painful! :)
It sounds like you made great dakgalbi! If perilla leaves are not available, you could use some minty herbs like parsley or bay leaves. Good luck with your Korean cooking!
That’s a great tip! I should point out that, depending on the climate, perilla is very easy to grow. My local Korean market sells lots of seeds (radish, peppers, melon, zucchini and other hobak, etc).
Perilla doesn’t mind a little shade either. I’ve grown it successfully a few times. The one time it didn’t grow so well was because the pot I used was too small (needs at least 5 gallons of soil) one plant can make 2 people happy easily. 2 plants is even better if one uses it for ssam a lot. If you need seeds, this company always has fresh seed https://www.kitazawaseed.com/seed_260-172.html
I don’t think the seeds I get from my local Korean market are always so fresh — low germination rates.
This was easy and delicious! Perilla leaves were not easily available, so I improvised. I was looking for something green, so I decided on broccoli florets. Can’t wait to make this again.
If you’re into growing things, you can buy the perilla/shiso/beefsteak/kennip (all the same plant) seeds on Amazon. You can also buy them at Japanese grocery stores, and in many health food stores. I recommend trying to get them because their taste is very distinct and definitely adds a huge impact to this dish!
I made this tonight and it is so good! I was worried because I don’t have a shallow pan like that, so I made it in a big pot. It turned out great and I can’t wait to finish it so I can make kimchi bokkeumbap!
yay, congratulations! From now on, it will be easier for you to make delcious dakgalbi because you already made it once!
Hi Maangchi”
Can’t wait to cook this…but first may I ask…if I lessen the pepper paste or pepper flakes wouldn’t it affect the yumminess? I have friends who can’t take too spicy so it’s for their sake! And what would you recommend to lessen…pepper flakes or paste? Thank you,
It will still be tasty even though you use less hot pepper flakes.
hihi, we just made the recipe and it was so good. Thank you so much. But instead of rice we actually used ramen noodles. The original dish came out nice, but ramen noodles were soft and not “fried/crunchy” like they do it korea at “bok-em” places. Would you by any chance know how to do that?
Happy Holidays
Whoa! That was so good. And so easy. After shoveling a bunch of snow and playing in the cold, this is an excellent meal to share with friends and family. Thank you!
One day I’ll have to make it! It looks so good… so delicious. Till then – all the best for the soon coming Winter Hollidays and may you have a Wonderful Christmas and A Happy New Year!!
I’m listening to Christmas carol at the moment. Thank you for your nice message!
Hi Maangchi! Greetings from Ottawa! New intro looks great & this dish looks delicious! I bet this would work for pork or veal as well. Now all I have to do is find some perilla leaves!
Keep up the good work :)
aww! Thanks a lot! “this would work for pork or veal as well.” It sounds wonderful!
Maangchi ….Love the dish !!! and I love the new Intro too
: ) thank you!!!
I make it Chuncheon style with some curry powder mixed in. :)
Curry powder sounds good to me! Yum!
thank you so much. i have been looking forward to this. All week I have been craving 닭갈비
Great great!
Hi Maangchi, you posted a really beautiful recipe which I’m going to try soon.
Btw I love the new intro with “Live Maangchi chopping and holding knife & fish” and also your expression of enjoyment while eating bokkeumbap is priceless ;-)
Keep up the excellent work
Love from Italy
Andrea
Andrea,
Thank you so much! I am very happy to hear that you love my new live intro! I tried to follow my animation very closely. It was lots of fun when I filmed the scenes. : )
My son loves 닭갈비! We usually have to find a 놀부 when we’re in Korea (Seoul). Haven’t made it in a while, so I guess it’s time. I will try your recipe and see how he likes it. :)
Let me know how yours turns out!
Wow, looks so good!!
Let me know if you make it. : )