Hello hello everybody! : )
I’m re-introducing jjajangmyeon recipe (noodles in black bean sauce) to you today with a new, updated video. I originally uploaded a video showing you how to make jjajangmyeon in 2007, not long after I started posting to YouTube. Yes, it was 5 years ago! Time flies too fast!
That video was so popular that I decided to make a new version that’s easier to follow, and also shows you how to make jjajangbap with rice instead of noodles.
Jjajangmyeon is everybody’s favorite food. It’s actually a very popular Korean Chinese dish, created by early Chinese immigrants in Korea, catering to Korean tastes. Tangsuyuk (sweet and sour pork) is another example. The almost caramel taste of the savory black bean sauce over the thick, chewy wheat flour noodles makes for a really unique taste and texture. When I was young, a plate of jjajangmyeon from a Chinese restaurant always made me excited. When you order it delivered they bring you the noodles in a special tin box in under 30 minutes! I usually ended up covered in jjajang sauce and my mom had to give me a Kleenex.
Koreans even have a nonofficial celebration for jjm on April 14th, when single people celebrate their shared loneliness on Black Day with a bowl of jjajangmyeon.
Enjoy the recipe!
Ingredients for 2-3 servings
- jjajangmyeon noodles
- ½ pound pork belly, cut into ½ inch cubes (about 1½ cups’ worth)
- 1 cup of Korean radish (or daikon), cut into ½ inch cubes (about 1 cup’s worth)
- 1 cup of zucchini, cut into ½ inch cubes
- 1 cup of potato, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes
- 1½ cups of onion chunks
- 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
- ¼ cup and 1 tablespoon of chunjang (Korean black bean paste)
- 2 tablespoons of potato starch powder, combined with ¼ cup water and 1 teaspoon of sugar in a small bowl, set aside
- 1 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil
- ½ cup cucumber, cut into thin matchsticks for garnish
- water
Directions for making jjajang sauce
- Stir-fry the pork belly in a large, deep wok (or pan) with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil for about 4-5 minutes, until golden brown and crispy.
- Pour out the excess pork fat.
- Add radish and stir fry for 1 minute.
- Add potato, onion, and zucchini and keep stirring for about 3 minutes until the potato looks a little translucent.
- Clear a space in the center of the wok by pushing the ingredients to the edges.
- Add 2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil to the center of the wok, then add ¼ cup of black bean paste and stir it with a wooden spoon for 1 minute to fry it. Then mix everything in the wok and keep stirring.
- Add 2 cups of water to the wok and let it simmer and cook with the lid closed for about 10 minutes.
- Open the lid and taste a sample of the radish and potato. If they’re fully cooked, stir in the starch water little by little. Keep stirring until it’s well mixed and thick.
- Add the sesame oil and remove from the heat.
- Serve with noodles (jjajangmyeon) or steamed rice (jjajangbap).
Make jjajangmyeon
Noodles for jjajangmyeon can be found at Korean grocery stores. The noodles are thick and chewy.
- Boil the noodles in a large pot and drain. Rinse and strain in cold water.
- Put one serving of noodles onto a serving plate and add the jjajang sauce over top. Garnish with cucumber strips and serve immediately with kimchi or yellow pickled radish.
Make jjajangbap
I have a detailed recipe for jjajangbap but this is the basics:
- Make one serving of rice, and add the jjajang sauce over top.
- Garnish with cucumber strips on top of the jjajang sauce and serve it with kimchi or yellow pickled radish.
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Hello! Thank you so much for all your recipes I love Korean food. I did have a question about the myun noodles, are they made with any kind of wheat? Unfortunately I have a wheat allergy :( but I often replace recipes that have wheat in it with rice or potato starch noodles. If there is wheat in the noodles is it okay to use rice noodles instead? Thank you so much for every!
I think the noodles are made with wheat. Why don’t you make this sauce and put it on warm rice? It’s called “jjajang bap” instead of “jjajang myeon” Myeon is noodles. bap is rice.
okay thank you so much!!
hi how are you today maangchi? i just have one question is it okay it i use chicken instead of pork??.
and thank you for the recipe.
yes, you can use chicken! Thank you!
assa! now i don’t need 짜파게티! thank you :D
Can I make this with easily available Chinese-style Hoi Sin sauce? I cannot go to the faraway Korean store for now, but this sauce is easily available. It tastes quite salty and a bit sweet-like, it is thick like a paste and is very black in color. I think it has similar ingredients as chunjang.
In fact, wikipedia says the following: “Jajangmyeon is the Korean version of this [=Chinese Zha jiang mian] dish. In addition, the brown colour of the sauce is from the use of chunjang (a salty, black-colored paste made from roasted soybeans), rather than hoisin sauce. ”
Hmm it might become more chinese-like with hoi sin sauce… oh well!
Well, I had hoisin sauce today at the pho restaurant but I think it tastes way too different than chunjang so I dont recommend it.. and I dont think it can be stirfried with oil like chunjang either.. try, but I’m not sure if it will be delicious.
Hmm that’s too bad… Oh well I’ll find different ways to use the hoi sin sauce then, and make Jajangmyun some other time.
Thanks for your reply!
I made your jajang myung today and it turned out great! I substituted the pork with shrimp and ground beef and it tasted good :) thank you for sharing your recipes and YouTube videos! I love your positive happy energy and your recipes :) I look forward to trying your other recipes.
wow, good news! yum yum!
한국에서 사는 사람보다 한국음식 잘만드시네요 ^^
Hi Maangchi,
I was so happy to find this recipe here! Jjajangmyun is my favorite dish :P
Is there anything that can substitute the potato starch powder? Someone told me rice gloutinous flour but I have my doubts >>
Starch powder is better! Glutinous rice flour will make this sauce too sticky like glue! : )
This was the most delicious Jja Jjang Myun I’ve hand in SF…and it came from my kitchen!! :)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jc-dc/4169362181/
had not “hand” :D
agree!
sorry but i didnt like this dish. it didn’t taste the way i thought it will. it was plain and it tasted just like the smell of the black bean paste.. but i will still try other recipe.
oh mandy mandy! try out other recipes! : )
what is zucchini ?
It’s a summer squash. Check this out, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zucchini
Is the black bean souce doenjang?
If not, could you tell me please what colour the box has? I always associate the souces with the colour of the box :)
red – gochujang
green – ssamjang
but i never bought this light brown box because i don’t know any recipe to use 된장 for
dark brown color! Check the ingredient here:
https://www.maangchi.com/ingredients/black-bean-paste
Can you use beef instead of pork belly? I can’t eat pork.
Usually it is made with pork though? I never noticed.
yes, you can use beef, too!
Hi Maangchi! I really didn like this at first, but then I remembered I hadn’t put any salt in it. Now I LOVE this dish! I like to eat it with some kimchi dumplings on the side and alot of cucumber. Thank you for your website! Korean food is now my favorite of all!
-Michael-
Michael, I’m glad to hear that!
Hi Maangchi! Thank you for all your delicious recipes! I am lucky to live in a very Korean part of Australia that has lots of Korean grocery stores, so I have able to make lots of your recipes. They have all turned out really delicious.
I have always really wanted to try making jjajangmyun, because it is so delicious. I have had it before. The only thing is I really want to make it for my family, but they cannot eat pork. Since the sauce is quite flavoursome, I don’t think there is a very strong pork taste, but my family can’t eat it. Can you recommend another meat to use as a substitute, or should I just leave it out?
Dont’ worry, you could use beef, chicken, or shrimp.
Can I use Gochujang instead of black bean paste?
no, you should get the right ingredient: black bean paste (chunjang).
https://www.maangchi.com/ingredients/black-bean-paste
Hi! just wanted to thank you for this wonderful receipe…I made this for dinner last night and it turned out great! Thanks for sharing your recipes! You are a wonderful teacher and cook
adding some water to hotpepper paste for bibimbap is a good idea. Next time use sprite instead of water. That’s what I’m teaching at my cooking class.
Oh my god its looks so delicious and mouth watering, kamsakmeda for sharing this..
I was living in Korea for three years and i had my baby there. Throughout my pregnancy all i ate was jjanmeyang and the korean sweet and sour pork.
Thank you for sharing your video
Hi Maangchi!
What kind of noodles do you use to make this?
your cooking always makes me DROOL!! =)
thanks so much for teaching us how to
cook Traditional Korean Style!
I love korean food. But i never eat more. I love kimchi because i saw more korean movie and they eat all the time espectialy “kimchi fried rice”
ah.. I’m thai (thailand)
jajangmean it’s looks delicious
i ever seen from korean movie “coffee prince”
she eat jajangmyun for 5 bowl!!!!
wow, 5 bowls of jjajangmyeon! :)
This is good, but I question cooking already sauteed zucchini for another twenty minutes. Is this a substitution for a harder Korean squash? if so which?
im 15 yr old anyway. i’ll try my very best to cook jajangmyun! Thanks!
i LOVE jiajangmyun!! growing up it was my favorite food, and even now as an adult, i love it!! there’s a really great restaurant by my parent’s house (where i grew up) that makes amazing jiajangmyun (my dad says it reminds him of the jiajangmyun we used to eat in korea) and you can hear the chef making the noodles in the back (bam!! bam!! bam!!).
maangchi, i love your website, and your videos are great! you make making korean food fun and easy! :)
Thank you very much! Your description about the sound of noodle making at the jjajangmyun restaurant is funny! “bam bam bam!”
: ) You are right!
Im gonna make hand pulled noodles can i make jajangmyun with hand pulled noodles or it really has to be jajangmyun noodles?
yes, I think hand pulled noodles will be great. Would you give us the recipe?
https://www.maangchi.com/talk/forum/reader-recipes
actually , ive already tried jajangmyeon with my older sis. we r not sure if we bought the right paste. what i saw is that it says black bean sauce/paste but with fish as the serving suggestion. but we bought it anyway. so when we cooked the sauce, im not really sure the exact recipe so i pour in ALL in the packet. so after i saw ur video, its answered my wonder of why the jajangmyeon turned out to be very salty and more salty when i mixed it with potatoes. but i still hope there’s the blackbean paste esp for jajangmyeon. Thanks a lot!
yeah, you can make good jjajangmyeon with right ingredients. The blackbean paste is sold at a Korean grocery store.
hey maangchi, i have trouble of cooking jajangmyeon bcause i dont have the paste. i dont know where to buy here in Brunei. im allergic to pork though, so are u sure the paste arent mixed with any pork ingredients? and if theyre is no blackbean paste here, how can i make them? imean, homemade paste. Thanks!
I’m sorry to hear that you can’t get blackbean paste. It’s sold at a Korean grocery store. Without the paste, you can’t make jjajangmyeon. I don’t know how to make it.
ahh~~ just watching this video made me so hungry. i just got back from korea, and i’m totally craving jjajangmyun that delivers straight to your door. :[ i really wish they had that in the states! i’ll have to settle for chapaghetti ramyun for now :[ thanks for the vid! i wanna try to make it myself sometime!
chapaghetti is not delicious! Homemade jjajangmyun is the best! : )
They sell jjajangmyeon (and/or ingredients if you want to make it yourself) at a vendor inside of H-Mart. They just opened an H-Mart recently here in Massachusetts and it is great! They are so crowded that they do not have enough parking!!
Maangchi,
how long can black bean paste last? how can you tell if it has gone bad?
thanks!
As long as you keep it in the refrigerator, it won’t go bad easily up to maybe 2-3 months?
Mmmm I just made my first jjajangmyun using your recipe and it was a success! Followed your steps exactly and worked out perfectly :D
Congratulation! From now, you can make your own delicious jjajangmyun anytime!
Maangchi,
I tried the Jjajangmyun with the vegetables and it was still very good! :) thanks a lot! let vegetarians know! :)
-Lauren
Lauren,
Thank you for your update! I’m happy to hear that it turned out tasty! yes, I will let vegetarians know about it.
hi,maangchi
thnks to you,bec when i saw your website i can learn to make korean dishes,for my husband bec,his korean to.u know ur voice is so cute
and u can speak english well,ur amazing really! manhi kamsamida!
Thank you very much! Good luck with your Korean cooking.
I just made this but i notice that the jjajangmyun sauce didn’t had enough taste…is this normal? should i add more salt actually?
If the sauce is too bland, I recommend using more blackbean paste instead of salt.
Hey Maangchi,
Sounds good! I’ll try it out and give you some feedback in a few days!
thanks for all the help! :)
-Lauren
oh, no, I can’t wait for a few days! lol, joke!
Hey Maangchi,
Thanks for these awesome recipes, I appreciate it. You are an inspiration!
I have a question,
is it still good without pork, if you just use the blackbean sauce is it still very delicious?
Thanks!
:)
hmmm, I think the taste of jjajangyun without meat won’t be as good as normal jjajangmyun. But try it out. Use some vegetable oil generously when you stir fry onions, zucchini, and mushrooms. Let me know the result. If it’s good, we can let vegetarians know about it.
just made it, tastes great!!! thanks for the recipe. the hardest part in guessing the recipe was the black bean paste to water ratio, your video made it easy to figure out. thanks!!