Tteokbokki is chewy rice cakes cooked in a red, spicy broth. It’s a popular Korean street food. When I was a student coming home from school it was hard to resist the spicy rice cakes sold by vendors on the street! They would have big vats of tteokbokki and just kept stirring and stirring it, making it more and more delicious over time. We would stop by and they would give us a small paper cup of spicy rice cakes dripping the spicy, slightly sweet sauce for a very reasonable price that any student could afford. We just couldn’t resist it! The sauce is fiery hot and a little sweet, and the rice cakes don’t have much taste but they are a little soft and a little gooey.
For a lot of my readers who’ve never had it before, it looks like pasta in tomato sauce, but it doesn’t taste like that at all.
When I lived in Korea I learned the secret to making good tteokbokki from a famous place in the local market. It was run by an old lady who could always be found stirring her pot of tteokbokki, and there were always people lined up to buy it.
She prepared it right in front of us, so I saw she first made an anchovy stock from dried anchovies. I made tteokbokki at home and found it made a huge difference in flavor. I once ran out of dried anchovies and made tteokbokki without it, and it didn’t taste at all like what I was expecting. So don’t forget to always make a good stock with dried anchovies when you make this! It totally makes this dish!
There are many variations of the Romanized English spellings of tteokbokki (떡볶이): ddeokbokki, dukbokki, tteok-bokki and on and on. A few years ago the Korean government tried to standardize the name as “topokki” and even asked me to change it everywhere on my website! It just sounded weird to me so I never did it. How do you pronounce it? The first two t’s are a hard t, and the eo sounds more like a u.
There are also many variations of the tteokbokki recipe too: some people add dumplings (mandu), some add cabbage, cheese (mozzarella cheese seems popular), or ramen noodles. Creamy, saucy rosé tteokbokki was popular for a while, and a few hundred years ago the Korean royal court enjoyed nonspicy, soy sauce based gungjung tteokbokki. This version below of the spicy Korean rice cakes is an authentic classic and my favorite. Everyone loves it, so let’s make tteokbokki!
Ingredients
- 1 pound of cylinder shaped rice cake (tteok), fresh or frozen, bought or homemade. (Use a little more if you’re not adding hard boiled eggs and fish cakes)
- 4 cups of water
- 7 large size dried anchovies, with heads and intestines removed
- 6 x 8 inch dried kelp
- ⅓ cup hot pepper paste (gochujang)
- 1 tablespoon Korean hot pepper flakes (gochugaru) aka “Korean chili flakes”
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 3 green onions (scallions), cut into 3 inch long pieces
- 2 hard boiled eggs, shelled (optional)
- ½ pound fish cakes (optional)
Directions
Cook time: 15mins for the anchovy broth and 10-15mins for tteokbokki
- Add the water, dried anchovies, and dried kelp to a shallow pot or pan.
- Boil for 15 minutes over medium high heat without the lid.
- Combine gochujang (hot pepper paste), gochugaru (hot pepper flakes), and sugar in a small bowl.
- Remove the anchovies and kelp from the pot and add the rice cake, the spicy mixture in the bowl, the green onion, and the optional fish cakes and hard boiled eggs. The stock will be about 2½ cups.
- When it starts to boil, stir gently with a wooden spoon. Let it simmer and keep stirring it until the rice cake turns soft and the sauce thickens and looks shiny. It should take about 10 to 15 minutes. If the rice cake is not soft enough in that time, add more water and continue stirring until it softens. Freshly made rice cakes will soften faster so if you use frozen rice cakes, thaw them out and soak them in cold water first, to soften them up before cooking with them.
- Remove from the heat and serve hot. If you have any leftovers, keep them in the fridge and reheat them when you want to eat. They won’t be as good as when you first made them, but not bad. You should finished them in a few days, but it’s best to eat them all at once right after you make them.
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I used tofu instead of fish cakes due to my seafood allergy. Preferred a thicker sauce and paired it with kimchi, it was delicious. Luv your recipes and videos, you’re awesome.
This recipe is amazing! I didn’t have anchovies, so I added a little MSG to the broth, then used rice syrup in place of the sugar, but 10/10. I will absolutely make this again!! Thank you!!
Yummy! First time having tteokbokki and first time making it! I added kimchi as well that I bought at a Korean market while visiting my family in Southern Ontario, Canada. The only Korean food I’ve experienced is bbq. Always wanted to try this and very pleased with the results. Super easy recipe. Thanks!
Needed a bit more sugar to balance the spice, but nonetheless it tasted like the tteokbokki I get in a Korean resto near my university. Thank you Maangchi!
Would it work to just start out with 2 1/2 cups of your recipe of Anchovy-Kelp Stock?
I had some leftover beef so I decided to add that into it. It came out good but I wasn’t sure how it would cook. I added more water to cook the beef and it looked like it had too much broth, so I took some out. It came out good overall~Ahh I added some tofu too-just decoded to make an account but it’s my nth time making tteokbokki- love the recipe!!!
Hi Maangchi! I made them again yesterday. For all Korean dishes that I’d like to try, you are my go to guide. You’re such a great cook. All your recipes don’t fail. ♥️
it looks mouthwatering!
Omg i made it again! Haha But it’s my last portion before going on a diet throughout the year! ;) No tteokbokki until Christmas LOL Bye from Maangchi’s ttoekbokki mania xoxo
The broth looks great! Keep on your diet and maybe celebrate with tteokbokki on Christmas! : )
Om nom nom It’s still so so good. I’d never make it right without you, Maangchi. Here’s my year-end ttoekbokki. Not exactly successful in my diet, though. Heheh
Added a cup of chickpeas!! Thank you, Maangchi-*
Made it again!! Yummmm :) thank you
It looks very delicious!
Made it again!! ❤️
Hi Maangchi! Thank you for sharing this recipe. I made it last night for my family and they loved it.
We finally tried this and we love it!! My husband and I truly appreciate the recipes and videos. We’re completely hooked on Korean food.
Thank you for the time a care you take to share your expertise.
Hi Maangchi! I cooked tteokbokki for lunch following the recipe from your book and adding some noodles; it was delicious!!!! As it was a little bit too spicy for me (I am Spanish and our food is not spicy at all), I have reduced the amount of gochujang a little bit, and it has worked very well for me. Thank you for sharing this nice recipe with us <3<3<3
It looks so good!
Hi Maangchi! I was not able to find dried kelp at my Asian market, but I did get some fresh kelp. Will this work for the stock? Thank you!
Fresh kelp won’t work for making stock.
My hubby favourite!! He’s really love to eat 떡볶이. He’ll order 떡볶이 everytime we go to Korean restaurant. Now i just make it at home using your recipe. I put lots of 오뎅 because i love the taste. Like usual I’ll put some 고추가루 because i love spicy
It’s awesome because you can make you and your husband’s favorite food tteokbokki! Congratulations!
Thanks Maangchi! ☺️ My niece also love to eat this because 떡 texture so chewy & 오뎅 so much. Do you have 오뎅 (flat square look) recipe so hard to fine Halal 오뎅 in malaysia
Made Tteokbokki ! Ate as morning breakfast. Yummy!
These turned out sooooo good! I love the chewy texture. Our Asian market has a few different shapes of rice cake, but the long tube ones are still my favorite. Love this! So spicy and yummy!
Wonderful!
Yum!!
You made perfect looking tteokbokki! Chewy rice cake soaked in a generous amount of savory and spicy broth is irresistible!
This looks so good, i cant wait to try it. going to my local korean market after work.
you’re recipes are always my go to whenever I cook korean food. Tonight I tried this and it tastes good as always. Thank you! Sending love from the Philippines
I found this in my local Korean market – I’m a huge fan of these since I just let them boil and remove the entire packet. Includes the anchovies AND kelp!
We are going to try this during quarantine Maangchi! Thank you soo much! Keep Safe
I used your recipe and made rabokki for my family yesterday! It turned out so good!
Nice! I’m getting hungry now! : )
This looks so good!!!
Just made this but without using the kelp and anchovies! I used chicken stock and added the Hondashi bonito soup stock packet. It came out delicious!
How much chicken broth did you use? I’m looking to make this but was also going to omit the kelp and anchovies
Maangchi says in the recipe that she ends up with 2 1/2 cups of stock.
Hi Maangchi! I made this recipe and at the end it tasted odd. Like too much gochujang flavor? What should I do to prevent that flavor?
Hi~ I was just wondering how many people this recipe serves. I was hoping on cooking this for my family and I’d like to buy the right amount of ingredients to serve all five of us.
1/4 pound of tteokbokki is about 300 calories. So if you’re adding fish cakes, eggs, etc., then this recipe (1 pound) can serve 4.
I just made 1 pound and only added egg, scallion, and a few shrimp. It made 3 servings for dinner with no leftover.
If you have a very big appetite, then 1 pound would serve 2.
I love to make Tteokbokki, and it is a favorite in my house. I started making my own rice cakes because with the pandemic, I can’t get the frozen ones. Must be some kind of a supply chain issue…
Anyway, tomorrow night start Passover. My family is Jewish and we are getting ready. Today for dinner I decided to make Tteokbokki as an easy meal that everyone can just eat as they go while we do our cleaning and preparations.
I had three jars of Gefilte fish, but for our meals I will only need two. I was simmering the Tteokbokki when it occurred to me: I could use this for the fish cakes! Ha! We are vegetarians, so I never get fish cakes. But for Passover we always eat this special fish.
I tried it and it was fantastic! It is pretty much the same thing if you just slice it like I did in this picture. So if you see Gefilte Fish in your grocery store on sale after Passover, you could try this! Maangchi, I hope you would approve!
Hi,
Could I use a store bought stock bag? The tea bags with the anchovy and kelp? Thank you!!
I was looking at your recipe for tteokbokki and reading comments section.. Its my first time wanting to try to make it so driving home i stopped at the local asian market near me (it a little larger than a convenience store) and i was unable to find frozen rice flour but i did find rice flour and glutinous rice flour on the regular shelves. Can i use either of these instead.? I would hate to waste ingredients or discourage myself by making wrong dishes. Pleas help?
I decided to make it with a recipe adaption I found to make the rice cakes then i followed your(maangchi) tteokbokki recipe substituted low sodium chicken broth for anchovy/kelp broth… I think it turned out well.
I love this recipe and I’ve made it a few times but now I’m on a diet and I can’t eat rice cakes, so today I made it with grilled tofu! Maybe not as good as it is with rice cakes, but it was delicious and makes dieting easy :)
Hello Maangchi,
Just wanted to thank you again for all your delicious recipes. Today I made your Tteokbokki recipe and it’s awesome.
Yes, your tteokbokki looks super tasty! Congratulations!
Hi Maangchi! I want to make this, but I don’t like fish or fish flavor, so I plan to make it with a vegetable broth instead. I want to add a protein to this, but I don’t think I’ll like fish cake, and I bet I can’t find gluten free fish cake anyway (I can’t eat gluten). Do you think very thinly sliced chicken would work with this?
I just made this one and it’s so delicious. Thank you, you’re my inspiration.
I’ve made this recipe so many times and got a craving again lastnight. It came out so good I had to share on on Maangchi’s YouTube page. Since I can’t upload pictures there….I’m dong it here!! Check it out I cooked the eggs only 6-7 minutes and they were perrrrfect. Thanks Maangchi for letting me be a part of your world and culture. I love your personality and the way you teach us how to make delicious food.
Ooh, mouthwatering! The eggs were cooked perfectly!
made this again today, it‘s one of my favourite dishes, since I love soicy food and the fishcake :)
i‘m seriously addicted to it ♥️
Yum!
Hello!
Greetings from Poland! Me and my boyfriend are vegans who live togehter and since we moved in we eat a lot of korean food inspired by your recipes! Thank you for helping us to learn about korean cuisine! Love all recipes, they are very easy to make vegan (we use lots of kombu stock and seitan-based meat substitutes, but besides that we have a very well equipped korean grocery store in our town)
Love
Karolina and Hubert
You guys are awesome! I’m a quarter Polish (my last name ends in -ski) and it kinda kills me that so much traditional Polish food is difficult to make vegan-friendly :( Awesome to see you guys trying to be vegan nonetheless! I’m about to try this recipe of Maangchi’s making a broth with vegan fishy sauce, kombu, soy sauce, and dulse flakes. Hopefully it turns out!
“We use lots of kombu stock and seitan-based meat substitutes”
Thank you for sharing the tip for veganizing my recipes. I’m sure it will help my vegan readers. By the way I will post a video recipe for vegetable stock soon. Your spicy rice cake, soybean sprouts, and kimchi look great!