Yaksik is a kind of Korean rice cake made with glutinous rice, honey, nuts, and dried fruits. It’s a sweet, delicious treat that’s packed full of flavor and healthy ingredients. Even the name is healthy – in Korean, yak means “medicine,” and sik means “food.” Koreans have long believed that honey is a medicine that’s beneficial to your health, so anything with honey is good for you. We feel the same way about jujubes and pine nuts, too, so yaksik is good for you. It’s also delicious!
Like many Korean housewives, I used to make yaksik in my pressure cooker. It’s very easy to do: just mix in all the ingredients, turn the pressure cooker on, and let it get to work. How to make yaksik with a pressure cooker is below.
But yaksik made in a pressure cooker can’t be compared with the taste and texture of yaksik made the traditional way. Each grain of rice becomes firm and chewy rice cake, and the flavors of all the ingredients are more distinct and alive.
Whichever way you decide to make it, I guarantee you’ll love this delectable, delightful snack. I make a lot of them and then save them for my breakfast or snack, but they are delicious any time of day.
Enjoy my recipe! Let me know how your yaksik turns out.
Ingredients (9 servings)
2 cups glutinous rice, rinsed and soaked in cold water for 5 hours
for caramel sauce:
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ¼ cup water
for seasoning sauce:
- ¼ cup dark brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil (or vegetable oil)
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon powder
Fruits, nuts, honey:
- 14-16 large dried jujubes, rinsed, deseeded, cut into halves (or replace them with 1 cup dried cranberries)
- ¼ cup raisins
- 2 tablespoons dried cranberries (optional)
- ¼ cup honey
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts, tips removed
- 1 can of chestnuts, strained
Directions
Make caramel sauce:
- Add the sugar and 2 tablespoons water to a small saucepan on high heat. Don’t stir, or the sugar might crystallize.
- When it starts to boil, move the pan around to mix it up.
- 6 minutes later it will start to bubble. Turn the heat down low and swirl the sauce around in the saucepan to mix it up.
- 2 minutes later, when it gets a little smoky and turns dark brown, remove from the heat. Add 2 tablespoons of water and tilt and move the pan so it all mixes well. Let it cool.
Make seasoning sauce:
- Combine the brown sugar, oil, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and cinnamon powder in a small bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon until all the sugar is dissolved.
Mix fruits and nuts:
- Combine jujubes, raisins, pine nuts, chestnuts, and the dried cranberries (if used) in a large bowl.
Steam rice:
- Strain the rice. Put into a steamer basket lined with a cotton cloth. Cover the rice with the edges of the cotton cloth. Add 5 cups of water to the steamer, cover and cook for 40 minutes over medium high heat.
- Open and turn the rice over a few times with a wooden spoon so it cooks evenly. Lower the heat to medium and cook another 20 minutes.
- Remove from the heat.
Put it all together:
- Transfer the cooked rice to the large bowl with the fruits and nuts. Add the seasoning sauce, caramel sauce, and honey.
- Mix well with a wooden spoon until all the liquid is absorbed by the rice.
- Put everything back into the steamer basket lined with the cotton cloth. Cover with the edges of the cotton cloth, add 1 cup of water to the steamer, and cook for 30 minutes over medium heat.
- Remove from the heat.
Serve:
You can serve right away, scooping out pieces or even rolling handfuls of yaksik into balls. Or separate into squares for later use:
- Put the hot steamed yaksik into a 8 x 8 inch baking pan lined with plastic wrap. Mix well with a wooden spoon so the fruits and nuts get evenly distributed through the rice. Pack it down slightly so it all sticks together.
- Let it cool for about 20 minutes and flip the pan upside down over a cutting board so the rice cake comes out. Cut into 9 even size pieces. Wrap each one in tightly plastic wrap, into squares.
Freeze for later use:
- Put the wrapped yaksik into a plastic bag and freeze up to 1 month.
- When you want to eat one, take it out of the freezer and microwave for 2 minutes, or thaw it out at room temperature for about 30 minutes until it’s soft and chewy again.
How to make yaksik in a pressure cooker
- Put 2 cups of washed and drained rice in a pressure cooker. No need to soak it.
- Add the caramel sauce, seasoning sauce, honey, jujubes, raisins, pine nuts, chestnuts, and the dried cranberries (if used).
- Add 1 cup of water and set the pressure cooker to make rice.
A few years back, it was my Fiancé’s and my first New Years together. After an unexpected turn of events with finding a place for dinner I suggested we try out the local Korean restaurant that we both had never been to. (My Fiancé had never had Korean). Needless to say we had a wonderful meal and evening. After that night we decided on making it a tradition to try making a Korean dish for New Years. This year we made Yaksik and it turned out wonderful!
It was tough to find Jujubes and canned chestnuts at our local grocery stores here in the Netherlands (Next time I’ll order them online). I instead went with dried plums, cranberries and raisins for the fruit. I also added a little bit of minced ginger. I also had to go with roasted chestnuts as it was all I could find. All in all it turned out really well for my first try. I’m happy to have found this recipe and all your other wonderful recipes! Thank you!
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I made this last year and it turned out so well, i’m going to make it again to warm me up in the cold New Zealand winter! Pine nuts and chestnuts are very expensive here, so my tip for people wanting to save some money – forage them yourself; there are some great parks near me with sweet chestnuts (NOT horse chestnuts, those aren’t edible!) and pine trees with large nuts; I forage them in the autumn and they last me all year! I freeze my chestnuts to stop them from going shriveled and rotting, but any other nuts can be left in the shell for a long time, including pine nuts. My one question, could i add 팟 or 검은콩 to the recipe? I was thinking of soaking them overnight and steaming them mixed into the rice, would that work?
also for anyone interested in foraging – only eat what you’re 110% sure of the identity of, and don’t forage on private land. For an initial idea of what’s growing in your area, i recommend the site inaturalist – it’s worldwide and open sourced and shows what people have identified near you, its a fantastic tool to have!
That’s so interesting you can forage all those precious ingredients! Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us! Yes, you can add black beans or red beans (aka azuki beans) to yaksik.
My yaksik was so delicious! It makes a huge amount that I froze and ate it on some days during Ramadan (the Islamic month where we fast from sunrise to sunset) as a healthy energy snack! It is sweet and salty and the nuts/cranberries gave an awesome crunch and taste!
The easiest way for me to cook this was to soak the sticky rice for 5+ hours, add equals parts of the rice and water to a bowl and microwave for at least ten minutes until the rice is soft (add more water if it’s still undercooked). I added the seasoning sauce, caramel and dried fruits to the bowl, mixed and microwaved until the rice absorbs everything.
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You made this in your microwave! I’m very impressed with the result. Congratulations!
I know this is a tad PC, but I have a daughter-in-law who has ulcerative colitis and can eat most of the ingredients if adapted somewhat. Looking for substitutes for the glutinous rice – perhaps plain brown rice? And the caramelized sugar sauce. Is there a sugar substitute that will brown up and thicken as well as the traditional caramelized sugar? The brown sugar, I might try molasses as a substitute? Or just more honey? Always looking for recipes to make her food options a little more enjoyable. Will be making normally for the rest of us who can eat regular food and the only discomfort we experience is gaining a few pounds. Love the vids and the blogs. Thanks, Maanchi. A most enjoyable and informative go-to for Korean cooking!
People with ulcerative colitis should not be eating foods such as brown rice and any whole grain starchy foods. White rice is fine. Wouldn’t want your daughter to suffer from flare ups like I have from brown rice.
Hi Maangchi!
I made yaksik with your recipe. Where I came from (East Malaysia), we have something similar to yaksik so I felt familiar with the ingredients used to make yaksik. Its called as “nasi manis” which literally translates to sweet rice. I had to use other dried seeds/fruits because I used up what was left in my pantry haha. Anyways thanks for sharing the recipe!
Amirul
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Thank you so much for all of your wonderful recipes! I’ve made this a couple of times before at home (rice-cooker method), and I made it again today with some students.I made an entire week-long camp based on your recipes, and we made one food each day: baekseolgi, red-bean paste, bukkumi, hobak juk, chapssal doughnuts, and yaksik. The students especially liked the baekseolgi (I brought my own bamboo steamer to school), doughnuts, and yaksik.
Looks fantastic ! Whats is the shelf life if stored at room temperature ?
It will be ok up to several hours at room temperature.
This recipe has been on my to-do list for quite some time now. Finally I got round to do it. Turned out beautifully. Tasty and perfectly chewy and sticky… or so I hope. I really don’t have much to compare to, haha. Thank you very much fir tge recipe, I was very happy that you made one without having to use a pressure cooker since I don’t have one.
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I’m so happy this morning to see this yaksik photo that you made! You are the best yaksik maker in Iceland! : )
Would we be able to use different fruits?