Hi everyone!
Budae Jjigae is created in South Korea after the Korean war, U.S military came to Korea. We had to find the way to enjoy spam, hotdog, cheese and all in our own way and that’s how Bugae Jjigae born.
The city I used to live in Korea call Uijeongbu, is known for Budae Jjigae. There are a lot of changes in Budae Jjigae styles since it became very popular in Korea, a lot of restaurant starts making it and even franchise restaurants. Though, we consider Uijeongbu style is the original which I’m introducing to you.
No one said this recipe is healthy… lol So don’t eat it too often. 😉
Hope you enjoy at home~!
Budae Jjigae | Korean Army Base Stew
- Total Time: 20 mins
- Yield: 4 to 6
Description
Ingredients
Units
Scale
For the Sauce (Sauce amount will serves 8 to 12)
- 6 Tbs gochugaru
- 3 Tbs soy sauce
- 2 Tbs fish sauce
- 2 Tbs rice wine or soju
- 1 Tbs sugar
- 1 tsp Doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste (can be substitute to miso)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 Tbs chopped garlic (approximately 8 to 10 cloves garlic)
For the Stew
- 1 cup kimchi
- 2 oz rice cake slices, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes if it’s frozen
- 6 oz spam (half can), sliced into 1/4-inch thin
- 6 oz hotdogs (2 links), sliced into 1/4-inch thin
- 4 oz firm tofu (1/4 block), sliced into 1/4-inch thin
- 5 oz breakfast sausage or any ground meat
- 3 to 5 green onions, sliced
- 2 Tbs baked beans
- 3 to 4 oz dried Dangmyeon, Korean glass noodles, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes
- 1 oz enoki mushrooms
- 1 or 2 slice American cheese
- 5 cups Korean ultimate stock (CLICK HERE for the Recipe) or chicken stock
- 4 oz instant ramen noodles or udon noodles
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, add all ingredients for sauce and whisk until well combined. Set aside.
- In a shallow and wide thick bottom pot, arrange kimchi, rice cake, spam, hotdogs tofu, breakfast sausage, green onion and baked beans. Place stoked dangmyeon and enoki mushrooms on middle. Pour half of sauce we made earlier on top and pour stock carefully. Place cheese right on top.
- You can serve on a table if you have a portable stove with instant ramen noodles on side or cook ahead on a stove and serve.
To cook budae Jjigae, bring it to boil over high heat, and hard boil for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and start stirring with a spoon to mix everything together. You can start eating by now and add ramen noodles when you are ready to eat. Enjoy with warm bowl of cooked rice!
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
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24 comments
This is one of the easiest Korean dishes one can make, yet it is very delicious and tasty for any appetite! Im the past, I have made this dish countless number of times.
Seonkyoung places the dry instant ramen noodles in pot and allows it to cook together. In order to reduce the starch from the noodle, I boil the noodle and allow it to semi cook, drain water, and then add noodles to the pot.
I have had great success with this Korean dish and when I need to whip a quick dinner, budae jjigae, Korean army base stew, is my fallback dish!
Thank you for sharing your tips and tricks here Steve!!! Hope more people try this recipe~!! 😀
Is this stew traditionally eaten with a bowl of rice?
Yes it is!
What happened to the other half of the sauce?
I make another batch a week later when we had guests came over to our house. 🙂 The sauce can store in a refrigerator up to 8-10 days. 🙂
Liz, If you make this recipe very often like we do in our household, simple make a large amount at one time. I usually make 1/2 gallon at a time. I then divide the sauce into smaller resealable plastic pouches and freeze them. When I make budae jjigae, Korean army base stew, I simply pull out from freezer as many pouches as needed. This cuts down on time to make and prepare the sauce. I have kept this sauce in the freezer for over three months.
With 6 tbs of gochugaru, will it be really spicy for people who aren’t used to spicy food?
The amount of the sauce recipe, you can make 2 large pots. However, if you aren’t used to spicy food, please reduce amount to your taste. 🙂
I made this recipe exactly as indicated except for a few changes/modifications. I:
-Used 6oz Polish sausage instead of hot dogs (Polish Keilbasa beats hot dogs – always. Even on July 4)
-Omitted breakfast sausage (I didn’t want the extra fat since the Kielbasa would be bringing enough of its own)
-Substituted vegan miso for Doenjang because Seonkyoung SAID I COULD and because I want to remind my boyfriend that everyone likes regular miso paste and if you want to buy vegan miso, be prepared to eat it FOREVER, because NO ONE ELSE WILL WANT TO EAT IT)
-Used 2 tsp anchovy bouillon powder instead of 5 large dried anchovy in the Korean Ultimate Stock (because have you SEEN how big those anchovy bags are? My grandkids will still be using up the rest of those bags – and I don’t even have kids yet!)
I made two pots of budae jjigae. One was “mild” (with kimchi, but WITHOUT gochugaru sauce) and a “spicy” one (with kimchi and WITH the gochugaru sauce). To make the “spicy” pot, I added 2 Tblspn gochugaru master sauce first and added more (1 tblspn at a time) once the pot started to boil until I achieved desired spiciness. I made two pots because that way, there was something for everyone. Also, the people who started out mild but wanted to get wild would add a spoonful of the “spicy”; or if someone started out too spicy, they could add some of the “mild” broth. For each individual pot, I used the exact portions indicated from Spam, to rice cakes, Dangmyeon – basically everything (unless otherwise noted) – and it turned out PERFECTLY. A definite crowd pleaser and 8 sets of fabulously 8 bright red-stained dishes to wash. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Wow April! Thank you so much for sharing your experience with this recipe!! Hopefully this is helpful for people who wants to try this recipe! 😀 some part of your comment made me laugh in a good way, like, about the anchovy powder bag and fabulously red-strained dishes to wash… lol! Love your sense of humor!! Xoxo
Hi, I cannot find gochugaru but Korean chili pasta. Is it applicable? Do I still have to put all the sauce ingredients? Thanks.
You can use gochujang instead. In that case, omit the soy sauce! 🙂
I made this for dinner the other night and my husband is not crazy about hot
Pot or stews but he took one bite… and said DAMN that’s good! It was delicious- i ask added fish cake because why not! Hahah Thank you so much! You make cooking so fun and EASY!
YASSSSS!!! So happy for you that your hubby loved it too!! Happy cooking Chung~!!
I lived in 의정부 (I still call it my hometown) for over 5 years (U.S. Army) and 부대찌개 was one of my favorite dishes. 김치찌개 and 되장찌개 were also on my ‘short list’ of things to eat. After returning to the states in 1992, I found that the food was one of the things I missed the most about Korea and there wasn’t much I could do about it. These dishes are what I call my ‘comfort foods’ and I missed them. In the past four years, I have hosted four Korean students while they studied in America. It wasn’t until I started hosting that I rediscovered Korean cooking and, luckily, I have a Korean market near my house. I just found your site and I will be looking over it for some new recipes. Thanks for taking the time to put these pages together.
Of course Ron! Hope my recipes feed your Korean food cravings!!!!
I loved and loved all of ur recipes! I’m thinking about getting a sallow pot, please tell me the size of ur pot in this recipe. Thank you!
Hi! I made this for my birthday while on community quarantine due to COVID-19 early this week, and I must say I super love your recipe! Tastes like the ones I had when we visited Korea a few years back. Cooking and eating this made my day special amidst the lock down, so thank you very much for sharing this. Stay safe and healthy, and I look forward to more of your recipes! Much love from the Philippines <3
Happy Late Birthday! Thank you so much for your amazing support! and I hope you find my other recipes just as useful!
Made it for my lunches and it was so scrumptious ??? thank you for the recipe eonnie ?
All of the recipes I’ve found for budae jjigae including a list of ingredients from Wikipedia includes gochujang but your recipe does not. I was wondering if you had a specific reason for this?
Every recipe I have found for budae jjigae, including a list of ingredients on Wikipedia includes gochujang but your recipe does not. I was wondering if there is a specific reason for this?
Gochujang is not nessassagrsy for budae jjige, Don’t trust everything on google or wikipedia. l