Thinly Sliced Bulgogi Recipe

Beyond delicious Korean barbecue, anybody? My first experience with cooking bulgogi at the dinner table was almost twenty years ago. My wife and I met up with her brother, and friend, at a Korean Restaurant, in the East Bay, CA. We got our table, just as we walked in and Joe told the host what foods to bring out. She smiled, nodded and fired up a propane grill at the center of our table. Unfortunately, this would be one of our last experiences with Joe. We continue with dinners like this at home, with our kids. We know that it is the experiences in life that make us who we are. And now, I offer you my Thinly Sliced Bulgogi Recipe to create your own home dinner experiences and memories.

Many people would think that better dinner experiences are ones that do not consist of cooking. I think that cooking at the table is actually amusing, more relaxing and is the catalyst for great conversations. This is what makes it a better dinner experience.

Custom Korean Barbecue at Home

I love barbecue, grilling, smoking or anything done outside. Even better on a beautiful, Fall, Spring or Winter evening in Arizona. During the summer, I still brave the heat for some tasty meat, but we also have the option to bring it indoors. Our little portable butane stove gets tons of usage in our house. Not only do we use it for most of our recipe images, but we regularly have Korean style barbecue dinners.

We love this because we can cook as we eat, as a little change up from the norm. We usually cook up either thinly sliced meats or meats that do not take too long to thoroughly cook. Our go to meats are thinly sliced chicken, black pork belly, galbi, shrimp or bulgogi.

To go with those meats, we love to include our favorite banchan as well. Braised potatoes, spicy cucumber salad, kimchi, seasoned garlic stems, fish cakes and perilla leaves are some of our favorites. These dishes compliment the flavors of the Korean barbecue so well.

Of course I can’t forget that there is also steamed rice, romaine lettuce and perilla leaves at our table. My kids love eating bulgogi in a bowl of rice and gim (kim), thin roasted seaweed sheets. We like to eat it as ssam (sahm), wrapped in lettuce with a perilla leaf, garlic and gochujan. If you add rice to your wrap, it would be called a ssambap.

Thinly Sliced Bulgogi Recipe at Your Reach

If you are not accustomed to marinating and grilling meat, I will have to say this recipe is one to start with. As I mentioned earlier, cooking with coal is my favorite and this recipe is by far the easiest. Why? The biggest reason is that you buy the meat already thinly sliced. The Asian markets will sell rib-eye and eye of round thinly cut. These cuts are popular at Mongolian Grill restaurants. Most markets will even have it frozen, if you are not planning to cook until later in the week. As you may guess, another cool thing is that thinly cut meat won’t take long to marinate and it won’t take long to cook.

Another cool thing about my thinly sliced bulgogi recipe is that I have portioned out the ingredients so that over marinating is not likely. Before adding your meat to the marinade, you can dip your finger in it and take a taste. That is how your meat will taste once marinated and if you let it sit over night.

The Ingredients

The ingredients for the marinade are pretty simple and you just might have all of them in your pantry and fridge already. My guess is that you have water, soy sauce and brown sugar. Light or dark brown sugar is fine. The darker your sugar the most of a caramel/toffee flavor will emerge, due to the molasses. Some of you might even have sesame oil too. Produce wise, you will need to grab some green onions, garlic and ginger. Depending on how much you cook or what you have slated for the week, you might have the produce already as well.

The final two ingredients are the ones that you might have to buy. Sesame seeds are a hit or miss in most kitchens. If you do have them, just be sure that they are still good. For this recipe, you will only need a couple of tablespoons. Keep that in mind if you have to buy some. You don’t have to get a huge bag or jar if you don’t use sesame seeds often, when cooking. Toasting your seeds is not necessary but it is an cool option to add a bit of a toasty flavor. Roasting your sesame seeds ahead of time is optional, if you want a little more of a crunch to them.

The last ingredient provides a flavor, just as important as the taste and aroma of the sesame oil. If you love cooking with some spice, a bag of Gochugaru is a must to have in your kitchen. It is a spice but I don’t think that it is too spicy. My recipe calls for only one teaspoon. I have made bulgogi with two teaspoons of gochugaru and my kids, who have spice radars, loved it. So one teaspoon won’t add a kick to your marinade. More so, it will add a wonderful flavor to each bite. You probably can find tons of suggestions for alternatives but I stick with the gochugaru.

Easy Process

As mentioned before, it does not get any easier than this. In a big enough container to hold all of the ingredients mix together the brown sugar, smashed garlic, gochugaru, soy sauce, sesame oil and water. Mix until the sugar is blended well with the liquids. You may not get the brown sugar completely dissolved, just be sure bigger chunks are broken apart and mixed. Mix in the ginger, green onions and sesame seeds.

Now there is actually an art to putting the meat into the marinade. Because they are thinly cut and possible defrosted, it is better to place them into the marinade individually. For best results, there needs to be marinade between each piece of meat, at some point of the process. Placing the whole pack of meat as a whole defeats the purpose of it being thinly sliced. This is especially important if you want a quicker marinating time.

Don’t make the mistake thinking that you can just stir up the meat after an hour of sitting in the marinade. Sliced rib eye is so fragile that you do not want to mess with it too much before cooking. Even without mixing it up, some will naturally break apart. I like to individually place the slices into the marinade, fully immersing them. As I go, I dunk them in one side of the container and push the immersed slices to the other side. Cover and refrigerate as soon as you are done.

Cooking Time

For the full Korean experience, there are a couple pieces of cooking equipment that you will need. A portable butane burner resides at most Asian households. If you do not have one, it is a pretty smart piece of equipment to own. Not only does it come in handy in the event of a power outage, but it’s great to bring to the backyard if you don’t want the smells of certain foods or deep frying lingering in the house. If used within the manufacturer’s recommended parameters (common sense always prevails), these burners are very safe. Be sure to watch younger ones around the table and warn them about heat that it will emit. When we cook with it at the dinner table, we strategically change up the seating arrangement for optimal safety.

The second piece of equipment that you will need is the Traditional Korean Barbecue Grill Pan. It comes in two pieces for healthier eating and ease of cleaning. The bottom piece acts as a reservoir for all of the fat drippings. Before cooking, don’t forget to add some water to the reservoir. This will make the cleaning process so much easier. The top piece is a slightly sloped (domed), flat grill. There are other grills that you can buy but this one is the best for the Thinly Sliced Bulgogi Recipe. Because of the thin nature of the cuts and the fragility of rib eye, a grated or slotted grill will be a nightmare.

Fire It Up

Place the butane can in the burner, lock it in, ignite the flame and adjust your heat. A high heat is not needed for thinly sliced bulgogi. Also, the nature of this cooking will heat up your cooking surface faster than an electric stove. Play it safe and adjust from there. Not to mention, if you are the only one doing the cooking, there will be lots of meat on the grill to keep your eyes on. If your heat is too high, you can easily start to burn your first batch of meat.

Because of the nonstick coating of the pan, we don’t use any cooking utensils that can possible damage the coating. We use wooden chopsticks to flip the slices of meat. If you are not used to using chopsticks as a cooking utensil and you want to try it, it is another factor that you have to consider with your temperature.

Once your cooking surface is ready, start placing your meat on the grill. You might notice that some of the slices on the top are not as absorbed with marinade as others. This will not cause a huge discrepancy with taste. If you want, without disturbing the meat too much, try starting with the slices at the bottom. Don’t forget to add garlic cloves, to the center of the grill, for your ssam.

We cannot wait for you to try our Thinly Sliced Bulgogi Recipe. Enjoy and try to share.

Kain na tayo!

Meokja!