Korea's iconic street snack — chewy rice cakes simmered in a fiery gochujang sauce with fish cakes, scallions, and a soft-boiled egg.
Tteokbokki is the snack every Korean grew up eating from school-gate vendors — cylindrical or oval rice cakes (tteok) simmered until soft and chewy in a deeply red sauce of gochujang, gochugaru, soy sauce, sugar, and anchovy stock. The classic accompaniments are odeng (fish cakes), scallions, and sometimes a soft-boiled egg or hard-boiled egg. The sauce starts thin and reduces to a sticky glaze coating each chewy cylinder. Hot, slightly sweet, deeply spicy, and weirdly addictive — once you start, you can't stop until the plate is empty. Goes equally with after-school snacking, late-night drinking sessions, and family Sunday afternoons. The 1953 dish was supposedly invented by Ma Bok-rim in Seoul's Sindang-dong neighborhood, which still has a 'Tteokbokki Town' alley dedicated to the dish.
Serves 4
If making from scratch: simmer 10 dried anchovies + a 10 cm piece of dried kelp (dashima) in 1 L water for 15 minutes. Strain. Or use 750 ml water with 1 tsp instant dashida bouillon.
If using fresh tteok, no soak needed. If frozen, soak in cool water 20 minutes until separated and pliable.
In a wide skillet, whisk together gochujang, gochugaru, sugar, soy sauce, and minced garlic with 750 ml of the anchovy stock until smooth. Bring to a gentle boil.
Drop in the drained tteok. Stir to coat. Simmer over medium for 10 minutes, stirring often, until the rice cakes are soft and chewy. The sauce will start to reduce.
Add the fish cakes and sliced onion. Simmer 5 more minutes. The sauce should reduce to a thick, glossy red glaze coating every piece.
Stir in scallions and hard-boiled eggs (if using). Cook 2 more minutes to warm the eggs through and just soften the scallions.
Pile into a wide shallow dish. Drizzle with sesame oil. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. The sauce will continue to thicken as it sits — eat fast.
Eat with chopsticks straight from the pan in true Korean fashion, sharing among 2-4 people. Cold beer or makgeolli on the side.
Gochujang is the foundation — don't substitute with sriracha or chili oil. Korean groceries or online.
The sauce reduces from soup-like to glaze-like as it cooks. If it reduces too fast, add a splash of water.
Eat the moment it's done — the rice cakes turn dense and the sauce coagulates as it cools.
Rabokki: add a packet of instant ramen noodles in the last 4 minutes — the noodles soak up the spicy sauce.
Cheese tteokbokki: top with a layer of mozzarella in the last 2 minutes, cover until melted.
Gungjung tteokbokki (royal court version): non-spicy. Soy sauce + sugar + sesame, no gochujang. Stir-fried with vegetables and beef. Older than the spicy version.
Best fresh. Refrigerated leftovers harden — the rice cakes turn rock-solid in the fridge. Reheat with a splash of water in a pan to soften.
The spicy tteokbokki was invented in 1953 by Ma Bok-rim in Seoul's Sindang-dong, who accidentally dropped rice cakes into a vat of jajangmyeon black bean sauce that had been spiked with gochujang. The combination became a national phenomenon by the 1980s. Pre-1953 tteokbokki was the soy-and-sugar court version eaten in royal palaces.
Korean groceries, fresh in the refrigerator section or frozen. The cylindrical 'rabboki tteok' is the standard. Vacuum-sealed packs keep 6 months refrigerated.
Reduce gochujang to 2 tbsp and skip the gochugaru. The flavor will still be Korean and recognizable, just less aggressive.
Per serving (320g) · 4 servings total
Ask our AI cooking assistant anything about this recipe — substitutions, techniques, scaling.
Chat with AI Chef →Join the conversation
Sign in to leave a comment and save your favourite recipes