13 Must-Try Korean Foods & Dishes: From Savoury Stews to Sweet Treats

I recently visited Korea and I was so impressed by how delicious the food was. In Canada, I’ve had some pretty good Korean food, but I would say that it’s quite hit or miss. Oftentimes here, the dishes can miss on the balance of sweetness, savouriness, and spiciness or lack depth of flavour. In Korea though, there are so many dishes I got to try that I hadn’t tried before, along with dishes that I had already tried and loved, and I feel like it really expanded my horizons on Korean food and what makes it so incredible. In this post, I want to share my 13 must-try Korean foods & dishes, whether you can find it locally in your city or if you have to travel to Korea to get them. Also, trust me, all of these foods are worth making a trip to Korea!

Dakdoritang

One of the first things I noticed when I got to Korea was the incredible nightlife culture. Every evening, even on weekdays, you can see restaurants packed with people, and it’s generally very social. There’s generally large groups of people sharing food, and a lot of the time it’s people having a common pot or barbecue in the middle of them and they’re all sitting around a round table, taking bites from the middle from the center.

One dish that I commonly saw in these sorts of social evening situations is dakdoritang. Now this is a dish that I hadn’t tried before visiting Korea, but I found that it’s actually quite common in Korea and that this was potentially my favourite dish that I had on my entire trip! This dish is a chicken stew where the whole chicken, typically, is portioned out into a really delicious gochujang-based broth and put over a fire to boil with tteokbokki and vegetables.

What’s amazing about this dish is that the longer you wait, the more the sauce thickens until eventually you get this really rich, thick sauce as it continues to boil and the flavour just continues to get richer over time, which I think is a really incredible concept. I also really like the concept of having a common dish to share, especially something that’s warm, rich and delicious while being with friends, and is something that I would love to see be adapted here in Canada. Hopefully some restaurants open up that serve dakdoritang because we have hotpot now, but I feel like this is a version that’s a bit simpler and more casual, but just as delicious!

If there is any Korean dish that I think everyone should try it is this one, and it will always hold a special place in my heart as being the first food I tried in Korea!

Bibimbap

Bibimbap was one of my favourite Korean dishes prior to visiting Korea. This dish consists of a stone bowl filled with rice, a variety of vegetables, generally some kind of meat, and depending on what region of Korea you’re in, there will be different sauces or pastes associated with bibimbap, but you’ll most commonly see gochujang sauce. So the idea with bibimbap is that the name is describing the motion of mixing the bibimbap bowl, so you have this stone bowl with all these different components nicely laid out on top, and you’re supposed to mix all the ingredients together to create your final bowl. The stone bowl is also heated so everything stays nice and hot!

I have actually had pretty amazing bibimbap in Canada, so I was curious to see how the bibimbap in Korea compared. It wasn’t necessarily dramatically better than ones that I’ve had previously, in my experience, but they were quite different between restaurants. One thing that I loved about having this dish in Korea was that a lot of bibimbap restaurants had free, unlimited kimchi, and there was sometimes different kinds of kimchi. Occasionally there would be other accompaniments that were free too, so it was really nice to be able to enjoy a bunch of kimchi with my bibimbap, especially for someone like me who is a really huge fan of kimchi.

Dakgalbi

Dakgalbi is a dish that includes chicken (dak) that’s stir-fried in a thick gochujang-based sauce, to which oftentimes tteokbokki and vegetables are added. I guess it’s kind of similar to dakdoritang in flavor profile, but if it was thickened and saucier as opposed to being served in a big boiling pot. Nowadays, a lot of the shops in Korea also serve this dish with cheese on top that melts into the piping hot sauce. This is another dish that I loved prior to visiting Korea and, as opposed to in Canada where the dish is made and then brought to your table, in Korea oftentimes a worker will cook the dakgalbi right in front of you and then you just have to wait a little bit for it to be done. It is also generally served for sharing, and you specify the number of servings you want to order, with a minimum of at least two or three at most spots I visited. So I feel like this is also a pretty social meal which, as I have mentioned, I love and it is always fun to get your food prepared right in front of you!

Bingsu

If dakdoritang was my favorite savoury dish, bingsu was easily my favorite dessert in Korea, and is now one of my favorite desserts of all time after my trip to Korea. This dish is a variation of “shaved ice”, but in Korea they use shaved milk instead, and then this is topped with any number of delicious toppings. My favourite toppings were injeolmi powder, which is a roasted soybean-based powder, and red bean, but there’s also other toppings as well like matcha for example which is similarly amazing. Bingsu is perfectly icy without giving you a brain freeze or numbing your mouth, and it’s so incredibly addictive. The servings are usually pretty big and can be shared but personally I found myself destroying a whole order just for myself because of how tasty this dish is.

The chain in Korea called Sulbing, in my experience, had the best bingsu. This is really interesting because it’s a chain, but I essentially found myself going to Sulbing after trying a couple other places every day for my remaining days in Korea. It was just that good. If there’s one Korean dish that should be more popular in Canada, it’s bingsu, and specifically I hope Sulbing opens up over here. I saw that there used to be a Sulbing location in Vancouver, but I believe it’s closed now, so I’m really hoping that it opens back up. Actually, maybe I shouldn’t be hoping that because I think it’ll really hurt my wallet because I don’t think I’ll be able to resist going there every single day.

Hotteok

Another more dessert-like dish that I think everyone has to try when they’re in Korea is hotteok. Hotteok is a fried dough filled with brown sugar syrup or honey. Generally, this is a street food, and you’ll see it referred to as honey hotteok, but I don’t know if all these stalls are actually using honey or it’s just sugar syrup. Regardless, there’s a lot of different variations. Some of them will explicitly say whether or not they’re using syrup or honey, some of them add nuts, but in any case, it is usually a pretty tasty snack. It’s quite sweet from the syrup, but the fried dough is able to balance out the sweetness and give it a really nice texture. It’s also quite filling, so if you’re a little bit hungry but you just want a snack, this is a really nice compromise. This wasn’t my favorite dessert, but I see why people enjoy it so much, and I definitely think it’s something that everyone should try.

Korean Barbecue

One thing that I obviously had in Korea was Korean barbecue, and I think that it’s kind of unnecessary for me to include this in this blog post because of how popular this dish has become globally. For anyone who is unaware though, Korean barbecue consists of meat and vegetables that you are able to grill over charcoal or fire at your table. These meats can be marinated or non-marinated, and depending on the location, and you can order the meat or sometimes you get up and grab the meat for yourself.

One of my favorite dining experiences in Korea was at a Korean barbecue spot in Seoul, and this spot had all-you-could-eat Korean barbecue for $19, which is absolutely incredible. I also really enjoyed the quality of the meat, which I was a bit skeptical about at the price point. There were also additional side dishes that you could get for free, so fried chicken for example was also free, and it was really tasty. There was obviously also kimchi and other pickled dishes, sauces, rice, and pretty much just anything you woul need for a complete meal. If you haven’t tried Korean barbecue, I would definitely recommend going out and trying it, especially getting all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue because typically it’s quite expensive. So if you want to be as cost-effective as possible and you think you can eat a lot of meat, I highly recommend going for an all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue, and if you’re in Korea, going to an all-you-can-eat spot that has a bunch of different types of meat and also some sides all included for free. It’s an experience that I would definitely recommend because it’s pretty unbelievable value for money.

Jjamppong

Jjamppong is a seafood stew that is flavored with gochujang, as a lot of dishes that I’ve mentioned are, but has a distinct seafood-y flavor and a distinct savouriness that I find some other Korean dishes don’t quite have. I believe the savouriness comes from the anchovy based broth, which surprisingly doesn’t turn out too fishy. It also lacks the sweetness that’s sometimes accompanied by gochujang-based dishes, which I enjoy in dishes sometimes, but I really like jjamppong because it has that gochujang flavor, but it’s more focused on just being very savoury and salty. This is a dish that’s adapted from Chinese cuisine and, for whatever reason, despite being a seafood dish and having different kinds of seafood inside like shrimps and mussels, it’s actually relatively affordable in Korea. I got a jjamppong for about eight dollars when I was in Korea, and it was one of the best ones that I had. So if you’re someone who enjoys seafood and you want a really delicious seafood dish that has an incredibly savoury spicy flavor, I highly recommend getting jjamppong. It is one of my top favorite Korean dishes of all time.

Jajangmyeon

Speaking of Korean dishes that are influenced by Chinese cuisine, jajangmyeon is also a dish that you aren’t going to want to miss when trying Korean food or visiting Korea. This is another dish adapted from Chinese cuisine that consists of noodles in a black bean sauce. This dish usually contains pork, but in Korea you can find alternatives that don’t have any meat, so you can try just the noodles in the sauce on its own. Similar to jjamppong, but even more so, jajangmyeon is very affordable. I saw bowls of jajangmyeon that were massive for as little as five or six Canadian dollars when I was in Korea. So if you’re on a budget and you want a big bowl of delicious savoury noodles in a thick rich black bean sauce, then jajangmyeon is exactly what you are looking for.

Gimpbap

Gimbap is something that I wasn’t really a big fan of before visiting Korea. I tried it on a couple of occasions, and generally when I tried it I would kind of think to myself, “why would someone have this instead of sushi?” It was kind of lost on me as to what people enjoyed about gimbap so much, but after visiting Korea, I feel like I kind of understand what the hype is about.

Gimbap is pretty similar to sushi in that it is rice that is encapsulating vegetables as well as meat. The main difference between gimbap and sushi is that gimbap usually has cooked meat inside whereas sushi usually has raw fish. This is oftentimes pork, but beef varieties are also very common, and when I tried a beef gimbap, I was pleasantly surprised at how delicious it was. I think that the freshness of the vegetables and the quality of the rice and the way that the meat was cooked and seasoned just kind of combined to make this perfect roll. Afterwards, sauces and seasonings may be put on top of the roll, and I would say that trying this dish in Korea greatly improved my image of gimbap, but I would say it still isn’t one of my favorite Korean dishes.

Regardless, a lot of people really enjoy it, and there’s really great options both at restaurants and at street food stalls, so I highly recommend trying it if you’re in Korea. You may especially like this if you like rice-based dishes that are both light in flavour and fat.

Tteokbokki

Another dish that I absolutely loved in Canada and really enjoyed trying in Korea was tteokbokki. The first time I tried tteokbokki, I was absolutely blown away. The thick gochujang sauce with slight sweetness, the chewy rice cakes (tteok) and the little bits of crunchy vegetables had me absolutely sold from my first bite. In Canada, oftentimes you actually don’t see this dish with fish cakes inside, but in Korea this is quite common, and I actually found the fish cakes to be super tasty. This dish can be found all over Korea at street food stalls and in restaurants. Whether you want a snack, an appetizer, or even a light meal, tteokbokki is an ideal dish for anyone to try, and it’s something that you cannot miss!

Jiggae

Jjigae is actually a dish that I make at home a lot now. It’s pretty much Korean stew that can have a variety of different meats, kimchi (i.e., kimchi jiggae), or soft tofu (i.e., sondubu jjigae). There’s a ton of different variations! I’m personally a huge fan of vegetarian sondubu jjigae, which has kimchi and soft tofu inside. This dish is so heartwarming and I feel like it’s perfect for a cold winter night if you want something that really has that home-cooked tasting feel to it.

The light gochujang flavor and the richness of the broth make it so that this dish isn’t too heavy, but is just seasoned perfectly so that you get a really nice flavor of the broth to sip on. I think that kimchi jjigae or sondubu jjigae might not be everyone’s favorite because it does have more of that home-cooked stew sort of feel to it, but for someone like me who loves dishes like this I can’t get enough of it. I cannot think of a lot of dishes in my day-to-day life cooking at home that I would want to have more, as far as Korean food goes, than jjigae!

Samgyetang

This is actually a dish I wasn’t aware of until shortly before visiting Korea. I was talking to my friend and she said that a must-try Korean dish that I cannot miss when I visit is samgyetang! Samgyetang consists of a whole chicken that is cooked to create a chicken soup, with the main aromatic added for flavour being ginseng. Ginseng is a root vegetable that is known for its supposed medicinal benefits and I can confirm that the broth for this dish tastes quite medicinal, but in the best way possible! It is super soothing, the chicken is fall-apart tender, and the glutinous rice added will fill you up. I should also mention that I tried this dish twice in Korea and once it was delicious while the other time it wasn’t so great, so pick a reputable spot and go out and try this really unique soup!

Naengmyeon

I am not sure how many dishes on this list originate from North Korea, but one dish that famously originates from there is naengmyeon. This is a cold noodle dish that consists of buckwheat noodles served in an icy cold broth that is often topped with vegetables and a hard boiled egg. The broth is usually slightly sweet and oftentimes gochujang is added for additional flavour. This dish probably sounds pretty strange to people who aren’t familiar with Korean cuisine, I was also skeptical prior to trying this dish, but I was surprised to discover how much I ended up craving it after first trying it!

Generally when I visit a country I try to taste as many traditional dishes as possible but if I don’t like one as much I usually only try it once or twice, and that’s sort of what I expected my impression of this dish to be despite its fame, but I just kept coming back for more! It is just so refreshing and satisfying, especially in the summer, and it actually inspired me to start making a similar Korean dish at home called kongguksu. Kongguksu is another Korean cold noodle soup dish but with a soy milk based broth, making it a bit creamier and more flavourful, and I find that it is such a delicious and flavourful breakfast in the summers. I highly recommend not only trying these dishes at restaurants but also making these dishes at home, it totally changes my perspective on what breakfast can be!

13 Must-Try Korean Foods & Dishes

Korean food is probably in my top ten favourite cuisines in the world, and with all the incredible dishes I haven’t tried yet and regional differences between dishes I feel like I have just scratched the surface! If you want to learn more about Korean food checkout my other blog post on traditional Korean food . I hope you all enjoyed this post and if you did make sure to follow me on my social media platforms and checkout my other blog posts !