When you visit Nami Island, it’s hard not to see all of the restaurants offering Chuncheon-style Dakgalbi. It’s a popular dish due to its large portions and cheap price. But if you’re unable to visit, or just want to know how to make Chuncheon dakgalbi at home, follow these steps: 

What you’ll need

Marinated Chicken 

• Up to 250 grams of boneless chicken per person (500 grams is enough for two to three people)
• Gochujang (about 3 tablespoons)
• Rice wine (2 tablespoons)
• Ground hot pepper flakes (1 tablespoon) 
• Soy sauce (about 1 tablespoon)
• Garlic (~3 cloves minced) 
• Ginger (~ 1 teaspoon of minced ginger) 
• Korean-style curry powder (~1 teaspoon) 
• Pepper (small amount) 
• Onion (~half of a small onion minced) 

You will want to mix the marinade ingredients together before mixing the chicken in. The chicken should be cut into bite-size pieces. Make sure to use gloves and/or thoroughly wash your hands afterward and do not touch your face. Once mixed, you will want to stick the marinated chicken in the refrigerator overnight. If you’re in a hurry, you can wait just 30 minutes before cooking. 

Alternatively, if you can find pre-marinated dakgalbi, this can save you some time preparing the chicken. 

Additional Ingredients

• Half of a carrot
• ¼ of a cabbage
• Half of a sweet potato
• Korean rice cakes (The round cylinder-shaped ones seem to work best)
• Cooking oil
• Perilla leaves and lettuce (for wraps) 

Take the carrot, sweet potato, and cabbage and clock them into small slices. You will want to take ~20 pieces of the rice cake and soak them in warm water prior to cooking. Set these aside, and take out the marinated chicken. 

Grab a large skillet and some cooking oil and put the stove on medium heat. Once the skillet heats up, you can add the chicken. Once the chicken starts to cook, you can add in the sweet potato and carrots since they’ll take longer to cook than the rice cake and cabbage. Make sure to continually stir the vegetables and chicken. If you notice that the chicken is starting to burn, you can turn down the heat. 

Add in the cabbage and rice cake and continue to stir. Once the rice cake cooks, you can turn off the heat and immediately serve the dakgalbi right from the skillet. You can use the perilla leaves and lettuce as a wrap and this is a great dish to share with friends and family.

If you have some leftovers, you can mix in some rice and turn it into fried rice. Let us know If you make Chuncheon dakgalbi at home by tagging us on Instagram. If you want to watch this recipe being made, check out the video below: