Samgyeopsal is a popular Korean grilled pork belly dish devoured in K-BBQ restaurants with multiple side dishes. Many K-food lovers adore this dish so much that many are looking for easy home recipes to recreate the experience at home.
There are numerous reasons to love Korean BBQ pork belly. It's healthy when eaten in moderation, comforting after a long day at work, and filling enough to share with friends. However, you don't need to visit a Korean restaurant to enjoy this dish.
Our easy samgyeopsal recipe shows you how to replicate the dish at home using a simple marinade. While pork belly is the traditional meat for this recipe, you can use mutton ribs to make it halal or mushrooms for a vegetarian-friendly version.
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What Is Samgyeopsal?
Samgyeopsal is a sliced grilled pork belly dish prepared in a zingy Korean BBQ marinade with a dipping sauce that can be eaten either spicy or non-spicy.
Korean BBQ is so popular because everyone cooks the pork belly together in a hot pan, and it's very customisable! You can also dress it with dipping sauce, make little wraps, or pair it with vegetables, rice, and kimchi.
Vegetarians can cook mushrooms instead of pork belly and use the same sauces and side dishes.
Samgyeopsal's taste is closer to a meaty and savoury piece of roast pork or cutlet than to bacon. However, pork belly is rather bland before you marinate and cook it.
A dipping sauce enhances the flavour profile of barbecued pork belly, so we highly recommend preparing one that suits your taste buds. The sauce can be sweet, like a honey sauce, or you can also use a spicy samgyeopsal recipe for more heat.
Ingredients
To make samgyeopsal at home, you'll need the following ingredients.
For the meat and marinade:
- pork belly
- soy sauce
- rice vinegar
- Gochujang
- sesame oil
- ginger
- garlic
- salt and pepper
For Ssamjang (Samgyeopsal dipping sauce):
- Doenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste)
- green onion chopped
- garlic clove minced
- Gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)
- rice syrup or mirin
- toasted sesame seeds
- toasted sesame oil
Korean Grilled Meat
The star of Samgyeopsal is the pork belly. Therefore, it is important to pick the best cuts of pork belly. Choose a piece that looks clean, has very little to no smell, and is moist without being slimy.
If you buy from your local butcher, you can usually ask them to cut it into 1 - 2 inch thick slices.
We've found that mutton ribs are a good meat alternative to pork belly because they have a similar fattiness. They're also a great halal option. If you want to use mutton ribs, make sure to remove the bones.
For vegetarians, a combination of large sliced mushrooms and firm tofu works well to soak up the marinade.
Spicy or Non Spicy Marinade
You can make a Samgyeopsal marinade at home, spicy or not spicy, depending on personal preference.
Gochujang paste makes our Korean grilled pork belly recipe slightly spicy. If you want to make an extra-spicy samgyeopsal, you can add more gochujang paste or a teaspoon of red pepper flakes.
To make Korean grilled pork belly non spicy, you can reduce the amount of Korean pepper paste and add 1-2 tablespoon of honey or skip it entirely. Alternatively, a lot of Korean restaurants will serve the meat without any marination when the meat is fresh. Personally, we prefer some marination over none.
Samgyeopsal Sauce
There are several different dipping sauces that can help to add depth to the taste of samgyeopsal. These are usually:
- Ssamjang
- Sesame oil, salt and pepper sauce
- Soy sauce with a bit of wasabi
Our favourite is Ssamjang because it's sweet, spicy, and savoury. We'll show you how to make this sauce in our samgyeopsal recipe below.
However, you can also make a simple sesame oil-based sauce by mixing together 1 tablespoon sesame oil, ½ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper.
Samgyeopsal Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 lbs pork belly sliced
Marinade
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 2 tbsps rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon gochujang
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- ½ teaspoon ginger minced
- ¼ teaspoon garlic minced
- salt and pepper to taste
Ssamjang Dipping Sauce
Sides
- 1 bunch lettuce washed and dried for wraps
- 4 green onions
- 1 cup kimchi
- rice
Equipment
Cooking Instructions
- Before guests arrive to eat samgyeopsal, freeze and slice the pork belly into ¼ inch slices, then marinate for 2-48 hours, cover, and set aside on a plate.
- Whisk together all dipping sauce ingredients and portion them into small dishes for each guest. Cut and prepare any side dishes like lettuce wraps, pa muchim, kimchi or rice and set them aside.
- Cook the pork belly by heating the grill pan with a small amount of toasted sesame oil for added flavour. Cover the bottom of the pan with pork belly slices or cut smaller into bite-sized pieces. Cook while turning and frequently moving to avoid sticking until both sides are crispy.
- Remove cooked pork belly pieces and set them aside on a plate, or guests can move their cooked bits from the grill to their plates and eat them. Serve the samgyeopsal on lettuce as wraps with dipping sauce and other side dishes.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Calories have been calculated using an online calculator. Nutritional information offered on Honest Food Talks is for general information purposes and is only a rough estimate.
Korean Grilled Meat Marinating Tip
You want to leave the meat in the marinade for at least 2 hours and a maximum of 48 hours.
Don't leave the Korean pork belly in the marinade too long. A marinade tenderises the meat by breaking down protein molecules in the meat.
The marinade works only to penetrate a few millimetres into the flesh. Hence, it may cause the outside layer to become mealy and soft without really softening the interior portion.
When the meat has been marinating for 48 hours, the sauce has done all the work it can. So, there isn't a real benefit to marinating it beyond that time frame.
Samgyeopsal Cooking Tips
A few of our favourite cooking tips include:
- Using a grill will be the best, but you can always use a regular pan if you don't have one.
- Prepare your grill ahead of time to the heat of 400 degrees Fahrenheit or 200 degrees Celsius or higher if possible.
- Because this specific cut of meat is about ¼ inches thick, it is important to rotate it often to ensure that it is heated evenly. You'll also want to keep them away from direct flames so they do not burn.
- Freeze your pork belly for 1-2 hours before slicing, and use a very sharp knife to ensure the meat is cut thinly and evenly.
Side Dishes
Samgyeopsal side dishes are not your typical side dishes. The traditional banchan, or side dishes, come with the meal for free. Banchan are small side dishes that are typically served with Korean table meals.
There are hundreds of banchan options, but they are divided into three broad categories: fermented, like kimchi; braised, like potato chunks or soybeans; and seasoned, such as spinach or watercress.
For side dishes, we highly recommend having kimchi, pa muchim and some rice to go alongside your korean grilled meats. However the options are really endless.
Savoury Banchan
- Kimchi - Fermented cabbage with a spicy, sour flavour
- Pa Muchim - A Spicy Korean Spring Onion Salad that's perfect to go in your grilled meat lettuce wraps.
- Jjigae - A stew made with various vegetables and meats
- Rice
- Ganjang - A soy sauce made from fermented soybeans
- Korean corn cheese
Sweet Banchan
- Dried persimmons - Sweet and chewy with a ginger flavour
- Lotus root porridge - Milky white. Bland but slightly nutty in taste with pieces of lotus root inside
- Tteok tteokbokki - A chewy, sticky rice cake cooked in Gochujang (red chilli paste)
- Sujeonggwa - A cinnamon and ginger drink that's sweet and tangy
- Anju - Foods that go well with alcohol, such as fried chicken or fish cakes. Usually consumed when drinking soju (like vodka) because it helps to cut the strong flavour of the alcohol.
Samgyeopsal Calories
A typical portion of Samgyeopsal contains around 650 calories. However, when you prepare it at home, it mainly depends on how much pork belly you serve!
Although Samgyeopsal is high in calories, it is also a good source of protein and other nutrients. In addition, it is a good source of protein, niacin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and zinc.
Because it is high in protein and low in fat, you usually serve it with high fibre vegetables such as lettuce and kimchi.
Popularity
There are many different ways to prepare Korean BBQ, and there are endless possibilities for flavours and combinations. Read our full guide to Korean BBQ to learn all about it.
However, within the variety of Korean BBQ, samgyeopsal is extremely popular. Aside from the delicious taste available at restaurants now found worldwide, Korean barbecue is also a fun family or group meal that you can make at home.
In The Philippines
Samgyeopsal has become really popular in the Philippines. In recent years, you will find that there has been a surge of restaurants and home cooks serving it in the country.
The savoury, sweet and spicy flavour combination of the dish seems to hit it off with the local Filipinos. In addition, the flexibility of the dish with all those samgyeopsal side dishes only made it that much more accessible and appealing to Filipino chefs.
In the early 2000s, Korean music and also K-dramas became very popular in the Philippines. Hence, the Korean BBQ dish quickly became trendy in the South East Asian country.
Popularised By BTS's Jungkook
Have you ever wanted to know about Samgyeopsal and Jungkook from BTS (Bangtan Boys)? The famous Korean singer Jungkook is obsessed with this delicious Korean BBQ Pork Belly meal! In addition, he created a song on Twitter related to his love for this dish.
Of course, this is just a silly song, but you can see (or listen) through the song how this dish is truly beloved in Korean culture. So whether this is a dish you've frequently had, or you are new to creating spectacular Korean barbeque dishes, this is an excellent meal for you.
How did your K-BBQ experience at home turn out? Tag us on Instagram @honestfoodtalks to share photos of your homemade Samgyeopsal.
Carceina Ruffin
I LOVE PORK BELLY