Korean Beef Bowl
by Chungah
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Tastes like Korean BBQ (bulgogi) and is on your dinner table in just 15 min! Quick, easy, budget-friendly, and a hit with the entire family!
Featured Comment
Please welcome our favorited Korean beef bowls, one of our most popular recipes on Damn Delicious. This recipe is a special twist on the traditional Korean dish, bulgogi, but as a cheater version, we are swapping out thin slices of sirloin with ground beef.
Why You’ll Love This Korean Beef Bowl
- Weeknight hero. With a short ingredient list, these beef bowls come together incredibly fast. The cooking process itself takes just about 10-15 minutes, and if you have some leftover cooked rice lying around, dinner will be on the table in 20 minutes or less. It’s a budget-friendly alternative to traditional bulgogi while still capturing authentic Korean BBQ flavors.
- Budget-friendly. Using pantry staples, ground beef and rice, this dish can easily feed a family of four without breaking the bank.
- Flexible recipe. Throw in any lingering veggies (ex. chopped bell peppers, carrots or broccoli florets) for an easy clean-out-the-fridge meal.
What is the difference between bulgogi and Korean beef bowls?
Bulgogi uses marinated sliced beef, grilled or pan-fried, while Korean beef bowls use ground beef for a faster, budget-friendly weeknight version. Bulgogi is also marinated overnight to enhance its flavors and tenderness but with this quick ground beef version, you can have the same flavors in lightning speed time.
How to make korean beef bowls
- Prep the sauce. Combine the brown sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, and ginger. To make the bowls more spicy, swap out the red pepper flakes for gochujang (Korean red chili paste).
- Crumble the ground beef. Sauté the garlic first in a large cast iron skillet, then crumble the ground beef (or desired meat), draining the excess fat.
- Add the sauce and simmer. Add the sauce, simmering until heated through, about 2 minutes. This would be a great time to add in any leafy greens (baby spinach or kale) for those picky eaters!
- Serve. Serve warm over rice, topped with a fried egg for additional protein.
What to Serve with Korean Beef Bowls
Tools For This Recipe
Large cast iron skillet
Korean Beef Bowl: Frequently Asked Questions
Not at all! Use ground pork, chicken or turkey, tofu or plant based ground beef in place of the ground beef.
Add a fried egg on top (sunny side or over easy), breaking the runny yolk into a rich, velvety sauce to mix with the rice.
Yes! Swap out the soy sauce for gluten-free tamari.
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 2-3 days.
Absolutely! Here are detailed instructions on how to meal prep this for the week.
100%! This is one of our favorite crockpot recipes, perfect for those chilly months.
Yes! You can freeze the leftovers in individual freezer bags, thaw overnight, and reheat on the stovetop (adding a tablespoon of water as needed).
Korean Beef Bowl
Video
Ingredients
- ¼ cup brown sugar, packed
- ¼ cup reduced sodium soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- ½ teaspoon crushed red-pepper flakes, or more to taste
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 pound ground beef
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- ¼ teaspoon sesame seeds
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together brown sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, red pepper flakes and ginger.
- Heat vegetable oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add ground beef and cook until browned, about 3-5 minutes, making sure to crumble the beef as it cooks; drain excess fat.
- Stir in soy sauce mixture and green onions until well combined, allowing to simmer until heated through, about 2 minutes.
- Serve immediately, garnished with green onion and sesame seeds, if desired.
Equipment
Notes
- Use reduced sodium soy sauce. Reduced sodium has less sodium and less salt without compromising flavor.
- Pick your favorite protein. Ground beef, pork, chicken or turkey, tofu or plant based ground beef will all work very well here. In need of more protein? Top your bowl with a sunny side up fried egg.
- Add vegetables. Mushrooms, carrots, bell peppers or snow peas can be added for a more heartier meal, perfect for picky eaters and grown ups!
- Double the sauce. Need extra sauce for sopping with rice? The sauce portion can easily be doubled or tripled for those saucy folks!
- Serve with your favorite grains. White rice, brown rice, cauliflower rice, quinoa or farro are all solid options.
- Meal prep as needed. Perfect for on-the-go, these Korean beef bowls can be conveniently meal prepped for the week ahead.
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We LOVED this! It’s definitely going to be in the rotation!
This recipes is now a family favorite! We’ve made this a half a dozen times, and our 3 kids (not to mention me and my wife) can’t get enough of it! We usually add whatever fresh (or frozen) veggies we have on hand to make the dish stretch. We absolutely love it! Thank you so much for sharing it!
This dish was a hit! I love that it’s reminiscent of bulgogi but with a lighter feeling.
I made this recipe last night, it was very flavoursome however it was just too sweet for us. I will definitely use less sugar if we cook it again. I am going to try the beef and broccoli slow cooker recipe tonight – I will add less sugar and then taste after to see if it needs more. Great recipes 🙂
This is so good! And my whole family liked it, something which rarely happens. I know I will serve this often!
I hate it when people change half the things in a recipe and then comment, but I did just that today and it was delish! I added onion, celery, and red pepper and decided to double the sauce because of it. The soy sauce bottle didn’t have enough in it for a double recipe so I used 1/4 cup oyster sauce. So good! We had it on rice, but I think I will use the leftovers in chow mein tomorrow with lots of stir fried veggies and noodles.
Thanks for the awesome recipe!
I just made this for dinner tonight….whooooooooo weeeeeeee! We LOVE bulgogi here, so trying this “cheater” recipe with ground beef was such a great idea!!! My 14 year old sons can’t wait to eat it…..we’re waiting on roasted broccoli. Thank you!!
My family really enjoyed this. Spicey and sweet! Will make again.
Oh my. . I made this last night and it was simply amazing. Quick and easy for a weeknight. Everyone wanted seconds and my husband went back for thirds. I paired it with brown rice, egg rolls and broccoli.
Has anyone tried it with ground turkey?
The flavor was so delicious! I will definitely use the ingredients for the flavoring again however I will probably try strips of beef and maybe some broccoli along with the rice, I’m not a big fan of the consistency of the ground beef with rice. Thanks for sharing this recipe it has given me a great idea for a new dish!
This was PERFECT for us! I am a busy mom who works and goes to school and I will definitely be putting this in our dinner rotation. A nice salad with ginger dressing goes perfectly as a side!
A very good recipe! Thank you for posting it! YUM!
My husband and I absolutely LOVE this dish. It is so quick and easy and it’s damn delicious! 🙂 I’m making it again tonight and putting it in lettuce cups. YUM.
WOW!!! I really needed something new to use my ground beef so a quick google search brought me here and I’M SO GLAD it did! I made this recipe and took the comments into consideration. I doubled the sauce recipe, and added roasted broccoli (with olive oil and fresh garlic), fresh mushrooms and double the green onions. It was amazing!! The flavor was great. Many of the other comments mentioned a fight over left overs…….NOT in my house because there weren’t any! SO YUMMY!!!
Made this tonight using ground turkey and it was amazing. Thanks for the recipe !
“In a small bowl, whisk together brown sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, red pepper flakes and ginger.” (Do I stir this into the ground beef when it turns into brown and after i drained the excess fat?)
Yes, that’s correct. This is referred to as the “soy sauce mixture” here:
Stir in soy sauce mixture and green onions until well combined, allowing to simmer until heated through, about 2 minutes.
There are so many comments on this recipe that it seems silly to add yet another, but I thought there might be others out there with the same questions about it as I had. I have gestational diabetes and am on a very strict diet that requires ridiculous amounts of protein, and i’m always looking for another way to get enough in that actually appeals to me. So I had to modify this recipe to make it fit my diet needs. Instead of sugar I used unsweetened applesauce, and was worried it wouldn’t taste as good, but it was still delicious! I had to have it over a ton of veggies instead of the rice but that worked out just fine too. i also used Sriracha instead of red pepper flakes, just because I really like Sriracha, and used the less sodium soy sauce. i’m sure that the original version of the recipe is really great but for those of us that need to modify, it still works out just fine. Thanks Chungah!!
This sounds like a good way to use ground beef, besides hamburgers. Besides rice or lettuce cups, what vegetables would you recommend as a side?
Kimchi would be the perfect accompaniment to this dish! 🙂
The beef in your picture has a very fine grind to it- do you grind it yourself or have your butcher grind it down? Usually mine is a lot coarser!
I prefer to purchase ground beef either from Whole Food’s or Trader Joe’s.