Slow Cooker Korean Beef
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Amazingly tender, melt-in-your-mouth Korean beef easily made right in the crockpot – 10 min prep! So easy, so good.
Featured Comment
Korean beef? In a crockpot? Really?
Yes, really! It is packed with the most tender chunks of beef chuck roast that cooks oh-so-perfectly right in your slow cooker, swimming in that gravy-like sauce. And don’t worry. The crockpot is doing all the heavy lifting for you.
All you have to do is gather a handful of pantry staples and throw them right into the slow cooker – beef broth, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, ginger, Sriracha, onion powder and white pepper. This is that lovely gravy-situation I mentioned.
You’ll want all of this on a bed of rice to sop up every last drop. A side of kimchi + cucumbers is also a very nice-to-have.
Did you miraculously end up with leftovers? Serve with eggs for breakfast or stuff it in tacos, quesadillas, or even a burrito.
Tools For This Recipe
6-qt slow cooker
Slow Cooker Korean Beef: Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! You can follow this recipe here.
This stovetop Korean beef bulgogi is another reader favorite!
You can serve this with white rice or our favorite no-fuss sheet pan fried rice!
Slow Cooker Korean Beef
Ingredients
- 1 cup beef broth
- ½ cup reduced sodium soy sauce
- ½ cup brown sugar, packed
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon Sriracha, or more, to taste
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon white pepper
- 3 pound boneless beef chuck roast, cut into 1-inch cubes
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon sesame seeds
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together beef broth, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, ginger, Sriracha, onion powder and white pepper.
- Place chuck roast into a 6-qt slow cooker. Stir in beef broth mixture until well combined.
- Cover and cook on low heat for 7-8 hours or high heat for 3-4 hours.
- In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and 1/4 cup water. Stir in mixture into the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high heat for an additional 30 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened.
- Serve immediately, garnished with green onions and sesame seeds, if desired.
Did you make this recipe?
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Do you have to cut the beef into cubes?
Is there a substitute for sugar?
I’m planning on trying this in the next few days and will probably just omit sweetener entirely. If I do add any sweetener, it would probably just be a teaspoon or two of coconut palm sugar, honey, or maple syrup. I’m just going to taste test it at the end and see if I would want to add any sweet to it. We don’t eat much sweet, and it’s amazing how much taste buds change to where something like 1/2 a cup of sugar with a roast that will shrink down to about a pound really is way too much sugar. That much sugar is actually pretty unnecessary.
Hi! I’m diabetic so I use Swerve……..they have Baking Sugar, Brown Sugar and Confectioner’s Sugar. I found that it work’s really well for baking and crock pot meals. I have tried others but found that Swerve doesn’t bother my stomach. Hope this helps!
Swerve brown sugar replacement
Brown sugar is nothing but white granulated sugar and molasses. When I make this, I plan to use just molasses for that dark, smokey flavor it gives and only a little white sugar or maybe no white sugar at all.
Would love to make it
Is sriracha necessary or can we just add at the end
What brand and exact type of rice wine vinegar do you use? There are so many to choose from, it can be confusing.
This recipe was outstanding, and very easy. We decided to kick it up a notch by turning this into a Korean Beef taco, which we served to rave reviews at a recent party! We shredded the beef (simple to do!) and then for taco assembly, began with a layer of kimchi, added the beef, then topped with the green onions and sesame seeds as outlined in the recipe, then added a bit of gochujang. Voila! Thank you for such a wonderful, versatile, crowd-pleasing recipe!
Very good recipe!
Great flavor and tender beef.
I was wondering if I used la choy soy sauce would it make my meat salty?
Ok as a foody and lover of all Asian food, this recipe is the bomb! Used for tacos with Kimchi, avocado, and Korean soybean paste (Doenjang).
This is a keeper!!! My family loves it! I cooked it in the Instant Pot for 30 minutes. The meat was so tender! I also doubled the sauce. I added the cornstarch after I pressure cooked the meat. I didn’t have rice wine vinegar and ginger. Still came out delicious!! Thank you for the wonderful recipe!
What temperature did you set the Instant Pot?
I know your comment is a year old now but that’s what I did tonight. I did 25 minutes and high pressure with a natural release. Came out perfectly
OMG!! This is absolutely amazing!! Loved it!! Will definitely make again!! So tender and flavorful!!
Help I doubled the sauce recipe can it be fixed? It’s texture is more like a stew I’m devo!!!
Spectacular and easy! Whole family raves about it and requests it. I have family members with inability to process both gluten (celiac disease) and dairy and finding workable recipes is a challenge. I used the San-J tamari sauce instead of the soy sauce (which has wheat) and everyone was thrilled with the results!
Making this for the second time – family couldn’t wait to have it again. But first time, my slow cooker wouldn’t work so ended up cooking it is the oven. Still amazing! I did brown the meet first. Served with rice and and grilled zucchini. Forgot the sesame seeds at the end ( even though I took the jar out of the pantry). Will definitely add this time !
So good! I’ve made this twice in Instapot. High pressure, sealed, for 30 minutes. Natural release 6 minutes. Then removed the beef, added cornstarch to liquid, and sautéed the liquid-cornstarch mixture until thickened, stirring frequently. Delicious!
Currently making this for about the 5th time. It’s one of my husbands new favorites, he keeps asking for it! Even my 6&8 year old love it. We serve it over rice with whatever veggies we have on hand (carrots, red peppers, broccoli, asparagus)
Absolute FIVE stars!!! “Damn Delicious” is an undersatement! (As I usually feel about most recipes from here.) 😀 I honestly would go back again and again at a resturant if I could just go buy this!! This was EXACTLY what I dreamed it would be! That said, I am adventurous in the kitchen and view most recipies as a “suggestion” and read them mostly for ideas and then I’m critical of my own meals…but when I read this recipe I knew it was one I would actually want to follow to a T and I did…with the exception of using fresh ground black pepper only because I couldn’t find my white pepper in my plethora of spices, lol. I do salt the meat overnight for extra tenderness. But otherwise I even stuck to measurements, etc. This will be a certain staple. Thank you so much!!!! Also, I served over rice noodles and sauteed cabbage. 😀
So good! I made this the other day for my meal prep. I forgot to check that I had all the ingredients before I got started, so I used ACV instead of rice vinegar. It was a hit! The texture of the beef was aaaaamazing.
I love your recipes! I have made several including this one. I have had to use groud ginger when I didn’t have fresh but still turned out great! I was curious about the Sriracha though, but always forgot to ask, you meant for us to use the liquidy stuff and nor the ground right? I figured you did since it didn’t say ground but I was wondering.
I wanted to cook this in the oven so browned the cubed chuck (seasoned and dredged in flour), then browned 1/2 a chopped onion and the garlic. Deglazed with the beef broth then added the rest. Cut the sugar to 1/4 cup. Brought to a boil then covered and put in a 325 degree oven for about 1:40. Added a bit of Wondra (sauce was already quite thick because of the flour in the browning process). Very, very good.