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
Equipment
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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My girlfriend and I tried this. While we like it very much, it’s more like a beef stew. We did not taste anything “Korean” about this.
Just made this in my crock pot and can’t stop eating it. Pretty soon won’t be enough for dinner. I love it. This will be a meal I make often. Thanks I love all your recipes.
Haha, yeah, happens to me all the time! Glad you are enjoying it Carol!
This looks amazing! Finally I have a reason to use the slow cooker option on my instant pot!
Exactly! 🙂
Hi Chungah. Love your recipes and would like to share with others. It would be nice to have a link to email recipes to others. I wanted to email my brother your recipe for Korean beef yesterday but could not find how to do so.. You would probably get even more subscribes to your site that way.
Hi Deborah, you could always send them a link to the recipe you want to share. That way it leads them right to the website as well 🙂 Hope that helps!
How do you serve it?
You can serve it over rice.
Excellent! Truly great flavor. Very tender and juicy beef that was melt in your mouth delicious. The sauce thickened nicely and wasn’t too sweet or salty. Husband and picky daughter loved this recipe. My husband wanted the beef & sauce over rice with assorted vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, onion, & red bell pepper. I had my serving like that too. My daughter requested udon noodles but our grocery store didn’t have any so I used ramen (without seasoning packet of course). My family told me to cook this again soon! “Amazing” Thanks so much!
That’s awesome, Michelle! Thanks for sharing. So glad you and your family enjoyed the recipe so much!
I followed the recipe exactly and my meat is dry and overdone and the sauce never did thicken up. 🙁
This a darn delicious dish! Very easy to prepare and then I let the slow cooker do it’s job. The green onion and sesame seeds are a must. Thanks for sharing the recipe! Vince
Simply delicious! I amped oup the amount of sriracha for a little heat and served the dish with Trader Joe’s riced cauliflower that I stir fried on the stove top.
Really love this recipe, simple great tasting. It was my husbands birthday request. Would like more recipes like this.
Any tips for getting the sauce to thicken?? My husband has made this several times but it stays soupy.
Cornstarch should do the trick!
Had this last night in lettuce cups with jasmine rice on the side. The only modification I made was I left the chuck roast whole and then shredded it and added it back to the sauce. It was delicious. Thank you.
Hi Chungah,
Besides rice, is there another side that will go well with the Korean beef? Thanks,
Steamed vegetables would also be a great alternative!
I followed the recipe to a tee (cooked on low setting for 7 hours then added water/cornstarch mix and cooked on high for 30 min) but for some reason my beef came out SO dry and hadn’t really absorbed much flavor from the sauce. Any thoughts on what might have happened?
Oh no – what a bummer! I am so sorry that happened to you. Can I ask what cut of meat you used?
What is the difference between rice wine vinegar and rice vinegar? I’m only able to locate the rice vinegar. Would this work in the recipe? Also not much of a sriracha fan so if I omit this, will the recipe still fine without it? This recipe looks so good, can’t wait to try it out.
Hi JJ, the only difference between the two is the wording on the label. All rice vinegar is made by fermenting the sugars from rice into an alcohol such as wine, then further fermenting the wine into acetic acid. So if a recipe calls for rice wine vinegar and you’ve purchased rice vinegar, you are good to go! If you are not a fan of sriracha you can leave it out.
Can I put the sauce and meat together to marinade overnight and then add to the crockpot in the morning?
I’m taking this camping and want to prep as much as possible. I have the meat chunked and sauce mixture made separate at this point. Thanks!
Yes, of course. What a great idea!
This recipe is a gold mine. Thank you sincerely for sharing. I changed three things: I halved the sugar amount as I and my honey are sensitive to high sugar in anything; I had to add one extra cup of beef stock solely because my crock pot runs hotter than average and tends to scorch my food; I used coconut aminos vs. soy sauce as I had it on hand. The taste is positively phenomenal. I am roasting carrots, mushrooms, and broccoli with garlic, coconut oil, coconut aminos, and white pepper to accompany my meat and rice. Yum, yum, yum!
Making this tonight. It smells so good already and I still have to wait another 3 1/2 hours until it’s ready to eat.
This recipe is absolutely amazing! Thank you so much for sharing. We make this over and over and it’s a hit every time. I sometimes change it up and add carrots, onions and mushrooms and it turns into a wonderful stew. We toast up some french baguettes and use it to dip into the broth/stew. LOVE!
Been a fan of your recipes for a a good year or so now! Wondering if this recipe would work with ground beef instead of chuck roast? Any idea? I just love the original Korean beef recipe you made, but I would love to make a mass quantity!
Thanks!!
Unfortunately, without further recipe testing, I cannot answer with certainty. As always, please use your best judgment regarding substitutions and modifications.