Korean Bibimbap
Korean Bibimbap
Our traditional take on this warm Korean rice bowl. Use our recipe as a guide, but get creative as you want with the components. The fridge is your oyster!
Ingredients
- RICE
- 4 cups cooked jasmine rice
- 1 TBSP coconut oil (optional)
- SPINACH
- 1 TBSP coconut oil
- 6 cups fresh spinach, loosely packed
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp garlic salt
- MUSHROOMS
- 1 TBSP butter
- 12 baby Bella mushrooms, sliced
- 1 TBSP tamari soy sauce
- BEEF
- 1 lb ground beef
- 2 TBSP sweet chili sauce
- 1 TBSP sriracha sauce
- 1 TBSP soy sauce
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 TBSP brown sugar
- OTHER VEGGIES/TOPPINGS
- 3 carrots, julienned
- 1 cucumber, julienned or cut into rounds
- 2 green onions, sliced thinly
- 4 large eggs
- 1/4 cup kimchi
- 2 TBSP sesame seeds or Trader Joes Everything But the Bagel Seasoning
Directions
- Step 1 Cook your rice first, as directed. My rice simmered for 20 minutes while I prepared the rest of the ingredients. Stir in coconut oil after it is cooked through for additional flavoring.
- Step 2 Prepare the fresh vegetables. Peel the carrots and then cut into small matchsticks. Thinly slice the cucumber, and slice the green onions
- Step 3 Move on to the sautéed spinach next. Heat coconut oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add the garlic. Cook until it starts to brown, then add the fresh spinach. Sauté the spinach for a few minutes, or just until it is wilted. Drizzle the sesame oil over top and season lightly with a pinch of garlic salt. Remove the spinach from the skillet to a bowl and keep warm.
- Step 4 You can cook the mushrooms simultaneously in another small skillet. Melt butter over medium high heat and add mushrooms. Sauté until softened and cooked through. Toss with soy sauce and keep warm.
- Step 5 Now add the ground beef to the skillet used to cook the spinach. Cook the beef until fully browned, then add the sriracha, chili sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar and garlic powder. Stir and cook for about one minute, until the sauce is fully absorbed. Turn the heat off.
- Step 6 Assemble each bowl before cooking the eggs. Divide the cooked rice between for bowls, then add the spinach, mushrooms, ground beef and some sliced cucumber, shredded carrots and a spoonful of kimchi to each. You can also add other elements like my garlic bok choy (see below). Sprinkle sliced green onions and sesame seeds over top. You can arrange the bowl in whatever pattern you desire, extra points for artistry!
- Step 7 Lastly, cook your eggs. You can fry them or soft boil, but I recommend sunny side up – the runnier the better! Top each bowl with the egg and serve immediately.
This has been a bucket list dish of my mine for a long time. Believe it or not, my first introduction to bibimbap was in my home state of New Hampshire (which, no, is not really known for it’s Korean food) at Street, an eclectic International joint in downtown Portsmouth. Immediately I was hooked! It may have taken me forever to pronounce the name of it correctly – I kept calling it “bibi bop” not “bib im bop” – but that didn’t lessen my appreciation for it one bit. I am so excited to finally create my own bibimbap for the blog.
This Korean dish literally translates to “mixed rice” bowl but anyone who has ever experienced it knows it is SO much more than that. It’s the ultimate dinner bowl, like a warm buddha bowl on steroids, boasting an eclectic range of Asian flavors and textures. The roadmap for building a bibimbap suggests that it include warm white rice topped with sautéed vegetables (you choose!), seasoned with chili pepper paste and soy sauce, topped with a raw or fried egg and a protein (usually beef, but I’ve seen both seafood and vegetarian variations too). The hot dish is stirred together thoroughly just before eating and the flavors meld together to create one epic meal.
From wikipedia, I learned that this dish was traditionally eaten on the eve of the lunar new year in order to use up any leftover sides before the new year. The solution to this problem was to put all of the leftovers in a bowl of rice and mix them together. I don’t know about you, but I love finding creative ways to use up leftovers. I love the “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to dishes because it really sparks my creativity and bibimbap definitely falls under that heading. Even if you follow the prescribed recipe roadmap above, the options are truly endless for creating your own version and you can definitely use it to clean out leftovers from your own fridge – so it’s a great end of the week recipe.
At the outset, I took a traditional approach to this first go at a bibimbap: I created a spicy chili garlic beef and added julienned carrots, cucumber, sautéed spinach as my veggies. Since I didn’t have any traditional Korean gochujang (chili pepper paste) on hand, I took the creative license to make my own version – using Sriracha and sweet chili sauce. I also had some mushrooms in the fridge I wanted to use up and some leftover garlic bok choy (see recipe below), so I tossed both of those into the bowl too. Lastly, since I have also become obsessed with Trader Joes kimchi lately, that also made the cut as well.
This was a fairly easy recipe to throw together, the hardest part was juggling the cooking of each element. I put the rice on first, then did the spinach and mushrooms simultaneously. Next came the beef and very last was the egg. Now that I’ve got the bibimbap process down and our first recipe under my belt, I’m looking forward to trying different variations. Stay tuned for those! Or just follow my lead on using leftovers and put your own creative spin on things. Comment below and let us know what variations you tried!
Garlic Baby Bok Choy
A super simple bok choy preparation, sautéed on the stove and tossed with soy sauce before serving. A great addition to our bibimbap, see above!
Ingredients
- 2-3 gloves garlic, minced
- 4 small heads of baby bok choy, halved lengthwise, thoroughly washed before cooking
- 2 TBSP olive oil
- 2 TSBP water
- 1 TBSP soy sauce
- 1 TBSP sesame seeds, or my fave - Trader Joes Everything But the Bagel Seasoning
Directions
- Step 1 Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic, cook until fragrant and golden, about 30 seconds. Add bok choy, soy sauce and water – toss in skillet to evenly coat. Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes.
- Step 2 Remove lid and continue cooking until bok choy is tender, about 2 minutes. Season with sesame seeds or salt before serving warm.
