Budae Jjigae, Korean Army Base Stew Recipe & Video - Seonkyoung Longest (2024)

Ingredients

Scale

For the Sauce (Sauce amount will serves 8 to 12)

• 6 Tbs gochugaru
• 3 Tbs soy sauce
• 2 Tbs fish sauce
• 2 Tbs rice wine or soju
• 1 Tbs sugar
• 1 tsp Doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste (can be substitute to miso)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 Tbs chopped garlic (approximately 8 to 10 cloves garlic)

For the Stew

• 1 cup kimchi
• 2 oz rice cake slices, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes if it’s frozen
• 6 oz spam (half can), sliced into 1/4-inch thin
• 6 oz hotdogs (2 links), sliced into 1/4-inch thin
• 4 oz firm tofu (1/4 block), sliced into 1/4-inch thin
• 5 oz breakfast sausage or any ground meat
• 3 to 5 green onions, sliced
• 2 Tbs baked beans
• 3 to 4 oz dried Dangmyeon, Korean glass noodles, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes
• 1 oz enoki mushrooms
• 1 or 2 slice American cheese
• 5 cups Korean ultimate stock (CLICK HERE for the Recipe) or chicken stock
• 4 oz instant ramen noodles or udon noodles

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

1. In a mixing bowl, add all ingredients for sauce and whisk until well combined. Set aside.
   
2. In a shallow and wide thick bottom pot, arrange kimchi, rice cake, spam, hotdogs tofu, breakfast sausage, green onion and baked beans. Place stoked dangmyeon and enoki mushrooms on middle. Pour half of sauce we made earlier on top and pour stock carefully. Place cheese right on top.
   
3. You can serve on a table if you have a portable stove with instant ramen noodles on side or cook ahead on a stove and serve.
   To cook budae Jjigae, bring it to boil over high heat, and hard boil for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and start stirring with a spoon to mix everything together. You can start eating by now and add ramen noodles when you are ready to eat. Enjoy with warm bowl of cooked rice!
   

This is one of the easiest Korean dishes one can make, yet it is very delicious and tasty for any appetite! Im the past, I have made this dish countless number of times.

Seonkyoung places the dry instant ramen noodles in pot and allows it to cook together. In order to reduce the starch from the noodle, I boil the noodle and allow it to semi cook, drain water, and then add noodles to the pot.

I have had great success with this Korean dish and when I need to whip a quick dinner, budae jjigae, Korean army base stew, is my fallback dish!

SeonkyoungJune 20, 2016 at 9:49 pm

Thank you for sharing your tips and tricks here Steve!!! Hope more people try this recipe~!! 😀

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Dean R. Throckmorton Jr.January 28, 2021 at 11:07 am

Is this stew traditionally eaten with a bowl of rice?

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SeonkyoungJune 20, 2016 at 9:37 pm

I make another batch a week later when we had guests came over to our house. 🙂 The sauce can store in a refrigerator up to 8-10 days. 🙂

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SeonkyoungOctober 26, 2016 at 2:47 am

The amount of the sauce recipe, you can make 2 large pots. However, if you aren’t used to spicy food, please reduce amount to your taste. 🙂

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I made this recipe exactly as indicated except for a few changes/modifications. I:
-Used 6oz Polish sausage instead of hot dogs (Polish Keilbasa beats hot dogs – always. Even on July 4)
-Omitted breakfast sausage (I didn’t want the extra fat since the Kielbasa would be bringing enough of its own)
-Substituted vegan miso for Doenjang because Seonkyoung SAID I COULD and because I want to remind my boyfriend that everyone likes regular miso paste and if you want to buy vegan miso, be prepared to eat it FOREVER, because NO ONE ELSE WILL WANT TO EAT IT)
-Used 2 tsp anchovy bouillon powder instead of 5 large dried anchovy in the Korean Ultimate Stock (because have you SEEN how big those anchovy bags are? My grandkids will still be using up the rest of those bags – and I don’t even have kids yet!)

I made two pots of budae jjigae. One was “mild” (with kimchi, but WITHOUT gochugaru sauce) and a “spicy” one (with kimchi and WITH the gochugaru sauce). To make the “spicy” pot, I added 2 Tblspn gochugaru master sauce first and added more (1 tblspn at a time) once the pot started to boil until I achieved desired spiciness. I made two pots because that way, there was something for everyone. Also, the people who started out mild but wanted to get wild would add a spoonful of the “spicy”; or if someone started out too spicy, they could add some of the “mild” broth. For each individual pot, I used the exact portions indicated from Spam, to rice cakes, Dangmyeon – basically everything (unless otherwise noted) – and it turned out PERFECTLY. A definite crowd pleaser and 8 sets of fabulously 8 bright red-stained dishes to wash. Thank you for sharing this recipe!

SeonkyoungNovember 29, 2016 at 8:40 am

Wow April! Thank you so much for sharing your experience with this recipe!! Hopefully this is helpful for people who wants to try this recipe! 😀 some part of your comment made me laugh in a good way, like, about the anchovy powder bag and fabulously red-strained dishes to wash… lol! Love your sense of humor!! Xoxo

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SeonkyoungMarch 13, 2017 at 5:21 pm

You can use gochujang instead. In that case, omit the soy sauce! 🙂

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SeonkyoungAugust 13, 2018 at 7:21 pm

YASSSSS!!! So happy for you that your hubby loved it too!! Happy cooking Chung~!!

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SeonkyoungDecember 8, 2018 at 12:41 am

Of course Ron! Hope my recipes feed your Korean food cravings!!!!

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SeonkyoungApril 7, 2020 at 1:47 pm

Happy Late Birthday! Thank you so much for your amazing support! and I hope you find my other recipes just as useful!

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Made it for my lunches and it was so scrumptious 😋😋😋 thank you for the recipe eonnie 😘

★★★★★

SeonkyoungOctober 10, 2021 at 8:00 pm

Gochujang is not nessassagrsy for budae jjige, Don’t trust everything on google or wikipedia. l

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