9 Chuseok (Korean Harvest Moon) Recipes with Jesa Table Setting Guide

9 Chuseok (Korean Harvest Moon) recipes that you can make at home, from rice recipes like Songpyeon (rice cakes), Sikhye (rice punch), Jeons (fritters) to Samesaek Namul (vegetable side dish with three colors).

Koreans start the autumn season with a major celebration known as Chuseok 추석,  which takes place on the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar – around autumn equinox. In 2019, this day falls on September 13th. Chuseok literally means “autumn evening,” and it’s a harvest festival commemorating the season’s crops.

Now, Chuseok is a time when many Korean families gather together to perform Jesa (제사 ancestral rites) by cooking wonderful foods to offer to their ancestors,  setting the table and inviting the ancestor spirits to visit and enjoy the food. Jesa for Chuseok is also called Charye 차례 and when the ceremony is over, the whole family will enjoy the food together.

Traditionally in the past, the women in the family (mom, daughter-in-law, daughters) spent days preparing all the Jesa food. But today’s modern Korean family often chooses to go on trips instead or actually order the foods from businesses instead of laboring for days to prepare it all. But it’s still good to know the history behind these foods.

Chuseok is also a time to celebrate all the abundance of New Year’s crop which will always include rice and fruits. Chuseok recipes include rice cake, rice wine, and rice dessert with the new rice crop along with festive dishes like grilled fish, dried seafood (octopus, pollock or yellow croaker), beef jerkey (yukpo), seafood fritters (saenseonjeon), and vegetable side dishes (namul).

When setting up the table, here are some general rules (it is said that the spirits are not fond of the following 😉)

BTW, if you want to learn how the traditional Jesa table was setup, here’s a diagram that I drew to show you how it’s done!  So the ancestor’s place is at the North end and at the South end, the descendants will take turns to bow and offer wine to the ancestral spirits.

There are 14 rules in all that guide how you set this offering table. Overall, it should have 5 rows with different

There’s even a rule that says all produce from the earth (i.e. plants) should be in odd numbers (hence the fruits are stacked in odd numbers) and all produce from the sky (i.e. meat and fish) should be in even numbers. Anyway, I’ve drawn a sample Chuseok table that contains typical Jesa foods. Hopefully,  you can see it OK!

NOTE – there is a little mistake in this drawing. I should have drawn 2 place settings (2 spoons + chopstick sets and 2 memorial tablets (신의 shineui)) since we have 2 plates of songpyeon for each ancestor but I only drew one instead… not sure what I was thinking..

• Row 1 (from top, left to right): Noodles, wine, songpyeon, wine, songpyeon, flat tteok (rice cake)
• Row 2 (left to right): 어동육서 (魚東肉西 eo-dong-yuk-seo) means fish to the east and meat to the west, 동두서미 (頭東尾西 dong-du-seo-mi) means fish head must face the east and tail must face the west. So we have beef jeon, beef jerky, assorted skewered jeok, grilled fish (with head pointing to east), fish jeon
• Row 3 (left to right): 3 soups, beef soup, tofu soup, fish soup
• Row 4 (left to right): 좌포우혜 (左脯右醯 ja-po-wu-hye ) means dried food (po) to the left or west and Sik(hye) to the right or east.
• Row 5 (left to right): 조율이시 (棗栗梨柿 jo-yul-yi-si) means fruits must be placed in this order – dried jujubes -> peeled chestnuts -> pears with top cut off -> persimmons.

 Based on this table, I’ve put together 9 Chuseok recipes that Koreans cook and eat to memorialize and pay respects to their ancestors and also to just celebrate the coming of autumn!

One cannot celebrate Chuseok without making this wonderful treat called Songpyeon(송편).  As a kid, this was one time when I was allowed to fully participate in the kitchen without being told I should just go and do my homework. 😝I think I always preferred being in the kitchen than being up in my room doing some boring homework..hahaha..I guess I was meant to be doing this.😍

This steamed rice cake is made with short-grain rice cake dough and has a sweet filling. It’s vegan and gluten-free! I use matcha powder and kabocha squash to create different colors of the dough, and I like to make fillings from sesame seeds and mung beans. It can be a fun kitchen session with the family! Don’t miss my step-by-step photos and a how-to video in the post here.

Tradition has it that the rice cake is steamed on top of a layer of pine needles so that the “chi” of the pine tree will transfer and make us strong and healthy. Plus, this process also gives the rice cake a wonderful aroma of the pine tree.

Beef Soup

Probably the most basic soup in Korean cuisine but also one of the three soups in Chuseok recipes. This beef soup is wonderful on its own but also a great base for many other soups.

Special Three-Color Vegetable Side Dish (Samsaek Namul)

Another pretty dish that’s always included in Chuseok recipes is Samsaek Namul, which basically means “three-color vegetables.” The specific colors are white, brown, and green. I use white radish to make white namul, bracken fiddleheads to make brown namul, and perilla leaves to make green namul.

This significant dish is part of a display of food offerings to family ancestors on the morning of Chuseok in a memorial ceremony known as Charye 차례. Koreans return to their hometowns to pay respects to their ancestors for a bountiful harvest.

Pan-fried Fish and Shrimp Jeon (Saengsun and Saewoo Jeon)

Fish and shrimp fritters, or jeon in Korean, are almost always served in a full-course traditional Korean dinner, especially for special festive meals around Chuseok and New Year’s. To prepare this, simply coat fish and shrimp in eggs and flour and then pan-fry them to golden brown perfection. Fish jeon is usually made with white meat fish, especially cod and pollock.

These fritters are another great party food because they can be made ahead and kept warm in the oven until serving time. The tip is to cover them partially so that they don’t dry up. You can serve jeon at room temperature too, but they taste so much better warm.

Water Kimchi (Nabak Kimchi)

As the rules say,  you cannot put heavily seasoned spicy foods so a regular kimchi cannot go on the Chuseok charye table. However, there is a spot for mul kimchi. And  how can  one ever have Korean food without any kind of kimchi?? Dead or alive..?? HAHA..

Dakdoritang or Dakjjim (Stewed Chicken)

Dakdoritang or Dakjjim is another meat dish that can be placed on the table. This is a very mild stewed chicken dish with lots of root vegetables making it a hearty dish.

Holidays always call for something sweet, right? A celebration dessert for Koreans is Yakwa, a healthy sweet treat made with sticky rice, dried jujube dates, chestnut, and pine nuts.

Fun fact: This delicacy was created by one of my husband’s ancestors! You can read about it in this post. I learned the traditional Yakgwa recipe from my mother-in-law and I created this baked Yakwa recipe in case you don’t want to bother with frying.

Sweet Rice Punch (Sikhye)

Much like holiday time in other cultures, Sikhye is a holiday time drink and is a classic dessert drink in my Chuseok recipes list. This dessert beverage is made from rice and malt barley. It has a unique sweet taste with melt-in-your-mouth rice grains that come floating in the drink.

XOXO ❤️
JinJoo

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