How to Make Rice Flour (Maepssalgaru or tteok ssal garu or ssal garu) for Korean Rice Cakes (Tteok) so you can make Songpyeon or other tteoks!
UPDATED 9/22 with new video and more recipe details
I was working on my post for Songypeon recipe yesterday and I realized that if you live outside of Korea, you may have a hard time finding the right kind of rice flour to make the Korean Chuseok Tteok called Songpyeon. Some big Korean stores may sell the special rice flour but that’s not always easy to find.
So I experimented at home to find the best recipe on how to make rice flour from short grain rice – Mepssalgaru 멥쌀가루 or Ssalgaru 쌀가루 for short. This Korean Rice Flour for Rice Cakes is also sometimes called Tteok Ssal Garu 떡쌀가루 for obvious reasons.
I know it’s kind of confusing but they all refer to the same thing; a rice flour or powder made from soaked short grain rice while it is still wet. NOTE, there’s a really confusing thing here. Even I used to get confused before when I didn’t know much about making Tteok.
Ssalgaru can refer to both dry and wet rice flour (sorry for the confusion!)
First, a short Korean vocabulary lesson:
- Ssal 쌀 – rice
- Maepssal 맵쌀 – short grain rice
- Chapssal 찹쌀 – sweet rice
- Garu 가루 – flour or powder
Although there are essentially two different kinds of Rice Flour/Powder in Korean cooking – one that is wet and another one that is completely dry – the name Ssalgaru 쌀가루 can refer to either because they are both rice flours.
The easiest way to distinguish them is where you find it in the store. The wet Ssalgaru (Rice Powder) which actually is a shortened name for Maepssalgaru has larger granules and is always stored frozen at grocery stores because they will go bad pretty quickly due to its moisture content. The dry Ssalgaru (Rice Flour) can be found on regular shelves with other dry grain flours.
Any kind of Korean ssal tteok like Songpyeon are always made from the WET rice flour and NOT dry rice flour/powder.
If you know how to make rice flour for rice cakes, you can use it to make almost any kind of Korean Ssal Tteok (rice cakes) that are made from rice: Sseolgitteok 설기떡, Tteokguk Tteok 떡국떡(rice cake for soups)
and Songpyeon 송편 to name a few.
In case you are wondering, tteoks like Injeolmi, Bukkumi and Hwajeon are made from sweet rice flour or sweet rice. FYI, you can read more about the different rice varieties HERE.
Where can I buy Korean tteok rice flour for Songpyeon?
You can buy frozen Tteok Ssal Garu (Rice Flour for Rice Cakes) from most big Korean grocery stores. If you live near a big Koreatown, there may be a Korean gristmill (방아간 Bang Ah Gaan) nearby or you can go to a Tteok store and ask if they can sell you some fresh wet rice flour.
If not, you can make it home with my recipe below –
How to Make Rice Flour for Korean Rice Cakes (Maepssalgaru for Tteok)
Makes: 4 cups Prep Time: 5 1/2 hrs Cook Time: 10 min Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
- 2 cup short grain rice (makes a little less than 4 cups fresh rice flour or ssal garu)
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 5 cups water
- powerful blender/chopper
- Rinse rice 3 times and soak in 5 cups of water for 5 hrs or more.
- When rice is fully soaked, drain for 30 minutes or more until rice is evenly drained with no pools of water in the colander.
Rice draining for Tteok powder - To a blender, 1/2 the soaked rice + 1/4 tsp sea salt. Grind the rice into fine powder. Overall, you should blend at least 3 minutes. Pause 2-3 times during the blending process to scrape off any rice that is stuck to the side that’s not being ground.
Rice Flour-Tteok Ssal Garu for making Korean Rice Cakes Rice should be so fine that the powder should get pasty when you rub it between your fingers. It can still feel a little gritty and that’s OK.
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Tip – I find that it works best when you divide the soaked rice into 2 portions and blend them separately. Too little or too much rice for your blender will not work as well.
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- Using a large sieve, sift the rice powder to remove any larger granules. If you have a lot of large granules, grind them again and sift again.
- Use in the same way as any store bought frozen rice powder (ssal garu) in your recipe but the amount of water needed will most likely be less as this is more FRESH.
STORAGE
Refrigerate for 1-2 days to use for Songpyeon or other Tteok. For longer storage, freeze and it should keep for a couple months at least.
Watch my video on how to make this flour!
Rice Flour (MaepSsalgaru) Recipe for Korean Tteok
Ingredients
- 2 cup short grain rice (makes 4 cups ground rice powder or ssal garu)
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
- 5 cups water
- powerful blender/chopper
Instructions
- Soak rice in 5 cups of water for 5 hrs or more.
- When rice is fully soaked, drain for 30 minutes or more until rice is evenly drained with no pools of water in the colander.
- Add to the blender about 1/2 of the soaked rice and 1/8 tsp salt. Grind the rice on high speed into fine powder. Overall, you should blend at least 3 minutes. Pause 2-3 times during the blending process to scrape off any rice that is stuck to the side that's not being ground.
- Rice should be so fine that the powder should get pasty when you rub it between your fingers. It can still feel a little gritty and that's OK.
- Using a large sieve, sift the rice powder to remove any large pieces of unground rice.
- Store rice powder (Ssal Garu) in the fridge for up to 2 days or in the freezer for few months.
Nutrition Information:
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Well.. hmm. I use different rice but mostly Pulmuone but you can also get Nishiki and that should work just as well. Perhaps your rice is not a new crop?
-Hi. I tried to make this few hours ago but it didn’t turn out as white as the rice cake that i bought online or like the videos I have watched. It’s more more cream color?
– Can you please give a brand of short grain rice?if its possible please?
Thank you so much!
I know this is a dumb question
But what if I use constarch with long grain rice powder. Because in a earlier comment you Said that long grain rice is not starchy enough. So is it possible for me
So – when I meant starch, I also meant it being sticky… so cornstarch is not going to work but if you really cannot get regular short grain rice, you can try (I have not done this so I’m just guessing) actually adding regular flour to long grain rice powder. The gluten in the flour will help to keep it together. Cheap Korean tteok makers used to use flour in addition to short grain rice flour to make tteok – because rice is more expensive than flour. So, it could work but again, you are not using short grain rice flour so not totally sure. Good luck.
Hi, I was wondering if I could use long grain rice, I couldn’t find any short grain. Would it change the results? Would it work the same?
Yes, you will definitely get different results. Short grain has lot more starch and has a sticky property which makes the tteok work. Although I did not try, I would think that long grain rice flour will not be sticky enough to give you the results you need. Hope that helps. Thank you for asking!
Very silly question here. I am watching Chef and My Fridge (냉장고를부탁해) on Netfilx and Chef Choi Hyun Seok made an alternative to the traditional tteok using regular flour. I’ve tried finding the recipe for this, but have had no luck.
Question 1: Is it possible to use regular flour as a substitute for rice flour?
Question 2: Where can I find the recipe for the tteokbokki he made on the show?
Thank you!
Hi – no worries. I really enjoy that show too but haven’t seen the episode where he makes tteok. There are cases where they use part regular flour and part rice flour (which is actually a cheap version – Koreans prefer 100% rice flour) but haven’t seen one where it’s 100% regular flour. Sorry, I don’t know of any recipe for making tteokbokki at home. Thanks for asking!
No problem! Thank you for responding! The episode I’m referring to is the one with Yoo Byung-jae, in case you want to see what it is I’m talking about.