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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Are you able to use medium grain white rice?
Sorry if you are trying to make tteok, you need short grain rice. Medium grain is probably not sticky enough. Thank you for asking!!
Hi, I can’t find short grain white rice anywhere. Can I use short grain brown rice?
YES, you should be able to use brown rice – but it will not be as sticky and chewy as white rice. But healthier! Good luck!
Hello mine turned out too sticky. hmmmm how to correct these please? 🙂
Hi, so what came out too sticky? Since this post is just making the flour…btw most rice cakes are supposed to be sticky. 🙂
Hello, do you know if I can make this flour from Costco Homai rice? The bag says it’s a sushi rice but the description also says it is a medium grain rice. So, I am not sure. Thank you.
Hmm.. honestly, I am not sure about that particular brand but I know sushi rice in general is quite sticky so I think it may work fine. Let me know how it goes!
What are some recipes that one would use with the dry rice flour?