Jajangmyeon is a very popular noodle dish in Korea that is made with Chinese black bean paste (Chunjang), meat and veggies. Included in my post is my Gan-Jajangmyeon recipe which has a more concentrated and intense flavor. A great one-dish meal any time or any day of the week!
Noodles in Black Bean Sauce (Gan Jjajangmyeon)
Jajangmyeon History
Jajangmyeon (짜장면) or Jjajangmyeon is a Chinese Korean noodle dish that according to one story was introduced in 1905 by a Chinese chef at Gonghwachun (공화춘; 共和春), a Chinese restaurant in Incheon Chinatown settled by immigrants from the Shandong Province of China. Since then, it has fully become part of the Korean culture, invoking all sorts of memories for many Koreans young and old.
The other story says that no one knows for certain who introduced it first but the dish came about because the Chinese immigrants who worked at the Incheon pier in the 1890’s needed something quick and cheap to eat.
In 2012, I visited Incheon and also visited this Jajangmyeon museum and here are some pictures that I took.
Pictures of Incheon Chinatown including Jajangmyeon Museum
From top left to right: picture of Incheon Chinatown and tourists; the chef + delivery man sculpture in front of the museum; the inside of the most famous Jajangmyeon restaurant (feels like I was in a Chinese martial arts movie); antique steel carrier used for delivering Chinese food.
So… did you ever notice? In almost every Korean drama, you will see characters devour this black sauce noodle dish-ending with black sauce all around their mouths. And they are always delivered in a version of the steel carrier above which is now sometimes a plastic box.
There’s even a saying among Koreans about how a move to a new home is not complete unless you order Jajangmyeon at the end of a long moving day. For every Korean neighborhood, there’s always a Chinese restaurant nearby and delivery is a must. A few days ago, in one of my TV favorite show – “Dad, where are you going?”(아빠 어디가? Appa Uh-diga?)- I watched Jjajangmyeon being delivered to a rice field!!? Whaat??? Even the dads were surprised to see the food when it came. Now, I call that service!!!
I think in many ways, Jjajangmyeon is equivalent to America’s Pizza. If you are up late working in the office or if you have friends over but not sure what to eat, then Koreans order this ultimate comforting dish.
I have been making homemade Jajangmyeon since 91′ after I got married (over 20 years?!) at the request of my husband. My recipe has evolved quite a bit over the years and I have to say I’m quite happy with this one. When I gave it to my daughter for tasting, she happily chanted “Your Jajangmyeon tastes better than the one at the restaurant we visited!”. And if you are allergic to MSG, my version does NOT need any so you are good there.
Variations
- 간짜장면 Gan-Jajangmyeon – more intense flavor because the sauce is condensed (just black bean paste and vegetables, little water) also more expensive
- 짜장면 Jajangmyeon – water or broth added to Kaan Jajang, so it’s milder in flavor
- 삼선간짜장면 Samseon Kaan Jajangmyeon – ‘sam’ means 3 and ‘seon’ means taste. Traditionally, it contains 3 kinds of seafood like squid, sea cucumber and shrimp in addition to pork and veggies.
- 사천짜장면 Sahcheon Jajangmyeon – Sahcheon (사천) means Szechuan. as with many things Szechuan, it had added spiciness
- 유니짜장면 Uni Jajangmyeon – is made with ground meat instead of cubes which is how it’s mostly done
The version I’m making here is Kaan Jajang. You can easily make regular Jajangmyeon by adding more water or chicken broth.
Chef’s Tips for making Best Jajangmyeon
- Always pre-fry the Chunjang in lots of oil – if you skip this step, your sauce will come out tasting a bit tart
- Customize added ingredients – you can add or swap out vegetables. Just don’t omit onions. You can also add squid and scallops to the recipe below. Use BEEF stew meat instead of pork if you’d like
- Make extra sauce – it keeps for several days in the fridge so just reheat and enjoy later.
- Use rice instead of noodles to make Jajangbap or better yet, make simple fried rice and serve it with that.
- Add a runny fried egg on top for extra umami!
Servings: 3 Cooking Time: 35 min Difficulty: Medium
Ingredients for Jajangmyeon
- 1/2 C Chinese black bean paste (춘장 chunjang/choonjang)
- 1/2 C or 3 fresh, dried or fresh shitake mushrooms, chopped (optional)
- 3 oz (80g) pork loin, cut into cubes
- 1 medium size onion, chopped
- 1 1/2 C cabbage, chopped
- 1/2 C zucchini, chopped
- 1 carrot, chopped (optional)
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 1/2 cucumber, julienned (as garnish)
- 1 T sugar
- 1 C water
- 1/2 C + 3 T vegetable oil
- 1 pack of fresh noodles for jajangmyeon or kal guksu
Jinmi 춘장 Choonjang (Chinese Black Bean Paste)
In Korea, this Jinmi Chunjang (진미 춘장) is the standard black bean paste to use for Jajangmyeon. They used to have MSG in it but not any more so that’s a good thing. 🙂
Step-by-Step Directions
- Prepare ingredients below:
Vegetables and pork for jjajang
*See the lovely yellow carrot?! The pretty carrot is from my farm – we grew some colored carrots this summer and I decided to add the carrot for additional flavor. Carrot is totally optional but is a great way to hide additional nutrition for kids. I loved these carrots so much, I decided to take a picture –
colored carrots from our farm-more beta carotene than regular carrot
2. Chop all vegetables into small cubes.
Chopped vegetables for Jjajang Myeon
3. In a non-stick frying pan, add equal amount of choonjang and oil to pan on medium/medium low heat. Should be bubbling but not burning. Stirring often, cook for 7 min.
stir frying jajang (black bean paste) in oil
Lots of oil will be leftover after stir frying the paste.
Jjajang sauteed in oil (after 7 min of cooking)
4. WHILE the choonjang is cooking, in ANOTHER pan, add 2 T oil to pan on medium heat. Sauté just onions and cabbages for 10 min or more until onions become translucent. This will make your sauce taste sweeter!
cooked onions and cabbages
5. Remove choonjang from pan. It should be easy to bunch up the cooked choonjang and remove from oil. Like so-
chunjang cooked in oil
6. Discard the leftover oil in pan.
7. Remove onions and cabbages from pan and set aside. Sauté pork on med-high heat for 2-3 min in the same pan.
8. Once pork is cooked, return onions, cabbages to pan. Add 1 T oil and remaining vegetables. Sauté all ingredients on med-high heat for 5 – 7 min. Veggies should still be slightly crunchy.
9. Add the cooked choonjang paste to pan (step 8) and stir everything, making sure the paste coats the ingredients evenly.
Jajang sauce with vegetables for jajangmyeon
10. Stir fry for 2 min. Add 1 C water and 1 T sugar. Cook until the sauce is reduced to half. Reduce further for more condensed flavor.
11. Fresh noodles (국수 guksu) are best for Jajangmyeon. If you can buy one’s that says “짜장면 국수”, it should work fine. If you cannot find it at my local market, 칼국수 (Kalguksu/Kalgooksoo) will work fine. Cook the noodles in boiling water for 7-10 min (based on package directions) and rinse in cold water.
fresh Korean noodle package (생 칼국수 saeng kalgooksoo)
12. Sauce is now ready!
Jajangmyeon Sauce finished
Just add noodles or rice to a bowl and top with this amazingly yummy Kaanjajang sauce!
Jjajang Bap (짜장밥) Rice with Black Bean Sauce
NOTES
- How to make regular Jajangmyeon? – In step 8, instead of reducing the sauce, just add 1 T corn starch mixed with 1/4 C water to the sauce and stir. The jajang sauce should thicken up but will have less intense flavor.
- Chunjang(춘장) and Jajang(짜장) are used interchangeably when referring to the black bean paste. Sometimes you may find 볶음짜장(bokkeum jajang) which means it’s already been fried in oil in which case you can skip step 3.
- For a richer sauce, use chicken broth instead of water. Watch out for saltiness though since chicken broth already has quite a bit of sodium. Use low sodium chicken broth or use half broth and half water.
SERVING SUGGESTIONS
- Serve a side of Danmuji 단무지 (Yellow pickled radish) and some fresh onions slices with the chunjang as a dipping sauce. These two are a must side dish when eating Jajangmyeon. Oh and Kimchi too!
- Make Gyeran Guk (Korean egg drop soup) and serve together – especially when you are serving rice with black bean sauce.
If you love noodles, you will LOVE these!~❤️
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- Bibim Guksu (Korean Spicy Cold Noodles)
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- How to plate Mul Naengmyeon
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- Makguksu(막국수) – Fresh Cold Buckwheat Noodle Salad for one
- 1/2 cup Chinese black bean paste (춘장 chunjang/choonjang)
- 1/2 cup or 3 fresh , dried or fresh shitake mushrooms, chopped (optional)
- 3 oz (80g) pork loin, cut into cubes
- 1 medium size onion , chopped
- 1 1/2 cup cabbage , chopped
- 1/2 cup zucchini , chopped
- 1 carrot , chopped (optional)
- 2 green onions , chopped
- 1/2 cucumber , julienned (as garnish)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 cup water
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil
- 3 servings fresh noodles for jajangmyeon or kal guksu
- Chop all vegetables into small cubes.
- In a non-stick frying pan, add equal amount of chunjang and oil to pan on medium/medium low heat. Stir often, cook for 7 min.
- In ANOTHER pan, add 2 T oil to pan on medium heat. Sauté onions and cabbages for 10 min or more until onions become translucent.
- Remove chunjang from pan. It should be easy to bunch up the cooked chunjang and remove from oil.
- Discard the leftover oil in pan.
- Remove onions and cabbages from pan and set aside. Sauté pork on med-high heat for 2-3 min in the same pan.
- Once pork is cooked, return onions, cabbages to pan. Add 1 T oil and remaining vegetables. Sauté all ingredients on med-high heat for 5 – 7 min. Veggies should still be slightly crunchy.
- Add cooked chunjang paste to pan (step 8) and stir everything, making sure the paste coats the ingredients evenly.
- Stir fry for 2 min. Add 1 C water and 1 T sugar. Cook until the sauce is reduced to half. Reduce further for more condensed flavor.
- Fresh noodles are best. If you can buy one’s that says “짜장면 국수”, it should work fine.칼국수 (Kalguksu/Kalgooksoo) also works fine. cook noodles in boiling water for 7-10 min (based on package directions) and rinse in cold water.
- Serve noodles topped with sauce.
Substitute white rice for noodles for Jajangbap.
Add some fresh julienned cucumbers as topping.
Substitute chicken for pork if you'd like.
For richer sauce, use chicken broth but watch for salt content.
I live in Deep East Texas and have no possible way to buy fresh Korean noodles. From the picture, it looks similar in size and cross-section to spaghetti. Would that be a possible substitution?
Hi Daren, sure it would be a possible substitution but Jjajang noodles are lot chewier so if you’d like you can try buying some dry noodles online or even try using fresh udon noodles (if your local market sells them – Safeway stores in my area sells udon noodles). https://amzn.to/2GhYerO is one example. Hope this helps. Enjoy!
Hi JinJoo!
I bought 500g of chunjang and I prepared several times my own jajangmyeon and jajanjbap. There’s still plenty of chunjang in the fridge, it seems like it never ends! lol
Is there any other recipe in which chunjang can be used?
Thank you very much for the information!
Johnny
HAHAHA.. I totally know what you mean – I still have chunjang left from months ago.. yikes! You can actually make Tteokbokki with Chunjang. You can either mix it with some gochujang or just use Chunjang on its own. You will have to dilute it of course and add some sweet ingredients like sugar. Also one of my favorite is the side dish of just dipping raw onions in chunjang – strong stuff but its good! Good luck and thanks for asking.
Thank you for your reply! All the best!
I am fascinated and really enjoy cooking different recipes about Korean Cuisine. But I wonder if you cook different types of noodles for Noodle recipes like the following:
Jajangmyeon: Korean Chinese Black Bean Noodles – I have often seen this at Korean Drama that I was watching few days ago. They kept on ordering it and eating it too. Will cook this in a few weeks.
Jajampong: Seafood Soup with Ramen Noodles
Nyangmeon: Cold Buckwheat Noodles
Bibim Guksu: Spicy Cold Noodles
Do you also stick to brands names or what brands do you prefer?
Cooking is better than buying instant style convenience foods.
Thanks. I do follow your blog, and your recipes are really great.
Hi Estrella, this is such a great question!! I’m so glad that you asked this. So the best kind of noodles for both Jajangmyeon and Jampong are the Fresh Korean Noodles/Udon (우동 Udon 짜장 Jajang) sold at Korean markets. The brands don’t matter too much but they are usually sold in 1 kg packages containing 3-5 bundles of wet noodles. You can also use various Asian style noodles for udon/stir fry that is chewy in texture. The Korean fresh noodles are sometimes in freezer sections but mostly in refrigerated sections. For Naengmyeon (cold noodles), my favorite brand is dried Cheongsu (청수) Buckwheat Naengmyeon (냉면) that’s sold in dried foods section, usually next to Glass Noodles(당면 Dangmyeon) but other brands will work. For Bibim Guksu, you can buy dried buckwheat noodles(메밀국수 Maemil Guksu) or regular white noodles(소면 So-myeon) that is again in the dried foods section. You can also use regular Japanese soba noodles that you buy from any store for bibim guksu and it should work fine.
Hope this helps and good for you for thinking that cooking is better than instant foods!! Thanks for asking.
I’m going to try to make this substituting those British-grown (fermented) favabeans, picture of which I posted on Instagram. Thank you as always for being such a rich resource of education, ideas, and recipes! xxx
After several early attempts to get my Filipino husband to love this dish (because I do), he finally is in love with it after 7 years! My 2 year old loves it as well.
That’s great to hear!! Good for you for not giving up! Having your kid liking it makes all the difference. 🙂 Making it home is so much more healthier than eating it at a restaurant..thanks for the comment!
I just made this for lunch! So yummy, even my two year old is loving it! ( the brand of sauce I bought was pre fried with some pepper flakes I it)
Isn’t it good?? I know it’s not the same as the ones at restaurants but I like this version better in some ways because my jajangmyeon doesn’t contain lard like most restaurants version does. So glad to hear that your two year old likes it too!! Jajangmyeon/Jjajangmyeon used to be every kid’s favorite food when I was growing up. Thank you so much for the comment and have a good weekend!
Hi, i was wondering what are the ingredients listed on the chunjang paste in english? Does it have any meat products? thank you!
Hi! It’s kind of hard to translate exactly but here it is – soy bean paste, flour, salt, caramel, wheat, stevia, ethanol. There is no meat! So if you want to make a vegetarian dish, just omit pork and use tofu instead or not even that! Good luck~
Includes spirits though so a no no for Muslims. The biggest issue with jjajjangmyeon is that it uses fermented beans meaning some alcohol is produced. Is there any way to make jjajjangmyeon from black soybeans without fermenting them?
Honestly I am not sure … Just maybe you can try cooking blackbeans and making paste from it and add some oil and salt?? Its really a wild guess..you will not get the exact taste I am sure but…i assume you can’t use soy sauce either?
Hello. I did make jajangmyeon but with a chinese style salted black soybean sauce in a jar. the brand is ‘tiger brand’ and it has halal certification from malaysia. https://redmart.com/product/tiger-brand-salted-black-soya-beans It tasted alright, im just not sure if its the same taste. But the taste reminds me of chee cheong fun.
On the other hand, fermented foods are okay for muslims, as long as we dont let the food ferment for too long to produce alcohol. the most common fermented foods i eat are fermented soybeans when we cook taucu. I also make my own kimchi but make my own paste instead of the storebought ones that contain alcohol.
Thank you so much for the comment! Hope this helps Sharmin. I am sorry I could not be of more help. 🙂
Assalamu alaikum sister. I have been looking to find halal Korean fermented black bean paste everywhere and I happened to see your comment and was so happy that I finally found one with a halal certificate. But when I searched the contents of this product which included E150C and E211 which are very NOT halal. E150C is very harmful for your health (you can look it up) and E211 is also said to include fat of pig. So I wanted to tell you that the halal certificate might not be as reliable as you think. Again, assalamu alaikum.
I’ve never seen a Kaan Jjajang Myeon recipe that didn’t specify Korean black bean paste and I’ve often wondered what the difference is in flavor. Would love to hear your thoughts on the subject.
Hello! Are you referring to the difference in flavor between different black bean pastes? I’m so glad you asked! I totally forgot to talk about it. Honestly, I have not tasted a whole lot of taste difference between the different Jjajang pastes. You should look at the ingredient list though and look for ones that does not include MSG. I’ve also uploaded an image of the paste I used for my post. Thanks so much for asking!
Thanks for the recipe! As a Chinese myself, my dad use to make the “Jjajang” with potatoes and when I visited Korea, I was slightly amused by how popular this dish was when it was a home cooked dish back home except without the noodle. I will definitely try out your version and see how it goes 🙂
Hi! I used to make it with potatoes too! I just decided not to include it in this recipe. I am curious to hear how the original Chinese version is different from the Korean one – thanks so much!
my one tastes bad i dont know why it tastes burnt although i cooked it very carefully
That is odd.. first time I heard that it tastes burnt. Are you sure, you didn’t burn it in the beginning when you were frying the bean paste in oil? Perhaps you can try again with a different black bean paste. Sorry I can’t be of much help. Thanks so much!