This Tteokbokki recipe is the simplest and easiest Korean spicy rice cake recipe ever and I used to make this for myself when I was in high school as my late-night snack. I haven’t made this type of Tteokbokki in a while but I realized this may be the perfect recipe for college students or young people out there who really don’t have the time or have all the ingredients to make a full version.
A recipe for the more common spicy rice cake with vegetables and fish cake is also available – click below for the recipe.
SPICY RICE CAKE with VEGETABLES and FISH CAKE
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NON-SPICY Gungjung Tteokbokki with Vegetables
If you want to make a non-spicy version, try this recipe. It basically tastes like bulgogi – sweet, soy saucy, garlicky and umami-packed flavors. Great for kids too!
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Ok, now let’s get started making my very simple 5 ingredient Korean Spicy Rice Cake Tteokbokki!
Tteokbokki – Spicy Rice Cake Recipe
Servings: 1 Cooking Time: 15 min Difficulty: EASY
Ingredients are adjustable and listed below in my Recipe Card –
Step by Step Directions for How to Make Tteokbokki
1. 1 cup rice cake weighs about 5-6 oz. The quality of the tteok/dduk varies quite a bit and freshly made (never frozen) is the best. Here’s a pic of a freshly made, never frozen, moist tteok and then dry, old, cracked tteok below. Rice cake can also develop cracks if it has been frozen and defrosted a few times.
If your tteok/dduk is frozen, let it defrost in cold water for a few minutes and drain.
2. Add water, gochujang and sugar to a pan and bring to a boil on medium high heat. I forgot to stir before taking this picture but yes.. you should stir it at some point before it boils. 🙂 You can use less gochujang if you like things less spicy.
3. Add the tteokbokki tteok to the gochujang water. Add 1 tsp soy sauce and lower the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes.
And it should look something like this:
There you go! That’s it!! This tteokbokki will probably taste a bit different from the ones you may have tasted before but you should definitely give this a try. It has a very simple, clean, spicy and sweet taste that’s quite addicting.
Sprinkle some sesame seeds on top if you’d like. Fish cake (oden) soup or yache twigim are perfect compliments to this if you want to make this into a complete dinner good enough to have friends over.
Oh and you may wonder..these tteok look like they have cracks in them! Yes, I bought these on purpose to show on this post. But I couldn’t just throw them away so I used them in this recipe…
Tteokbokki – Korean Spicy Rice Cake
Ingredients
- 1 C rice cake (dduk/tteok) for tteokbokki(떡볶이)
- 2 tsp korean spicy bean paste (고추장 gochujang)
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 3/4 C water
- sesame seeds (optional)
Instructions
- 1 C rice cake is about 5-6 oz. The quality of the tteok/dduk varies quite a bit and freshly made (never frozen) is the best but if you can’t buy fresh ones, defrost frozen rice cakes.
- Add water, gochujang and sugar to a pan and bring to a boil on medium high heat.
- Add the tteokbokki tteok to the gochujang water and lower the heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes.
Tips & Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Enjoy!
Is there a way to make a non-spicy version for the kiddos and wimps like me?
Of course! I should have included the info in the post – I just did so you can check the post again. But also, here’s the link to my non-spicy, soy sauce-based tteokbokki. My childhood favorite!! https://kimchimari.com/gungjung-tteokbokki-rice-cake-stir-fry-with-soy-sauce/
10 out of 10! I’ve tried other Tteokboki recipes and they were not for me, usually too fishy. This recipe blew my mind with how delicious, simple, and quick it was! Thank you for sharing!
Yay!! Soo happy to hear that. This was my favorite to make in high school. Thank you!