Pork Bulgogi With Spring Vegetables

Updated Oct. 10, 2023

Pork Bulgogi With Spring Vegetables
David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Total Time
50 minutes
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
1 hour
Rating
5(767)
Notes
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In this easy recipe, a deeply flavored Korean bulgogi marinade is paired with sliced pork, which is seared in a skillet with snow peas, radishes and mushrooms. You can use the basic recipe as a template, substituting other proteins like chicken, tofu or, most traditionally, beef for the pork, and whatever quick-cooking vegetables you like: cherry tomatoes, zucchini, broccoli florets are all great options. Don’t worry about browning the pork here. The goal is to sear it long enough to just cook it through, while the sauce condenses and caramelizes, coating the meat and vegetables.

Featured in: An Easy Spring Dinner That Shows Off Bulgogi’s Versatility

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings

    For the Marinade and Sauce

    • ½cup soy sauce
    • ¼cup gochujang
    • ¼cup light brown sugar
    • 1tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon white sesame seeds, plus more for serving
    • 2tablespoons neutral oil, such as grapeseed, avocado or sunflower
    • 1teaspoon toasted sesame oil
    • 2cloves garlic, finely grated or minced
    • 1(2-inch) piece ginger, finely grated or minced
    • 2scallions, thinly sliced

    For the Pork and Vegetables

    • 1pound boneless pork chops, tenderloin or loin, thinly sliced
    • 1tablespoon neutral oil, such as grapeseed, avocado or sunflower
    • 4ounces shiitake mushrooms, sliced (about 1½ cups)
    • ½cup thinly sliced radishes (about 5)
    • 8ounces snow peas, strings removed and halved crosswise (about 2½ cups)
    • 6scallions, white and green parts thinly sliced
    • Cooked rice or lettuce leaves, for serving
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)

527 calories; 26 grams fat; 9 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 11 grams monounsaturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 42 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams dietary fiber; 14 grams sugars; 33 grams protein; 2469 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Make the marinade: Add marinade ingredients to a medium bowl and whisk until combined. In a small bowl, reserve half the marinade at room temperature for serving.

  2. Step 2

    Add pork to the marinade in the medium bowl and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.

  3. Step 3

    In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add neutral oil. Once the oil is hot, add mushrooms. Let sear, stirring once or twice, until just tender and caramelized, 4 to 7 minutes.

  4. Step 4

    Raise heat to high. Add pork along with its marinade, radishes, snow peas and all but 2 tablespoons of the scallions (reserve for garnish) to pan. Let cook, stirring often, until the pork is just cooked through, about 3 to 5 minutes. (Take care not to overcook it; it won’t brown, and it may still look slightly pink inside).

  5. Step 5

    Garnish with reserved scallions and sesame seeds, and serve hot over rice with reserved marinade for drizzling.

Ratings

5 out of 5
767 user ratings
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Cooking Notes

This was great, but a bit intense on the saltiness/sodium. Next time I'll use low sodium soy sauce. I also used shaved beef in place of the pork, about half the brown sugar and traded out sugar snap peas for the snow pea pods. Will definitely make this again.

I think cutting back on the sugar (while praiseworthy and well-intentioned) makes it taste more salty.

Recipe looks yummy. OTOH, I'm Asian and diabetic so many Asian dishes are now off limits. This dish is over 2 grams of sodium per serving, exceeding FDA recommendation for sodium intake per day. Even low sodium soy sauce is only 30% less than regular soy sauce. It's a terrible dilemma, unable to eat a lot of the dishes I grew up with, delicious or not:( I try to encourage recipe developers to go more low sodium and sugar. Hope springs eternal.

Snow peas wilt very quickly. Watch the time if you want them a bit crunchy.

Delicious and easy! I used thinly sliced pork tenderloin, shiitakes and snap peas and really liked the radishes. Will be making this again.

Easy and delicious. A bit of chopping involved which might not be ideal for a busy weeknight. Used asparagus and peas.

We really enjoyed this! Tons of flavor in the sauce/marinade and easy to pull together on a weeknight. A few tips: cook the mushrooms as directed, then add a 14 oz bag of frozen ‘stir fry veggies’ from the freezer aisle before you move on to cook the meat. Perfect balance of sauce, veggies, meat. I kept all other proportions consistent with the recipe and used low sodium soy sauce.

On the soy sauce front, I user tamari and the brand I favor is 50% less sodium than their regular version. I figure I can always add a tiny bit more sauce if it really needs it, but since the gochujang also includes sodium, it seems unlikely. You could swap in monkfruit sweeteneer in place of some of the sugar (I wouldn't do a 100% swap because the flavor may suffer). You could also investigate berberine which does as good a job managing blood sugar as Metformin.

Delicious! Followed the recipe except for subbing snap peas for snow peas. We thought it was excellent but a bit salty. I would probably only use 1/3 cup of soy next time, maybe even just 1/4 and have none reserved for drizzling, which we didn’t really feel we needed. Once the marinading was done, it came together super quickly. Definitely a keeper.

We really enjoyed this - it was relatively easy and it was tasty. Can definitely add more veggies and could certainly sub the protein, but it's a great template for how to put together a bulgogi. Given the other comments I did use low sodium soy sauce and swapped the brown sugar for a little less honey.

Delicious. Made this today. Did not know what gochujang was and my local Publix did not carry it. I used another Korean sauce named Gotchu and it turned out delicious. There is some chopping involved, but overall easy enough if one has all the all ingredients lined up.

Used 1/8 c. brown sugar and served it over combo of zoodles and miracle noodles with a sunny side up egg on top. Delicious - and didn’t miss the extra rice carbs!

This is so savory and yummy. I’ve made it several times, keeping close to the recipe. This time, however, I changed actual cooking part. I cooked the veggies separate from the meat in 2 separate skillets. It took a bit of juggling, but the results were worth it. I lifted the meat from the marinade, then tossed the snow peas & green onions in what remained. It all goes fast once everything is assembled. The reserved marinade from first part of recipe, and some flurry rice, pulled it all together

Made it exactly as written. Thoroughly enjoyed it as did my husband. Served it with rice and a fried egg.

Made as written, but added kimchi from a local Korean restaurant and a fried egg to our final bowls along with some rice. Agreed with other notes that this is a great recipe for using up any vegetables that you have lying around and that it is a great use of a wok if you have one. Am pregnant and craving Korean, so this is going to be on steady rotation in our house for the next few weeks.

This recipe was strangely written. "Make the marinade" doesn't actually itemize the ingredients. I didn't like the idea of adding raw garlic and ginger to the finished dish, so I put them and the 2 scallions in the oil before adding the mushrooms and then the frozen stir-fry vegetables. I also agree that low-sodium soy sauce would be better. My result was excellent.

Really liked this. Used a pork tenderloin I had in the freezer. It hadn’t thawed all the way by the time I pulled it out of the fridge, which was actually perfect—I was able to slice it nice and thin while it was partially frozen. Didn’t have scallions or any fresh produce around so tossed in some frozen peas near the end and it was great. Also used creminis because I don’t like shitakes. Will definitely add this to the rotation.

For the vegetables, I used okra, bell pepper, carrots and radishes from our garden! Who knew I would have to find lots of different ways to incorporate okra? But it worked and was delicious. Served this over sweet potato glass noodles. The family loved the sauce and all the flavor.

Made this with different vegetables: okra, Swiss chard, radishes, and bell peppers from my garden - served over sweet potato glass noodles. Wonderful! The marinade/sauce was tasty, just enough spicy. The pork was juicy and tasty. Every one liked it and asked to put it on the list to repeat.

This was very good. Use a wok; it will be far easier to finish the dish.

I made this last night, so good! The marinade was flavorful and had a nice bit of heat. I couldn't find snow peas anywhere, so I used Edamame. They worked out great. I may use this marinade for other dishes too, when grilling.

Yum!!

Yumm! I used ground pork, Japanese turnip instead of radish, and rehydrated some shitakis sinceI didn't have fresh. So tasty and simple to prepare. FWIW I used TJ's lower sodium soy sauce and gochujang, and the sauce tasted very balanced to me. Adding to favorites, to use with other veggies and protein combinations as seasons change.

Wow. made as directed, pork loin, low sodium soy sauce, except used cremini mushrooms instead of shitake, with lettuce to wrap. Messy and excellent, thank you very much for this recipe. It's a keeper.

Koean seasonings are spot on. I cooked the meat under a broiler and can be done on a bbq to get charring.

I had asparagus on hand, no mushrooms so it was even springier in my opinion. Made with chicken breast, not pork and was fabulous. This goes in the rotation. Loved the flavor of gochgang and radishes.

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