A Year to Learn Korean Cooking: Jjimdak

Today let’s learn about cooking jjimdak 찜닭 at home! This flavorful braised chicken dish is easy to make and might become a favorite to add to your meal planning. This savory, sweet, spicy chicken dish has the perfect balance of flavors.

About the South of Seoul “A Year to Learn Korean Cooking’ Series

If you are familiar with this series, skip ahead to the goodness of Jjimdak. Many of us live in South Korea for only a year. However, time flies past faster than we can imagine. At South of Seoul, we decided to create a simple series that will offer 2-4 dishes to learn each month so that when you leave South Korea you have a slew of new dishes you feel comfortable making anywhere.

This series is a collaboration with Kimchi Rednecks. In 2020 they created the first blog in this series Online Resources for Learning to Cook Korean Food. These two love to have adventures in the kitchen and share the results with their community. Be sure to follow Kimchi Rednecks on YouTube for other great videos about living life in South Korea.

About Jjimdak

Jjimdak 찜닭 get it’s name from the Korean words jjim 찜 (meaning braised, stewed or steamed) and dak 닭 (meaning chicken). Jjimdak can also be referred to as dakjjim 닭찜. The most famous version of jjimdak is Andong jjimdak, which originated in Andong.

Although there is not an exact date to when this dish originated, it is believed that the merchants of dak golmok 닭골목 (chicken alley) in Andong, were constantly trying to come up with more ways to make chicken even more delicious and they added a galbi-style sauce (usually used on beef) to the chicken.

Jjimdak is an easy dish to put together. It consists of chicken, dangmyeon (glass noodles), carrots, sweet potato (or regular potato), onion and green onions braised in a delicious sauce made from soy sauce, garlic, fish sauce, chilis, mirin and sugar. The combination of the ingredients in this dish come together to make an amazing and filling meal.

Biggest Hurdle in Cooking Jjimdak

This dish comes together relatively easy and can be adjusted to what you have on hand. However, if you have not cooked with dangmyeon noodles before, you will need to know that these need to be soaked prior to cooking. The recommended time for soaking is from 30 minutes to 1 hour.

In addition, you can choose to make a less spicy version of this dish by omitting the chilis or reducing the amount that you add to the dish.

Our First Experience with Jjimdak

We discovered this recipe when YouTube recommended it to us from one of our favorite chefs, Seonkyoung Longest. After we watched the video, we decided to look at several other videos and recipes to see if there were any adjustments that we wanted to make. If you are curious who inspires us to cook Korean dishes, we wrote a blog about those influences.

Once we cooked this dish, we just loved it. Even though Chuck is not a huge fan of dangmyeon noodles, he still enjoyed this dish immensely.

Three Recommended Cooking Jjimdak Videos to Watch

Check out these three videos for recipes on how to cook jjimdak at home. You can always customize recipes to make the dish more to your liking. However you choose to make the dish, enjoy the fruits of your labors.

Korean American Cooking Jjimdak

Korean Cooking Jjimdak

American in Korea Cooking Jjimdak

Let Us Know How It Turns Out

When you make jjimdak for the first time at home, be sure to leave a comment and let us know how it turned out! Also, if you live in Pyeongtaek, you can even share your success (or failure) with us in the Pyeongtaek Food & Fun Facebook group.

If you are looking for other dishes (Korean or otherwise) or reviews of restaurants, be sure to check out the KimchiRednecks channel or check out our social media accounts on Facebook or Instagram, where we often share what we are cooking or eating.

Read more in our Year to Learn Korean Cooking Series