I finally made Jajangmyun with my own recipe. It was my first try and it turned out well. Maybe it was a bit too sweet. Anyway, if you are thinking about making this meal for a date, reconsider the menu even if you are good at using chopsticks. 
There are also various recipes to cook other types of Jajangmyun, and I am going to try them all some other time. I am very excited about that. Are you?
Ingredients for 2 people
(Expected preparation time – 15 minutes, Cooking time – 20 to 25 minutes)
- Noodles for 2 people (I used the left over from when I made Kalguksu)
- Pork 100g (At the supermarket, the pork packet says “for curry or jajang” in Korean. It is cut in cubes already.)
-Pork Marinating Sauce-
- Refined rice wine – 1 tsp
- Salt 2 sprinkles
- Pepper 2 sprinkles
- Ginger 2 sprinkles
- 1 onion
- 1 medium size potato
- 1/4 a zucchini
- 1/4 a carrot
- 3 leaves from 1/3 size cabbage (1 leaf from one cabbage)
- Black bean paste (Chunjang in Korean) – 3 tbsp
- Olive oil – 2 tbsp
- Sugar – 2 tbsp (You can reduce it, it was a bit too sweet.)
- Cooking syrup – 1 tbsp
- Refined rice wine – 2 tbsp
- Water 2 cups
- Starch water (Mix of starch 2 tbsp +water 2 tbsp)
Preparations
- Rinse the pork in cold water.
- Add the pork marinating sauce onto the pork. Mix them well.
- Cut the onion, potato, zucchini and carrot into small cubes.
- Cut the cabbage into medium size pieces.
Cooking (You will need a wok, a frying pan and a pot.)
Step 1 to 6
1. Pre heat the wok.
2. Add some oil and the pork and stir fry it.
3. Add the carrots and potatoes, stir it.
4. Add the zucchinis, onions, and cabbages, stir it.
5. Pre heat the frying pan and add the olive oil and black bean paste.
6. Stir no.5 on medium heat for 1 minute.
Step 7 to 16
7. Scoop out the black bean paste without the oil. Add it to the wok.
8. Mix the vegetables with the black bean paste.
9. Add the cooking syrup, sugar, and rice wine into the wok. Stir it.
10. Add the water and boil it.
11. Add the starch water into the wok. Stir it. (It is the final stage of making sauce.)
12. Boil the water in a pot.
13. Add the noodles when it starts to boil.
14. Boil them for about 3 minutes. (You can start doing this at stage 10)
15. Rinse them in cold water.
16. Put them into a bowl.
17. Add the jajang sauce on top of the noodles.
18. You can serve it itself or decorate it with some cucumber slice, egg or green beans. In my case I used some radish sprouts and the egg.
19. Mix the sauce and the noodles well with chopsticks.
20. Dig in. (It is ideal to have them with yellow pickled radish. Apparently it helps digestion. Also dig it up quickly before the noodles get swollen.)
You can serve the dish with some rice, like the picture below if you want. Its name would be “Jajangbap” then. (Bap means cooked rice.)
You can learn more about Jajangmyun from Wikipedia.
I have a question, when i made it the smell smelt like a fishy sauce smell, is it suppose to smell like that ? i used the fermented black bean paste.
Hi Vee,
I don’t know why it would smell like a fishy sauce. Did you use the Korean black bean paste something looking like this?
http://mykoreankitchen.com/2006/11/03/black-bean-paste-chunjang-in-korean/
Your tutorial is so easy to follow. I mentioned your site and this dish on my South Korean Travel blogpost.
oooo,,,,I like Korean,,,the food, song, our dramaaaaaaaaa,,,it’s so verry happy
for me
hahahaha
Hi, thank you for the recipe
but I am curious about something. If I use organic soba noodles, is it fine? I meant, will it be OK? haha
thank you
have a great day ^^
Caniv,
I know this is a very late response, I don’t think there is anything wrong with using organic soba noodles. Just the texture will be different. You probably tried it by now I am sure.
[...] Watch the video of this nice guy and you can learn how to prepare pre-packaged jjajangmyeon If you don’t have the possiblity to prepare it by hand, this is a good alternative! But nevertheless, here’s a link to the recipe for you guys: http://mykoreankitchen.com/2006/11/02/korean-black-bean-paste-noodles-jajangmyun-in-korean/ [...]
What is cooking syrup?? Would you explain what that is, and perhaps provide pictures?
Dear Sir,
I like all of your illustration and food recipies, there are korean friend so I now expert in Kimchi and Kimbap, how ever I would like to know how to make black bean paste and soybean paste and ttakbogi at home. bcos 1998 I meet 2 korean men in India, they made themselves soybean paste, but they do not show me how to do it.in Korean ttakbogi is ready made food korean girls said but we are now in Myanmar. I enjoy my home made.
Please it is my special request,
kkThet
Hi Fred,
I haven’t made my soybean paste and black bean paste myself yet. However I already have a recipe for Ddeokbokki here.
http://mykoreankitchen.com/2006/11/19/stir-fried-rice-cake-with-gochujang-sauce-ddeokbokki-in-korean/
Ohhhhhh…I have been craving Jajangmyun ever since I moved back to the states 12 (wow has it already been that long?) years ago. Can’t wait to try this!
looks like a great recipe. i don’t have a wok, but i think i can improvise. just wanted to say that i learned that it is better not to rinse the noodles after you boil them. rinsing the noodles washes away the starch that will allow the sauce to stick to the noodles
hey^^
).. anyway.. is it supposed to be sweet? or maybe i added too much sugar..
first of all, thanks for the recipe!!
i tried your recipe, and since i’m a foreigner, i dont know how jajangmyun taste like (it looks so delicious in dramas
and one more thing, my sauce didnt look as thick as as dark as yours.. ?
o_o wow! i’ve been wanting to eat Jajangmyeon for a really long time! i just bought some of the ingredients today! ^_^ i cant wait to try! thanks so much! <3
Hi~ I am jung~ I am a korean high school student who also have a blog to give information about Korea (all sorts of information!) ^_^
I really like your blog~ It’s very well organized and the information that you provided is not only useful but also easy to understand~
Nice blog! Keep blogging~
[...] occasion for all the men who receive nothing on Valentines Day. They all gather together, and eat Jajangmyun, a Chinese style noodles in black sauce. (hhmm I love [...]
Hi. Jajangmyun may be what I am looking for but please comment if you would. Many years ago in Lansing, Michigan there was a restaurant that featured Korean and Southern Chinese cuisine. They served a dish that I believe was called conja jung. At least I asked the owners and I believe this is what they said. I could be totally wrong. It did look similar to pictures of Jajangmyun. It was served in a bowl with noodles. It was not a soup but it does seem that it was fairly thick liquid sauce. It was very dark from black bean paste as an ingredient plus vegetables and various meats that were diced and small shrimp. It was fairly spicy.
I loved the dish. The restaurant closed many years ago and I’ve moved away. I loved this dish but have never found it since.
Any ideas? Thank you
Was that Hwapei? (I may be spelling that wrong, I just remember the name by sound.)
Jjajangmyun isn’t spicy, so you’re remembering something else.
Zucchini is also known as courgette in many markets. It’s a long, thin, deep green or bright yellow squash (vegetable marrow).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zucchini
Hope that helps!
hi, i’ve been in korea for two years and i haven’t had a chance to know how to cook jajangmyun. i thought it’s going to be impossible to cook it myself. thanks for the recipe.now im totally relived. jajangmyun nae chalmugoyo!!! aahhh!
hey what kind of noodle did you use?
Hi, I found your blog through Google, a search for “Jajangmyun” brought this page up 2nd! It’s a great recipe, the whole family enjoyed it (apart from our littlest one, he’s fussy!). Many thanks for writing about it and taking pics so i could see what it *should* look like!
Here is my version that was tried today with decent results.
Jajangmyun Recipe: (2 servings)
Ingredients:
Chunjang: 3 tbsp (Haechandeul brand with a jajangmyun picture on the label of the rectangular plastic tub in the refrigerated section). Although I have not tried this, you can substitute black bean paste from a Chinese market if there is no Korean supermarket in the area.
Oil: 2 tbsp
Ground pork butt ¼ lb
1 medium onion: chopped
1 medium potato: cubed
Regular soy sauce: 1 tbsp
¼ cubed zucchini
Sugar: ½ tsp
Water for the sauce: 2 cups
Thickener: mix 2 tbsp water and 2 tbsp corn starch
Jajang noodles (Package with a picture of the jajangmyun noodles on the label in the refrigerated section): 2 bunches
Water for the noodles: enough to cover the noodles
Ground pork marinade:
Rice wine: 1.5 tsp
Vinegar: 1.5 tsp
Fresh ground pepper
Salt
Directions:
1. Saute oil and chunjang in low heat for 1 min
2. Set aside sautéed jajang sauce
3. Saute marinated pork in excess oil until lightly brown
4. Add potato and sauté for 2 minutes
5. Add onion and zucchini and sauté for 2 minutes
6. Add water, soy sauce, sugar and heat to a boil
7. Add sautéed jajang sauce
8. Reduce heat to simmer and add thickener until desired thickness of the sauce is reached
9. Bring water for the jajang noodle to a boil and drop in noodles
10. Cook noodles for about 3 minutes or until soft.
11. Remove and drain soft noodles into bowls
12. Combine sauce with cooked noodles
Enjoy.
If you prefer to eat out in Norther California, San Tung (Irving St.) in San Francisco and Koryo Jajang (Telegraph Avenue/45th St) in Oakland are good. Try it with the supremely delicious chicken wings at San Tung or Tang Su Yuk (lightly battered sweet and sour beef) at Koryo and you are set.
A great dish! Many thanks
Hey! the noodles looked great!
i’ve only been able to make those from instand packs, and seriously i prefer to make it from skretch myself…
So i was wondering if it was okay for me to take out the cooking syrup? and would any noodle do okay for the recipe?
Thanks in advance!
hihi =) may i know whats zucchini ?? thanks in advance!
This is my first comment : ) Love the blog and the food looks great! I can’t wait to try this out, just have to wait for a night when my fiance is actually home to test it out on him.
Anyway, have you ever done a blog on just making sauces? My mother (a native born Korean) always did them well but she could never teach me how to get those wonderful thick brown sauces down well! I would love to see a post on any tips you have for just making general brown or chili sauces.
Oh, reading over previous comments maybe I can help clarify some stuff:
Cooking syrup = A type of corn syrup. I don’t know if it is significantly different from regular corn syrup as I found a bottle that said “Cooking Syrup” on it in a market. The label says specifically that it is [Corn Syrup "Brown Color" (YoRoJoChung)].
Refined rice wine = I’m not 100% sure on this. I used a Japanese product labelled as “Aji-Mirin: Sweet Cooking Rice Wine”. It seemed OK but admittedly I wouldn’t know if it was all wrong. As Anita mentioned above, she uses white balsamic vinegar, which is surely easier to find.
Noodles = The type of noodle is Kalguksu, as written here. I got something labelled as Kongguksu. I found it in a Korean market in the refrigerated food section, and they were soft, unlike pasta. Since her directions indicated only cooking for 3 minutes I think I was on the right track (though again, I can’t be sure). I’m sorry, but I have no idea what would work as a substitute if you can’t find them.
The bean paste = The stuff I got was called “Black Bean Paste” (no mention of soybeans but they are listed as a main ingredient). Luckily the brand I found had a picture of jajangmyun on it so that was that. There were actually several kinds so I ended up looking at the ingredients. The top three ingredients are wheat flour, soybeans, and water, if that means anything.
While it sounds like I messed up a lot of stuff it sure tasted right! Hope this helps.
Thank you for writing this for us. I tried it tonight for the first time and it turned out really well. I’m not sure what to do about the pork, though–can’t really find it cubed here in the states so I just used some chicken I had, but it wasn’t quite the same. Not your fault, though, thanks again!
I was wondering can i use any kind of black bean paste or is is jjajjang paste? some websites say black soy bean paste and some say black bean paste? I’m confused
all i can say that.. jajangmyeon rocks.. hehehe
i really like the taste.. ^_^ thanks for sharing this recipes.
[...] hand at the black bean madness. The results? Success! My recipe is a mix of some of the Korean [mykoreankitchen.com] and Korean-Chinese [Julia’s Kitchen] versions I found on the internet. I have no idea if [...]
Hi there, I would like to know what kind of noodles do you use?
I found at the store Black bean paste with garlic, now is that going to ruin the whole flavor with the garlic or will it just be okay too?
Hi, I’ve been looking around for a Jajangmyun recipe for a while and yours looks very interesting. I am unclear on what you mean by cooking syrup and refined rice wine however.
Hi Sue, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed browsing your blog, and reading your entries. Good luck with the move to Australia. My blog is currently in Italian (long story); I do a lot of Italian and Asian/Middle Eastern fusion cooking, although I’m Canadian-born Korean. I don’t always stock my kitchen fully for both Korean and Italian cooking (with fusion, anything goes, so…), but a couple of substitutions I do are white balsamic vinegar for the rice wine and organic bacon for pork in my jajangmyun. I also sneak in a diced tomato for my jajangmyun recipe, which I make with the Chinese sauce my former roommate left behind! I will now go and make vegetarian kimbap, using seitan in place of bulgogee! Happy eating, cooking and blogging! -A.
[...] I mentioned earlier on one of my posts, Korean Black Bean Paste Noodles (Jajangmyun in Korean) that there are several types of Jajangmyun, and this Samsun Jajangmyun is one of them. Samsun (三鮮) means 3 fresh ingredients but most Korean Chinese restaurants use seafood. So another Korean name for it is Haemul Jajang. (Haemul means seafood in English.) [...]
[...] Print This Post « Korean Black Bean Paste Noodles (Jajangmyun inKorean) [...]
[...] Warning on the package – Do not keep the package in the fridge. [...]
[...] Korean Black Bean Paste Noodles (Jajangmyun in Korean) [...]
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