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.)
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.
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
Related Posts
Seafood Black Bean Pastes Noodles (Samsun Jajangmyun in Korean)
Instant Black Bean Paste Noodles
Shellfish and Chewy Noodle Soup (Bajirak Kalguksu in Korean)
Korean Chinese, Noodles
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.
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.
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 there, I would like to know what kind of noodles do you use?
all i can say that.. jajangmyeon rocks.. hehehe
i really like the taste.. ^_^ thanks for sharing this recipes.
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
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!
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.
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.
hihi =) may i know whats zucchini ?? thanks in advance!
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!
A great dish! Many thanks
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.