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How to Make Korean Sauna Style Eggs

Let’s make some popular KPOP snacks – Korean sauna style eggs!

How to make Korean Sauna Style Eggs in 50 mins | MyKoreanKitchen.com

Have you ever wondered how to make brown eggs that are often seen in many Korean dramas and movies? They are typically featured at the Korean sauna/spa (Jjimjilbang, 찜질방) scene like the below picture. 
Queen of Reversal - Park Si Hoo at Korean Sauna

 (Korean actor – Park Si Hoo eating Jjimjilbang eggs in the Korean drama “Queen of Reversals (2010)”, original source: MBC, photo edited by http://bntnews.hankyung.com/)

I mentioned about these special eggs in my “Eggs Baked on Elvan Stone” post and it was quite interesting to see how many people actually wanted to make them at home.

A couple of readers commented on the post saying that you can make them in 70 mins using a high pressure rice cooker while others are saying 3 hours in a crock pot can do the trick. So it is possible to make Korean sauna style eggs in your own home!

I found that very fascinating, so off I went researching on a Korean version of google, naver, and found that most Koreans use their rice cooker in making them.

Holding a Korean Sauna Egg after pressure steamed twice for 50 mins | MyKoreanKitchen.com
(Me, holding the 50 mins pressure steamed eggs, no colouring is used on the eggs!)

Have a look at my egg! Isn’t it pretty? It’s super soft and it has a nutty taste. I absolutely loved the outcome and it was so easy to make as well. (All the hard work was done by my rice cooker!)

So here comes my recipe! I hope you enjoy experiencing KPOP culture in your own home! 😉

Ingredients for Korean Sauna Style Eggs (Makes 6)

  • 6 large eggs (approx. 400g/14 ounces total)
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 1/2 tsp fine sea salt

How to Make Korean Sauna Eggs in Rice Cooker

1.Eggs need to be kept at room temperature for at least 2 hours. Otherwise, apparently, they crack badly while cooking. To fast track the process, I kept the eggs in warm water initially and left them there for 2 hours.

Warming up eggs

2. After two hours, move the eggs into the rice cooker then dissolve the salt (1/2 tsp) in the water (3/4 cup) and pour it onto the eggs. Cook it for 50 mins in a rice cooker. (I used the multi cook function where I can set the timer). Serve.

Pressure steamed eggs
Korean Sauna Style Eggs

Note:

  • The egg is very hot once cooked, so use caution when taking them out and peeling the shell.
  • If you don’t have a “high tech” Korean rice cooker or a programmable pressure cooker, you can try making this with a slow cooker (but the result is far better when you use a rice cooker.)

On a side note, I also boiled some eggs in a saucepan. Look at the colour contrast! Amazing, hey? My sister was very impressed with my home cooked Korean sauna style eggs. She keeps asking me what’s the secret but I said she needs to find out from my blog. 🙂 She told me that they tasted very similar to the ones you can eat at a Jjimjilbang. What a nice compliment!

Boiled egg in a pot vs. pressure steamed egg

(Normal hard boiled egg vs. Korean sauna style egg)

Boiled egg in a pot vs. pressure steamed egg cut in half


Korean Sauna Style Eggs | MyKoreanKitchen.com

How to Make Korean Sauna Style Eggs

Super easy hard boiled eggs in rice cooker. It comes out just like Korean sauna eggs! 
4.94 from 15 votes
Print Pin Rate Save
Course: Snacks
Cuisine: Korean
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Total Time: 55 minutes
Servings: 6
Calories: 62kcal
Author: Sue | My Korean Kitchen

Ingredients

  • 6 large eggs (approx. 400 g / 14 ounces total)
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 1/2 tsp fine sea salt

Instructions

  • Eggs need to be kept at room temperature for at least 2 hours. Otherwise, apparently, they crack badly while cooking. To fast track the process, I kept the eggs in warm water initially and left them there for 2 hours.
  • After two hours, move the eggs into the rice cooker then dissolve the salt (1/2 tsp) in the water (3/4 cup) and pour it onto the eggs. Cook it for 50 mins in a rice cooker. (I used the multi cook function where I can set the timer). Serve.

Nutrition Info (per serving)

Calories: 62kcal | Protein: 5g | Fat: 4g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 163mg | Sodium: 257mg | Potassium: 60mg | Vitamin A: 240IU | Calcium: 25mg | Iron: 0.8mg

The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

Tried this recipe?I love hearing how you went with my recipes! Rate this recipe with a comment below and tag me on Instagram @MyKoreanKitchen.

 

Filed under: My Recipes, Snacks
Tagged with: cuckoo, egg, kpop, sauna

Written by: Sue

Last Updated:

Welcome to my Korean kitchen! I’m so happy that you're here. I am Sue, the creator behind My Korean Kitchen (since 2006). I love good food and simplifying recipes. Here you will find my best and family approved recipes. Thanks for stopping by!

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Lars
May 22, 2014 1:07 pm

I was intrigued by the notion of pressure cooking eggs and did quite a bit of reading. I stumbled upon a resource you and your readers may find interesting, which may explain the color of the spa eggs scientifically.

Excerpt: “We have been pressure cooking whole eggs for a long time. Pressure cooked eggs undergo Maillard reactions and turn brown. Eggs undergo Maillard reactions at lower than normal temperatures because egg whites are alkaline. Alkalinity promotes Maillard reactions. The whites have a toasted… well… “brown” taste. The yolks taste like cooked chicken giblets. We like ‘em. When we tried to cook the whites and yolks separately, we noticed the yolks didn’t have that awesome giblet taste. We thought that the lack of alkalinity was the culprit so we told one of the interns to put in some baking soda (it’s alkaline). Well, he messed up and put in baking powder instead (I’m calling you out, Ed!). The results were really cool. What we got was something with the texture of bread that was made entirely of egg yolks. It even toasts like bread. Gluten-free, baby.”

From a post by NYC professional chefs playing with pressure cookers!
http://www.cookingissues.com/2009/10/06/new-york-culinary-experience-technique-a-thon-pressure-cooking-eggs-super-rich-sorbet-nstuff/

jenna
May 22, 2014 1:44 pm
Reply to  Lars

Thanks Lars! I love food science.
This is Jenna, from below. Since my first experiences with pressure cooking eggs, I have produced the brown eggs as shown in your pix. The change was I first used a vintage cooker which had an unknown psi. Since then, I’ve used a modern cooker both at low psi and high and have found the higher psi definitely produced brown whites. So my bad, egg shell color does NOT affect resulting color.

aqua
March 15, 2014 7:57 am

Hello Sue

I dont have a rice cooker, can I do it in a normal saucepan ?
Also do you know what chemical reaction happens in the eggs because of the salt and
long cooking?
Thank you

Someone
September 5, 2014 3:09 pm
Reply to  aqua

Yes, you can still make this “spa boiled egg” thing with sauce pan. I usually boiled it for around an hour on high temp electric stove, or for more than three hours on low. In case you want it more brown, you can even add some tea leaves.

Jeri
February 3, 2014 3:57 am

I am a newcomer to your recipes. I love anything Korean and especially the dramas. Watch them all the time. Thanks so much for them. I will definitely try them.

Ai
November 15, 2013 4:07 am

When is a good occasion to serve this? Is this more of a snack and not a side dish? I’d really like to make this, but when is it most appropriate?

Grace
July 30, 2013 2:47 pm

Thank you soooo much! After I followed the directions completely (kinda cheating on keeping the eggs in room temp for 2 hrs, I kept for 40 min) I got perfectly beautiful brown colored eggs!! They tasted amazing!! I would also like to note that I used regular eggland’s best WHITE eggs!! Will be using this recipe weekly!!!!!

March 21, 2013 3:23 am

Want to eat these Korean sauna eggs! How interesting, and I loved that you experimented. Very thorough report. 😀 Now I’m ready to eat them for tasting check?

March 15, 2013 11:24 am

I had to click on the link when I saw the name of the recipe. I’m Korean but have never been to a Korean sauna let alone have had sauna eggs. However, we always get a good laugh when watching actors crack these on their heads in Korean dramas. I will have to give these a try. Thank you for recipe (and the chuckles)! 😀

jenna
March 12, 2013 3:50 am

Does the coloring come from the shell? In my area, brown eggs are much more expensive than white-shelled eggs. Does the color affect the flavor?

jenna
March 26, 2013 8:25 am
Reply to  Sue

So, I’ve been using my vintage pressure cooker (from the late 40s, I think); being so old it’s designed to get about 16psi, so much weaker than modern cookers. The cook times do match up pretty well with the info in the mfr pamphlet, so it’s not too low psi. Anyway, I’m pretty sure the final color depends on the shell color. Makes me want to find some of those blue and green eggs, like Martha Stewart gets. I made a batch with 1 1/2 cups water + 3/4 tsp sea salt; used a small dish to elevate the eggs 1/2 way out of the water, in case that was important; timed 50 minutes after achieving pressure. The eggs came out a pale off-white, maybe “parchment” or light “ivory” would be a good name. Definitely noticed the tenderness others have mentioned but no discernible difference in flavor, from “regular” hard-boiled. 2nd batch. Got ride of the dish. Was distracted trying to multitask, so the time went well over an hour, 80~90 minutes. The color was a few shades darker, but not turning mocha-colored like your pix. More like antique gold. And they were even more tender. The taste is good, but nothing to write home about. Perhaps the shells impart flavor, too. More probably, my taste-buds are fatigued from Easter baking, etc. Anyway, I’ll keep experimenting. I’m finding this method stress free, with better results than the classic “perfect hard-cooked eggs” method. Thanks for posting this method. PS. During this, I remembered a Korean daily drama where a Chinese girl who loves Kdrama makes a Korean guy re-enact stereotypical scenes. Including going to the sauna, cracking eggs on his head and making him eat them, like over a dozen. Those eggs were white inside. ***Maybe the show couldn’t afford real… Read more »

stephanie
March 9, 2013 10:30 pm

SUCCESS! failed using the normal rice cooker. but a normal pressure cooker works amazing! 🙂 Thank you Sue for the recipe! so yummy.

stephanie
March 9, 2013 9:13 pm

currently trying those eggs using my rice cooker. hope it turns out well! 😀

March 7, 2013 3:24 pm

Ok Lady….it’s like you took a complete thought out of my mind…I was just thinking about those eggs and actually, don’t laugh try to make them haha -I used Soy sauce to see if the color will change! 😀 I was tempted to try ever sense I watched “Secret Garden” What a great Recipe…It will be made tomorrow! 😀 Thank you for the recipe!

March 8, 2013 2:02 am
Reply to  Sue

Update! It’s 10am here- I made them, and ate them!I cooked eggs for about 30min and the color was just slightly lighter than yours, but the yolk was so incredibly tender!(I couldn’t wait any longer hehe) Thanks again for the recipe! 🙂

Oh and yes, I do watch Kdramas 😀

March 7, 2013 12:32 pm

wow no colouring or anything added! amazing!

Michael
March 7, 2013 8:28 am

I love those eggs. Do restaurants ever serve them, or do they just sell them at saunas?

Jess
September 18, 2015 12:04 am
Reply to  Michael

@Michael You can find them in convenient store s or in big supermarkets .

Jess
September 18, 2015 12:05 am
Reply to  Jess

I mean if you are living in kroea. 🙂

March 7, 2013 12:50 am

I don’t have a rice cooker. Do you think I could recreate this with steam in a pressure cooker?

March 10, 2013 2:53 am
Reply to  Sue

I tried these using my electric, programmable pressure cooker and it seemed to work like a charm! Two of the six eggs popped out of their shell (though with no mess and they were my testers as one popped out at each step). I don’t know if they taste like the authentic item, but they were good. The yolk was lovely and tender (as opposed to rubbery like over-boiled hard-boiled eggs).

Thank you!

March 6, 2013 8:29 pm

Thanks so much Sue. We love to get the little sacks of 3 eggs and 3 kul as snacks when we travel and will miss them so much. At least I can make them at home. The last Jimjibang I went to was in Gwangju and they were 2 eggs for 2,000w ( about $1 each.)

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