Dakgalbi (Korean spicy stir-fried chicken)
40 min · 44 g protein · 430 cals / serving
Chicken marinated in a glossy, garlicky gochujang sauce and stir-fried in one big pan with heaps of cabbage, sweet potato, onion and scallions until the sauce turns sticky and the cabbage goes soft and sweet. It is spicy, a little sweet, smoky at the edges and made for sharing straight from the pan.
Ingredients
- 7 oz chicken thigh, in bite-size pieces
- 1 lb 2 oz chicken breast, in bite-size pieces
Sauce
- 3 tbsp gochujang
- 1 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, Korean chili flakes (gochugaru) if you have them
- 2 tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce
- 1 tbsp mirin
- 1 1/2 tsp honey
- 6 cloves garlic, grated
- 2 tsp ginger, grated
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp canola oil
- 1 small sweet potato, peeled, halved and sliced 5 mm (1/4 inch) thick
- 1/2 medium head cabbage, in 4 cm (1 1/2-inch) pieces
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 1 medium carrot, sliced thin
- 6 green onions, in 5 cm (2-inch) lengths
- 1 tsp sesame oil
To serve
- 2 tsp toasted sesame seeds
Steps
- Mix all the sauce ingredients in a bowl, add the chicken and turn to coat. Leave 20 minutes at room temperature or up to a day in the fridge.
- Heat the oil in your widest frying pan or a wok over medium-high heat. Add the sweet potato and fry 4 minutes, turning, until it starts to colour.
- Pile in the cabbage, onion and carrot, then the chicken with all its marinade on top. Cook 10–12 minutes, turning everything over every couple of minutes, until the cabbage is soft and the chicken reads 165°F. Add a splash of water if the sauce catches.
- Add the scallions and sesame oil and toss 1 minute until the scallions wilt. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve from the pan.
Good to know
What do Koreans add at the end?
Once most of it is eaten, a scoop of rice, a little kimchi and some chopped seaweed go into the pan and are fried in the leftover sauce until crisp. Perilla leaves and chewy rice cakes are common additions too.
How do I make it milder?
Halve the chili flakes and use mild gochujang; it's about the same score. A handful of grated mozzarella melted over the top, a popular restaurant version, softens the heat too.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 87
- Protein
- (43%)
- 9 g
- Fat
- (25%)
- 2 g
- Carbohydrates
- (33%)
- 8 g
- of which sugar
- 4 g
- Fiber
- 2 g
- Sodium
- 146 mg
About 50% of the alcohol remains after cooking; the label counts only that.
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. General guidance, not medical advice. Talk to your prescriber. How
As written, 1720 kcal goes into the pot and 2167 g of ingredients comes out as about 1980 g of food: 87 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.