Delicious Korean Ground Beef is made with basic pantry ingredients and served over rice, for and easy 30 minute meal everyone loves!
Ya’ll know I’m all about easy, family-friendly dinners and this Korean Ground Beef is always a winner! I love that it uses simple ingredints I always have on hand.
If you want some more great dinner ideas, check my list of 30-minute meals or one pan meals!
How to make Korean Ground Beef:
Start by browning your ground beef in a sauce pan. I season it with salt and pepper as it cooks. Remove grease. This is totally optional, but once it’s browned I like to put the meat in my food processor. I pulse it 2-3 times into very small pieces, and then return it to the pan. I love the way the sauce and flavor soaks into the meat when it’s finely ground like this.
Next add the sesame oil, garlic and ginger. Stir in brown sugar, soy sauce, and sriracha (or crushed red pepper of chili sauce).
Add half of the chopped green onions, reserving the rest for garnish.
Serve over hot cooked rice, garnished with chopped green onion. I like to serve sliced cucumber on the side. It adds a wonderful fresh crunch and flavor that really compliments everything.
Make Ahead and Freezing Instructions:
This is a great meal to make a few hours or day ahead of time–it reheats well on the stove!
To Freeze, allow the mixture to cool, then place in a freezer-safe bag or container and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then rewarm on the stove.
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Recipe
Korean Ground Beef Bowls
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 5 cloves garlic , minced
- 1 Tablespoon sesame oil
- 1 Tablespoon freshly grated ginger *
- 2/3 cup light brown sugar
- 1 cup low-sodium soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons Sriracha hot sauce , crushed red pepper flakes, or chili garlic sauce
- 1 bunch green onion , chopped
- hot cooked brown or white rice , for serving
- Fresh cucumber , sliced, for serving
Instructions
- Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Season beef with black pepper and add to skillet. Cook, stirring and crumbling into small pieces with a wooden spoon, until browned. Drain excess grease. (Optional: put beef in a food processor. Pulse it 2-3 times into very small pieces, and then return it to the pan.)
- Add sesame oil, garlic and ginger. Stir in brown sugar, soy sauce, and sriracha (or crushed red pepper of chili sauce). Cook for a few minutes, allowing some of the sauce to absorb into the meat.
- Add half of the chopped green onions, reserving the rest for garnish. Serve over hot cooked rice, garnished with chopped green onion.
Notes
Nutrition
Did You Make This Recipe?
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Have you tried this recipe?!
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I originally shared this recipe February 2018. Updated May 2021 with process photos and a video.
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Made this today – much too salty with 1c soy sauce. Ended up draining and washing the meat, unfortunately, then adding about 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar and around 1/2 c water with a tsp corn starch to thicken. It then ended up very good. But with just the sugar and soy sauce it was much too salty.
This was the very first time I didn’t super love a recipe from this site. It was in deed salty. But it wasn’t inedible as other posts suggested. It wasn’t our favorite dish but I would consider making it again with some modifications.
Way to sweet as it is written, I would maybe make again but with 1/4 cup of brown sugar.
My kids didn’t take more than 3 bites, I will have to do some mods tomorrow and try it one more time.
I just made this with veggie meat, and it was yum. I agree on cutting soy sauce to maybe 1/3 cup.
Way too much soy sauce! I followed the recipe exactly. It was tasty, but to salty for my taste
I love this recipe! But only because I tweaked it a lot, so I’m removing one star for that reason.
First off- I probably only use about 1/2 the soy sauce, 1/2 the ginger (just for personal tastes) and maybe 1/4 of the sugar IF THAT. Otherwise, as others have stated, this recipe would be wayyyy too sweet.
Instead of the sriracha, I use gochujang (which you can find in most asian supermarkets, its a type of Korean chili paste) and I enjoy the depth of flavor a lot more. I also add just a splash of rice vinegar to cut through some of the salt/sweet. I also enjoy sesame seeds on top of this dish, but that is entirely optional I feel.
I also beef this dish up with additional vegetables. Last time I did carrots, jalapenos, savoy cabbage, baby bok choy, and some large green onion (the big one! not regular sized) and it made it a LOT more filling and I feel it really stretches your meat (which, if you live in Canada like me where grocery prices are at an all time high, is really nice). I also make home made pickled daikon radish, carrots and jalapenos the night before to serve with this dish (the recipe I use is by MyKoreanKitchen.com) and I feel it really adds some refreshment to cut through the heavy flavors of the soy sauce and gochujang.
I also like to season my rice first with some rice vinegar and “sushi seasoning” (the liquid, comes in a bottle) to taste.
I know it’s a lot of changes, but I feel this recipe is better to build upon than just doing what it says on the tin!
This sounded so good! Made it– followed recipe exactly as printed. BUT–oh my– it was soooooo sweet! Way too sweet!!!
Very good I will make this again!
I used a little less than 3/4 cup brown sugar and it was way too sweet. Even my 12 year old thought it was too sweet. It was meat candy. Anyways, good flavors but please use like 1/4 cup of brown sugar.
This was very sweet. I actually did not add the whole 2/3 brown sugar and it was still too sweet.
1 cup of soy sauce has to be a mistake. And the sugar is waay too much. We make a similar recipe that uses 1/4 C of each and that’s still sweet.
So easy and so delicious! The whole family loved it!
So flavorful and delicious! Made it exactly as written. Perfect!! My husband said it was sooooo good! I’ll make it again-it was so easy. Thanks for another great recipe!!
I found this on IG, it looked delicious and simple to make. I already had all the ingredients so I made it.I made white rice and steamed broccoli. Fantastic! Satisfying!
Amazing! I doubled the ground beef and used less than half the soy sauce (6 Tbsp to be exact). My husband was stunned :). And all of of my kids liked it which is practically a miracle. Thank you Lauren!
This is on our monthly rotation. Kid approved! I roast broccoli and add that to the dish for some additional nutrition.
Delicious!
Tasted delicious but I changed the recipe a little. I only used half of the soy sauce and brown sugar the recipe called for….I thought that amount would make meat too salty and sweet.I also did add any additional salt. I substituted gochujang for the pepper.
My 17 year old made this for dinner tonight. It was yummy, and so simple and quick. It would be fun served inside lettuce wraps! The cucumbers were a perfect compliment.
This was a nice dish but I found it to be way too salty. Next time I’m omitting the salt to the meat and cutting the soya sauce in half!
Do you think this could be served on top of a nice homemade mac/cheese? We have been eating a lot of dishes with rices and noodles, couple from your site which were fantastic, but was thinking the kids might want something different for the base/change. Was thinking it might make a good fusion food.
What do you think?
Mama Mia!! Tried this tonight as a quarantine relief dish (#eatthestressaway) and it is DE-LISH! %100 hubby approved. So easy to make. LOVE it. Thanks so much!
If I wanted to add a vegetable to the dish (in addition to cucumbers) what would you recommend?
Bell peppers, zucchini, carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms–so many types of veggies would taste great! Enjoy.
This sounds delish and easy! If you want to make it even more Korean, I suggest using gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) and gochujang (Korean red pepper hot sauce).
Delicious!! We love this!! Made it per recipe and though I’m very salt sensitive, it was perfect!! Thank you!!
It kills me that the people that all say it was salty, all used something that has LOTS more salt than the reciepe calls for. We have made it twice now and the whole family love it!!
Quick, easy, and tasty! Bonus for using ingredients I usually have on hand. Will definitely make again.
Thanks Mia–I agree, I love that I usually have what I need to make it!
Thank you for the recipe. The flavor was very good but as others have mentioned, it was too salty. I used a half cup reduced sodium Gluten Free Tamari sauce (700mg per TBSP.) and a half cup coconut aminos (270mg per TBSP.) If I knew how to adjust the sodium I would gladly use the recipe again.
I didn’t have ginger, sriracha sauce, or cucumber. I split all the ingredients in half bc I felt like it was too much for for 2. It was easy and tasted soooo good! I will def try this recipe again. Bookmarked 🙂
Going to make this tonight, So I don’t have any comments on the recipe itself yet, but I thought I would share something…
you mentioned putting the beef in a food processor to break it down more.
I used to hate the fact that ground beef didn’t break down as much as I wanted it to, and somewhere along the way I realized that if you brown your beef with about 1/2 cup of water per lb, it for some reason breaks down much more. So as long as you plan on straining the grease anyway, you should try it!
This smelled so good! But unfortunately I think I may have messed up somewhere since it was so salty (not noticeable at first, but after a few bites). Wondering if it’s because I used liquid aminos instead of low-sodium soy sauce?
That must be why–I’ve never used liquid aminos. Sorry!
I made this tonight and while I imagine it would be very good, it was just too salty. I didn’t have low sodium soy sauce because I have to use gluten free Tamari and couldn’t find a low sodium version. I used half a cup of regular soy sauce it was still extremely salty. It would be great if this recipe included an option for the ratio if you use regular soy sauce.
This is one of my new favorite dinners! It is quick, easy, and delicious which makes it the perfect week night dinner.
This recipe is as delicious as it is easy. We love it!
Thanks for commenting Donna! I’m really glad you enjoyed it!
This recipe is very delicious, but sooo much salt from all that soy sauce . I even used coconut aminos for half of the cup. Too much salt to make again .
Delicious recipe. Used 1/3 cup soy sauce plus 1/3 cup dashi instead of reduced sodium soy sauce and added gochujang for the chili…
Joy glad someone who understands Korean food commented. Great job.
Very easy to make. Ingredients are common even in a small town grocery store. My ten year old son loved this dish. I did half ground beef and half veggie “meat”. I will make this again and the disk will be a staple from now on. I served over rice and ramen, just mixed in the flavor packet with the meat.
I think bamboo shoots and water chest nuts would make a great addition. Don’t get me wrong the cucumbers matched this dish really well.
This is great Richard! Loved your ideas as well.
I made it tonight
But it was way too salty for us. Is the 1 cup soy sauce correct????
Yes, did you use low sodium soy sauce?
This was absolutely delicious and such an easy school week meal! Thank you! I’m so excited to add this to my ground beef recipes I love list. Thank you!
It really is perfect for an easy weeknight meal! I’m so glad you enjoyed it–thanks for commenting!
Loved the flavor but it is so dry. Did I do something wrong.
Hi Nancy, next time you could double the sauce if you’d like more 🙂
This recipe was very good and easy to make. We loved the combination of sweet and spicy flavors. I used the crushed red pepper. The cucumber tasted good with the meat. Like another reviewer stated, other vegetables would go well with this dish also so I will probably try some others the next time I make it. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Thanks for your comment, Lisa. I’m happy you liked it!
Awesome recipe. Was easy to make and tasted very good. I used sambal oelek insted of sriracha. Will definitely make again.
Thanks Nicholas! Happy you liked it–thanks for taking the time to comment 🙂
This is AMAZING! I’m not a fan of cucumber (I know, I’m crazy) so I roasted some squash and carrots and threw it in top and it is delicious! A little meat goes a long way in this! That flavor is so yummy! And it was so quick to whip together! Thanks for another stellar recipe!
Hi friend! Thanks so much for sharing–I love the veggies you added!! YUM! I’m so happy you liked it. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment <3
Thanks for this easy and yummy recipe! I made it for myself and loved it! Can’t wait for lunch tomorrow! Btw, I topped it with fresh cilantro too!
These were so easy and good. My whole family loved it.