Vegan Goongjung ddeokbokki (Palace ddeokbokki, Soy sauce rice cake) Recipe!
My parents came to visit us from Seoul and then my brother came from LA to visit us during the last several weeks, so we’ve been super busy. We had so much fun with them. Bill and I have been having a lot of ddeokbokki lately, and we’ve been making various versions. The other day, we made Goongjung ddeokbokki, which literally means, palace ddeokbokki – so the idea is that it’s a royal dish, rather than an every day person’s dish. Its main flavor is soy sauce, rather than pepper paste, like the more popular ddeokbokki. It’s a really nice option to have for ddeokbokki!
Vegan Goongjung ddeokbokki (Palace ddeokbokki, Soy sauce rice cake) Recipe!
Ingredients:
3-4 pieces of kelp/kombu
3 big, dried shitake mushrooms
1 pack of rice cake
3-4 Tbs of soy sauce
3-4 Tbs of sugar
1 Tbs of diced garlic
1 cup of sliced onions (you can always substitute with onion powder and garlic powder if you don’t have onions and garlic handy)
veggies (such as carrots, cabbage, chives, green onions)
black Pepper
salt
sesame seeds
Directions:
1. Soak the kelp/kombu and shitake mushrooms in hot water for 30 minutes and reserve the water. Slice the mushrooms into bite sizes after soaking.
2. Slice the onions, cabbage, carrots, chives, green onions (I just throw in whatever I have!).
3. Heat the pan and add the reserved kelp/kombu and shitake mushroom water, soy sauce, sugar, garlic, onions (or garlic/onion powder), black pepper, salt, and sesame seeds. Bring to a boil and let it boil for several minutes.
4. Put the rice cakes and sliced veggies into the pan and boil until the rice cakes are soft. The veggies will become nice and soft too! Let the sauce soak into the rice cake which should turn darker brown.
6. Add some sesame seeds, salt and black pepper to your liking and continue to briefly stir over heat.
7. It’s ready, enjoy!! 
Slice up whatever veggies you have, but one thing that I wouldn’t skip is cabbage!
You need your kelp/kombu and shitake mushroom water too – it can improve most vegan Korean dishes, super important!
Add your sauce ingredients and bring to boil.
Add your veggies and rice cake!
The rice cake needs to become soft and brown. The veggies will turn soft as well.
Add some more salt, black pepper and sesame seeds to taste. And it’s ready!
You have palace style ddeokbokki – super easy! :)
Omo! I have to have this!!! Thanks, guys
Hope you like it Teresa!!
Enjoy!
Another amazing vegan Korean recipe that I will make ASAP. I love being able to join my daughters in their Korean adventure now that I have found a vegan source of recipes. Thank you so much for sharing, you certainly made my day
So glad to hear that you’ll be able to enjoy it with your daughters! Hope it turns out well and you like it!
We love Korean food but my daughters are meat eaters and I am not and so I just ended up with side dishes prior to now! Now I am armed with your wonderful recipes and we can all enjoy Korean food to the max
Thanks, again, for converting Korean recipes to vegan, you have really made it easy for us to eat Koreas amazingly healthy and incredibly tasty food 
hey sunnie! the ddeokbokki looks delicious and fulfilling; i’m very eager to scout out some ricecake to try this. i wanted to ask you, what fillings would you, personally, put in kimbap? i recently learned of the delectable-looking Korean answer to makizushi, and wanted to ask my favorite authority on vegan Korean cuisine what they’d use! also: i have a bunch of buckwheat noodles i don’t know what to do with…perhaps you have a suggestion for preparing those as well?
hungry as always after looking at your posts,
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I put it picked radish, blanched spinach, stir-fried carrots, avocado, etc. in the kimbap! Koreans use buckwheat noodles for any noodle dish they create, so I would feel free to use it for any noodle dish you create!
We made this dish as part of our New Year’s Day feast for friends and it was well received. How much broth do you use when you make this? I am not sure how thick or how thin the sauce should end up. Thanks, I am looking forward to your next post!
Hi Larissa! Sorry I’m getting to this so late! I put enough water so that the rice cake is covered about half way. The broth has to become pretty thick – thick enough so that it’s just more like some sauce is all that’s left. It really shouldn’t be watery at all!
Made this today–loved it.
Awesome!! So glad it turned out well..
Thanks for letting us know, Corrin!