Vegan Nokdu-jon Korean Mung Bean Pancakes Recipe!
Bill and I watched the Kimchi Chronicles on Hulu, a documentary series about Korean cuisine, and Marja and Jean-George were just delightful to watch. Their love for food and fun really makes you want to cook! Bill and I really enjoyed the Bean Chronicle episode, mainly because, they featured a lot of vegan friendly recipes. In that episode, Jean-George teases Marja about making Korean Mung Bean Pancakes every week ever since she learned to cook them, and Marja admits how much she loves them. So we were inspired to make some for ourselves. We used to make them from mix that we get from the Korean grocery store, but really, it is so much better if you make it from scratch, and it is so easy! Here you go!
Vegan Korean Mung Bean Pancakes Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup split mung beans
1/6 cup rice
1 cup sliced kimchi and sliced veggies (traditionally fern bracken or mung bean sprouts, but any veggies will do)
1/2 cup kimchi juice
pinch of salt
pinch of black pepper
1 tsp of gochugaru red pepper powder
1/4 cup of sesame oil
veggie oil
Directions:
1. Soak the mung beans and rice overnight or for 4-5 hours. Drain and rinse.
2. Add the soaked mung beans and rice along with the kimchi juice, salt, black pepper, gochugaru and sesame oil in a food processor and process it so it becomes a creamy texture.
3. Put the batter into a bowl and add the sliced kimchi and veggies. Mix well.
4. Heat the pan to medium high heat and add oil.
5. Once the oil is hot, make small rounds of pancakes and cook until brown, flipping once to brown both sides. They are better when it’s slightly crispy!
6. Enjoy!! 🙂
Sauce ingredients (optional):
1 Tbs soy sauce
Pinch of Korean pepper powder
Pinch of sesame seeds
Drizzle of apple cider vinegar
Sliced green onions
Soak the mung beans and rice overnight or for 4-5 hours minimum. Drain and rinse.
Add 1 tsp of gochugaru (or more or less if you prefer) to the mung beans.
Process the mung beans until creamy or more or less depending on if you would like a smoother or more textured pancake.
Add kimchi and/or vegetables. You can use mung bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots, be creative!
Add dollops of batter to heated pan and oil (you can also make one large pancake if you prefer).
Flip the pancake when one side is browned and brown the other side. They are better when slightly crispy!
You can serve them with a dipping sauce if you would like. Add a little soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and gochugaru and mix well (you can also add diced scallions of you’d like).
Enjoy! These are addictive! 🙂
Boy, these look good!
Hope you try making them, they are soooo yummy!! 😉
Is baking would do good with this recipe instead of frying?
Hi Antoniette! We haven’t tried baking them, but I think they would turn out just fine. If you try it, please let us know how it worked out!
These look wonderful! I’ve only had nokdujeon a few times in Seoul, and like with most restaurants in Korea, I’m not entirely sure it was vegan– making your own at home is a great idea. (And I even have all of these ingredients at home already, yay!)
Ah. Great! Hope it turns out yummy!! 😉
Thank you for this recipe! Coincidentally, this was the episode of “Kimchi Chronicles” I watched most recently. 🙂 I like Jean-Georges a lot. I don’t know what he’s really like, but on camera he seems loving and humble, and appreciative of his wife’s cooking. Marja bugs me a little bit in the way she frequently gets things just a little bit wrong but says them authoritatively, like when she gives definitions of Korean words that are a little off. :-\ Or when she says she’s making a vegetarian jeon and then puts her homemade kimchi (made with fish sauce) and seafood in it. Aaaagh! LOL. Phew, anyway, this looks delicious.
Haha I know what you mean… 😉 But she loves her mung bean pancakes!! ;p Hope you try them Lu, they are so addictive!!
I was thinking of making them for Hanukkah, if I get invited. I’m not Jewish, but a good friend of mine is, and she often has me over for the holiday. 🙂 She’s vegan, too, and I bet she would like to try these in addition to the traditional latkes.
Reminds me of a type of dosa, from south indian cuisine. I will definitely serve this at Sunday brunch at The Macrobiotic Centre of Toronto.
Alice
Hi Alice! I hope you are well. Brunch at the centre sounds so good! Hope the pancakes turn out well for your brunch. 😉
They were delish! that’s why I’m on your site!
Thanks Gabriole! So glad you liked it. 😉
YUM!
These look great!
http://tribeofmannequins.wordpress.com/
and
http://houseofvegan.wordpress.com/
Thanks, House of Vegan! Hope you get a chance to try them out!
Me too! 🙂
Is the rice raw (ie we don’t have to cook it first) before putting in the processor?
The cooking is done during the frying?
Tks
Further to above, can we use brown rice?
Tks
Yes you can! 😉
Yes, soaked raw rice into the processor!
Hi, again! I’m probably going to make these this weekend, but I have a question: how many people does this recipe serve? Thanks!
Lu! Sorry I didn’t get to this earlier. ;( So busy with work and holiday gatherings! The pancakes really depend on how you eat it. Done eat without rice and some eat it with rice, so it really depends. If you having it as banchan, it’ll serve 4-5 people!
Hi, Sunnie! Thanks. 🙂 guess what–I couldn’t find split mung beans, so I’m trying to use whole ones. They’ve been soaking forever and now I’m going to try and get those hulls off. Wish me luck… 🙂
Oh really- hmmm… I thought they should be easy to find, as all the Asian grocery stores carry them in our area! Anyway, I hope it turns out okay!!
Hi, Sunnie,
Yeah, I meant to go to the Asian grocery store the day before but I forgot. 🙂 So all the supermarket had was the whole ones. But it turned out OK! I just spent like 20-30 extra minutes rubbing handfuls of beans and rinsing the skins away. I didn’t completely skin them all, but I got at least about 3/4 of them off. The recipe turned out delicious! Everyone really liked them, except one guy who was afraid of kimchi. We told him it wasn’t that spicy or garlicky, but he wasn’t adventurous enough to try. 🙂 The pancakes are best when freshly made, as I think you said, but they were still pretty good after I spent 1.5 hours on the bus to get to my friend’s house. We heated them up in the oven. I think they would have rebounded better if I had used more oil for frying to begin with and maybe not blotted them so much. Then they would have oven-fried at my friend’s house.
Thanks for the support! 😀
Awesome, so glad to hear that it turned out okay. 😉 Sounds like you had fun with your friends! Those pancakes can get addictive, especially if you use plenty of oil when frying them. ;p Thanks for letting us know, Lu!!