Jajang, born from Chinese zhajiangmian and transformed in Korea into the rich, dark sauce made with chunjang, has become woven into the fabric of Korean everyday life. What began as an adapted working-class meal of black bean sauce (jajang) over noodles (myeon) in port cities has evolved into a national comfort food, synonymous with quick delivery, moving days, and casual family meals.
Jajangmyeon was the pizza and burgers of my childhood. End-of-school semesters and good test scores were acknowledged with jajangmyeon. My grandparents always had it delivered when I stayed with them during school breaks, a proper opening to days of my grandmother’s home-cooked meals to come.
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| Ceramic bowls were wheel-thrown and glazed by me. |
Its presence is as cultural as it is culinary: from shared bowls among students and office workers to its symbolic role on Black Day, when singles gather to eat jajangmyeon together. It is the unofficially official meal on moving day. More than just a sauce, jajang reflects Korea’s history of migration, adaptation, and taste—absorbed so completely that it feels inseparable from daily life.
It is rarely home-cooked. I have, at times, cooked it at home, but chunjang is not an ingredient I typically keep in the kitchen. I had tested to perfect the recipe, to infuse a uniqueness connected to me, but it lingered on my recipe test list for quite some time, like Korean Savory Egg Soufflé, until my eyes landed on a box of Ottogi Gan-Jjanjang Sauce.
When a boxed sauce, Vermont Curry, is good enough to make it into Chef Morimoto's Mastering the Art of Japanese Home Cooking for his Karei Raisu recipe, it became clear that Ottogi Gan-Jjanjang Sauce was more than good enough to end my pursuit of a uniquely my own jajang sauce. You can click here for my minimalist recipe using Vermont Curry.
A twist in the plot was still required, or it wouldn’t be me otherwise, so I shifted from noodles to egg fried rice and adjusted the ingredients in the sauce to be cut into finer pieces rather than left in chopstick-full portions, allowing it to better marry with the fried rice.
INGREDIENTS
for Egg Fried Rice
two cups of cooked and refrigerated rice
one egg
three green onions, finely chopped
one tablespoon of milk
a tablespoon of vegetable oil
three pinches of salt
one pinch of gochugaru
for Jajang Sauce
one small cube of pork fat
a quarter cup of finely chopped shallot
a quarter cup of diced squid (body only)
three medium-size shrimp, diced
a quarter tablespoon of vegetable oil
one cube of Ottogi Gan-Jjanjang Sauce
a third cup of water
Whisk together the egg, milk, one pinch of salt, and one pinch of gochugaru, and set it aside. Heat a wok over high heat, and add vegetable oil. Once the oil is heated, add the green onions. Stir once or twice until the oil is lightly fragrant. Add the rice and break it apart, if necessary, with a wooden spoon. Reduce the heat to medium and stir-fry to evenly coat the rice with oil and green onions. Make a well in the middle of the wok, and then pour in the egg mixture. Scramble the egg, and stir it into the rice once the egg starts to cook. Taste, and add up to two pinches of salt to your taste. Plate the egg fried rice for one serving and set it aside. You may have leftover fried rice, depending on your preferred serving size.
The wok may be hot, so carefully wipe it down. Heat the wok again over high heat and add vegetable oil and a cube of pork fat. Once heated, add the shallot, squid, and shrimp. Once the shallot starts to turn translucent, add one cube of the sauce (which is for one serving). Once the cube starts to melt, add the water. Reduce the heat to medium-high and stir occasionally to avoid the sauce burning. Once the cube is completely melted, the sauce is ready.
Gently pour the sauce over the plated egg fried rice and serve. This dish isn't meant to be soaked with the sauce, but rather to gently add flavor to the fried rice.
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