Vegan bulgogi- vegetarian Korean bbq

Name: Vegan bulgogi- vegetarian Korean bbq
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: korean
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons sesame oil; 3 cups seitan torn into bite-size pieces; 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger; ⅓ cup grated fresh pear; 2 cloves minced garlic; 2 teaspoons gochugaru (Korean chili flakes); 2 scallions cut in ½ inch sections; ⅔ cup julienne-cut carrots; ½ of a red bell pepper, sliced thin; 2 tablespoons tamari, or soy sauce; 2 tablespoon Mirin; 4 teaspoons brown sugar; ¼ cup water; 1 teaspoon cornstarch; 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds to garnish; 1 scallion, thinly sliced to garnish

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Sink your teeth into this perfect vegan bulgogi. My bulgogi is a plant-based spin on a delicious Korean dish that's sure to satisfy your cravings. Picture tender chunks of savory seitan, marinated in a sweet and spicy blend of soy sauce, mirin, brown sugar, Korean chili, sesame oil, garlic, and ginger. The marinade infuses the seitan with a rich umami flavor, and when it gets grilled to perfection, the seitan is crispy on the outside while remaining juicy and tender on the inside.

Vegan bulgogi with kimchi fried rice and steamed half of bok choy in a white bowl. Kimchi and chopsticks on the side.

This is one of my easy vegan recipes that can revolutionize your meal prep or quick weeknight dinners. It is perfect served over a bed of fluffy white rice, or my kimchi fried rice, with a side of Korean cucumber salad, steamed broccoli or bok choy (maybe with a little heap of home made kimchi) for a complete, satisfying meal.

Are you drooling yet? Let's dive in!

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🥰Why you are going to adore the ever-loving heck outta this recipe
🌶️Ingredients
📖Step-by-step instructions
🔄Substitutions
🍽️Serving Ideas
🔪Equipment
🫙Storage
❗️Top tip
🤷‍♀️FAQ
✌️Other dishes that go great with this:
Looking for other vegan recipes? Try these:
Vegan bulgogi- vegetarian Korean bbq

🥰Why you are going to adore the ever-loving heck outta this recipe

It's faster to make that most bulgogi recipes, because I cook the seitan directly in the marinade. This makes it a clear winner when you want to get a meal together quickly.

Unlike regular bulgogi it also (duhhhh...) doesn't contain any dead animals. The cows will thank you. It's nice to be nice to cows and not kill them. Especially when you can have bulgogi that is just as tender and flavorful made out of trees, leaves, and whatever else us vegans eat...

🌶️Ingredients

Brown sugar- Brown sugar is a key ingredient in the marinade for bulgogi, as it helps to balance out the savory and salty flavors with a subtle sweetness. The caramelization of the brown sugar during cooking creates a beautiful char on the seitan, adding depth and complexity to the dish. Additionally, the sugar helps to tenderize the seitan by penetrating its fibers, resulting in a juicy and succulent bite. You can totally swap this out for coconut sugar, or sugacat which both have similar flavor and mineral content. You can easily swap it out for maple syrup too.

Mirin- This mellow tasting Japanese rice wine is a versatile ingredient that is often used in Asian cuisine to balance out the saltiness and umami flavors of soy sauce. When combined with other marinade ingredients, mirin helps to create a complex flavor profile that perfectly complements the chewy texture of seitan. Overall, the addition of mirin in seitan bulgogi is essential for achieving an authentic and delicious taste.

Seitan- I use my own process for seitan that I use in this recipe, because I really think it has better texture and flavor than anything available on the market. You can still get away with using store-bought seitan, or replace it in this recipe with smashed pieces of canned young green jackfruit, or chunks of roasted tofu. Both of those tweaks make this recipe completely gluten free too.

Gochugaru- a.k.a coarse Korean chili flakes. This ground red chili has a vibrant color and a perfect not-too-spicy flavor. It is essential to get the kimchi flavor. Don’t even think about wapping out crushed red pepper flakes (too spicy and seedy) or god forbid, some other basic-ass chili powder. No. Just grab this stuff online or at an asian grocery store. It’s awesome in many other recipes.

PEAR?!? There is freaking pear in this? You got that right mommy. Some shredded pear adds a unique dimension of sweetness to this dish that is part of the authentic way of making bulgogi. You can use a regular Bosc or D’anjou pear if you can’t find an asian pear to use in this

A brown bowl on a concrete counter with a fresh pear being shredded into it through a grater

There are oodles of other ingredients in this vegan bulgogi recipe, as you can see from the above photo. But rather than prattle on about green onions and sesame seeds here, you can just find the complete list of all ingredients along with their exact quantities on the recipe card below.

📖Step-by-step instructions

You wanna see how this yummy thing gets made? I will walk you through the whole quick process. Or you can follow along with the easy-to-print recipe card towards the bottom of this page.

seitan being stir fried in a large cast iron skillet. you can see the pieces becoming browned with crispy edges.

Heat a wok or large skillet over a high flame for 90 seconds. Add the sesame oil and allow the oil to heat up for 60 seconds. When the oil is hot, toss in the seitan and stir-fry for 3 minutes until it is golden brown all over, with some crisp edges.

A skillet with seitan and all the veggies used in this dish being stir fried together.

Add the ginger, grated pear, garlic, gochugaru, scallion, carrots, and bell pepper to the pan. Saute for 3 minutes until the veggies are tender, and the garlic ginger and scallions are fragrant.

a white bowl with the marinade ingredients for vegan bulgogi being mixed in it with a metal fork.

Whisk the tamari, mirin, brown sugar, water, and cornstarch in a small bowl using a fork until smoothly combined with no lumps.

Sauce being added from a metal cup into the sauteing seitan dish in a cast iron pan.

Add the sauce to the pan and sauté for about two minutes, stirring occasionally until the liquid has mostly absorbed. If it looks dry, you can add a small amount of water to keep it juicy looking.

Vegan bulgogi with white rice, broccoli, and kimchi in a reddish brown bowl.

Sprinkle sesame seeds and sliced scallions over the dish before serving. For a scrumptious meal, serve with short-grain rice, kimchi, and steamed broccoli or bok choy.

🔄Substitutions

Gluten-free - instead of seitan, use an equal amount of drained young green jackfruit that has been crushed by hand slightly. Or you can swap the seitan out for an equal amount of pre-roasted extra firm tofu pieces.

Soy curls instead of seitan (also a GF hack) - I like using my own seitan recipe for this because I prefer minimally processed, from scratch cooking. That being said, soy curls can make a fantastic imitation for bbq beef, and they are gluten free, as well as convenient compared with making your own seitan.

Using vegan ground beef style crumbles- Some people actually make bulgogi using ground meat. You could totally swap out the seitan here for ground impossible meat or beyond meat stuff. I actually made a recipe like that for a Korean fast-casual chain at one point, and the restaurant owner s were really psyched to add a vegan protein like that to their menu. So, maybe you will be into that too?

Mirin- If you cant find mirin, use a mellow “seasoned rice vinegar” in it’s place.

Tamari - as long as you aren’t making this dish gluten-free, its completely fine to swap out any soy sauce of your preference in place of the tamari

Other fruits instead of pear- Korean pear is the usual fruit making bulgogi, but it's not always easy to find. Instead, you can use pink lady, or honey crisp apples instead, which works just as well. Kiwi and pineapple are even used by some Koreans, but be careful not to use too much because their acid tenderizes the seitan more strongly than pear.

🍽️Serving Ideas

Traditional Korean accompaniments -I love this served with steamed broccoli or bok choy, a healthy side of my homemade kimchi, oi muchim, and either short grain rice, or even better- my kimchi fried rice. Want a smokey, totally untraditional Filipino acompanyment that makes the flavors of bulgogi absolutely pop? Serve this alongside my charred eggplant ensaladang talong. I promise you will love it so darn much!

Bulgogi breakfast burritos - use this bulgogi recipe along with your favie scrambled tofu, some fresh kimchi, shiitake mushrooms, and some crisp fresh lettuce to make a heavenly breakfast burrito. Just place all that stuff along with a little drizzle of gochujang into a slightly warmed 12 inch flour tortilla, wrap it, and then grill the burrito in a dry pan to seal it up.

Vegan buglogi on your nachos- That’s right. What could be a more dope twist on nachos? I put the finished cooked seitan along with some freshly minced red onions and jalapenos onto the nachos when they go in the oven. That way, as the other ingredients heat/melt, the little bits of seitan bulgogi get crispy all around and the fresh onions and peppers just slightly get their raw edge taken down a notch. If you make this for a super bowl watch party or whatever, don’t forget to thank me when it’s your favorite thing in the galaxy.

🔪Equipment

All you really need to make this is a wok or a large skillet. You might also want a pair of tongs for plating it, but you can survive using a shovel or whatever you got.

Bulgogi in a serving dish with a spoon in it. A couple served portions in the background.

🫙Storage

This is a great item for meal prep, and lasts very well in the fridge for up to 5 days in a well-sealing Tupperware container. You can also portion it into smaller containers to pack for work lunches. Because of the veggies (particularly the scallions and carrots), I personally wouldn’t recommend freezing it. I mean, it will be edible, but not forgettable. So do what you will with that.

❗️Top tip

It’s night and day using great quality homemade seitan in this recipe, instead of the somewhat rubbery dense stuff that tends to be found in stores. If you haven’t mastered scratch-made seitan yet, do mosey on over to my recipe and give it a shot. The seitan itself freezes well so you can make big batches to always have on hand.

🤷‍♀️FAQ

What does bulgogi mean?

Bulgogi (불고기) is a Korean dish which is made of thinly sliced beef (I cry for the cows…) that is marinated in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, garlic, and other ingredients, and then grilled or stir-fried. The word "bulgogi" is derived from the Korean words "bul" which means fire and "gogi" which means meat, so it translates to "fire meat" or "grilled meat.” My recipe makes it a faster weeknight dinner project, because the marinade is absorbed into the seitan while it cooks.

How should I reheat bulgogi?

Here are three ways to reheat bulgogi:
👉Stovetop: Heat a non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Add the bulgogi and stir fry for a few minutes on each side, until it's heated through.
👉Oven: Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Place the bulgogi in a baking dish and cover it with foil. Bake it in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until it's heated through.
👉Microwave: Place the bulgogi in a microwave-safe dish and cover it loosely with a damp paper towel. Heat it in the microwave for 1-2 minutes, or until it's heated through.

Remember to check the bulgogi frequently to prevent overcooking or drying out. You may also want to add a little extra marinade or water to the dish to keep the seitan moist during reheating.

✌️Other dishes that go great with this:

These are some of my favey dishes to serve with this:

Looking for other vegan recipes? Try these:

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