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Sink your teeth into this perfect vegan bulgogi, a plant-based spin on a delicious Korean classic. 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. When it gets grilled to perfection, the seitan is crispy on the outside while remaining juicy and tender on the inside. The perfect companion to a bowl of steaming hot vegan Korean tofu soup!
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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 vegan kimchi fried rice, with a side of steamed broccoli or vegan radish kimchi for a complete, satisfying meal.
Drooling yet? Let's dive in!
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🥰Why you'll adore this vegan bulgogi recipe
⏰Light-speed: 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.
✊Vegan AF: Unlike regular bulgogi it (duhhhh...) doesn't contain any dead animals. Like they do when you make any of my vegan recipes, 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...
✅ Super-well-tested: This recipe isn't just some crap that ChatGPT came up with. After tweaking it for months, like all of my vegan Korean recipes, I had it double checked by a team of hundreds of recipe testers who I work with from all around the world!
💣 The BOMB vegan dinners that you need in your rotation
This guide to my most popular dinner recipes is 100% FREE, & you'll love the actual heck out of it 🥰
🌶️ Vegan Bulgogi Ingredients
Seitan
I use my own process for making seitan that I use in this recipe, because I really think it has better texture and flavor than anything available on the market (and it also makes gorgeous vegan chicken noodle soup).
You can still get away with using store-bought seitan, or replace it in this recipe with smashed pieces of canned young green jackfruit (like I use in my adobong sitaw), or chunks of roasted tofu. Both of those tweaks make this recipe completely gluten-free too.
Gochugaru
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.
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.
You can totally swap this out for coconut sugar (like I use in my kuih ketayap and banh flan), or palm sugar (like I use in my onde onde) 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 used in a ton of recipes on my site from yaki onigiri to vegan yakitori. Overall, the addition of mirin in seitan bulgogi is essential for achieving an authentic and hyper-delicious taste.
PEAR?!? There is freaking pear in this?
You got that right mommy. Actually pear is used as a natural sweetener in a lot of Korean recipes like my vegan radish kimchi too. You can use a regular Bosc or D’anjou pear if you can’t find a Korean pear (bae) to use in this
you can find the complete list of all ingredients along with their exact quantities on the recipe card below.
📖 How to make vegan bulgogi
You wanna see how this yummy thing gets made? I will walk you through the quick and painless process. Or you can follow along with the easy-to-print recipe card towards the bottom of this page.
Step 1
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.
Step 2
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.
Step 3
Whisk the tamari, mirin, brown sugar, water, and cornstarch in a small bowl using a fork until smoothly combined with no lumps.
Step 4
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.
Step 6
Sprinkle sesame seeds and sliced scallions over the dish before serving. For a scrumptious meal, serve with short-grain rice, vegan kimchi, maybe a little extra driz of Korean BBQ sauce, and steamed broccoli or bok choy.
🍽️ Serving Ideas
Seitan bulgogi cried out in the night for the loving friendship of ALL of the bangin' banchans you can trhow at it. Serve it over vegan kimchi fried rice with Korean carrot salad, Korean cucumber salad, and Korean scallion salad, and maybe even some pickled burdock.
Fire up a bowl of hot Korean tofu soup, and polish the whole bangin' meal off with some korean donuts, why don'tcha?
❗️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, you might want to check out my seitan masterclass to learn all my secrets!
🤷♀️Recipe FAQs
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.
🥘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.
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.
✌️Other dishes to serve seitan bulgogi with:
Vegan bulgogi- vegetarian Korean bbq
Equipment
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 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
- 1 scallion thinly sliced to garnish
Instructions
- Heat the sesame oil over a high flame in a large skillet. When the oil is hot, add the seitan to the pan. Sauté for 3 minutes until the seitan is lightly browned all over.
- Lower the flame to medium. Add the ginger, grated pear, garlic, gochugaru, scallion, carrots and bell pepper. Sauté for 3 minutes until the peppers are looking glossy and tender.
- Mix together the tamari, mirin, brown sugar, water, and corn starch in a small bowl using the tines of a fork
- Add the scallions and the sauce to the pan, and sauté for about two minutes, stirring until most of the liquid has been absorbed or evaporated
- Garnish with sesame seeds and sliced scallions when serving. I like to serve this with short grain rice, kimchi and steamed broccoli, or bok choy.
Notes
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Shane Nolan says
Loved this bulgogi recipe. The taste just explodes across the dish. We used the Seitan from Adam's class from earlier this year. Making the Seitan was much easier than expected and he guides you through the tricks as the master he is.
Pam says
This recipe was over the top. I fixed it for non-vegans and we all devoured it. No leftovers. As a side note, I made his recipe for vegan baklava for desert and it was a hit. My guests left with his recipe and leftovers. He takes vegan cooking to a different level