🥓 Samgyeopsal
Samgyeopsal is thick-sliced pork belly grilled at the table until the fat turns crisp and golden. Diners wrap pieces in lettuce leaves with grilled garlic, kimchi and a dab of ssamjang, a savoury soybean-chilli paste. The result is rich, smoky and fresh at the same time, and the meal is a sociable affair shared around the grill.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 600 g pork belly, sliced 5–8 mm thick
- 1 head of lettuce, leaves separated
- 8 garlic cloves, sliced
- 4 tbsp ssamjang (soybean and chilli paste)
- 200 g kimchi
- Salt and black pepper
Method
- Heat a grill pan or tabletop grill until very hot.
- Grill the pork slices without oil until golden and crisp on both sides, then cut into bite-size pieces with scissors.
- Grill the garlic and kimchi in the rendered fat alongside the meat.
- Wrap a piece of pork in a lettuce leaf with a little ssamjang, garlic and kimchi and eat in one bite.
How to make it lighter
- Grill until the fat renders out and drain it away instead of cooking the kimchi in it.
- Eat more lettuce wraps per slice of meat — a 150 g portion of pork goes a long way when wrapped.
- Go easy on the ssamjang: 1 tsp per wrap is plenty of flavour.
History
Samgyeopsal, literally “three-layer flesh” after the stripes of fat and meat in pork belly, became a mass favourite in South Korea in the late 20th century. Grilling it at the table is now a fixture of Korean barbecue restaurants and after-work gatherings.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →