Tteokguk Soup. It's a dish that Korean family eat on New Years! Here is a simple way to make it at home.
When I was growing up in the US, I spent New Year's Eve with friends - at a club or at a friend's house. Waiting for the coutndown - starting with a few beers, then a glass of wine and topping it off with champagne! However, it was an unwritten rule in my family that you had to be home, at the dining table by breakfast on New Year's Day. We had to eat Tteokguk as a family.
Spending New Years with your family is the norm in Korea. Conversely, Christmas is the time to spend with friends (or your girlfriend/boyfriend). A slight cultural difference.
Tteokguk soup is typically made with an anchovy-kelp stock. But today, we will make it with a vegetable stock (It taste just the same). This is for viewers who don't have dried anchovies in their local markets. Also, Tteokguk tastes similar to Korean dumpling soup. But now, we throw in the rice cakes. Soft, chewy and delicious!

Tteokguk Soup
Ingredients
Broth
- Shiitake Mushrooms - 3 Pyogo Mushrooms ok too
- Spring Onion - 1 stalk use white portion, forearm-length
- Dashima - 1 piece size of your hand
- Water - 5 cups
Tteokguk Ingredients
- Broth - 2.5 cups
- Korean rice cakes - 2 cups
- Spring onion - 1 stalk use green portion, forearm-length
- Egg - 1
- Soup soy sauce - 1 Tablespoon
- Dumplings - ½ cup optional
- Seaweed sheets - few optional, garnish
- Sesame oil - dab, garnish
- Sesame seeds - dab, garnish
Instructions
Make Broth
- Take out a large pot. Place spring onion, mushroom and dashima in. Then pour water in.
- Bring up to a boil. When it comes to boil, take out the dashima pieces.
- Reduce to a medium-heat, and let it cook for 10 minutes. Then sift out all of the vegetables. Set broth aside
Prep Ingredients
- Soak the Korean rice cakes in some water. Let it sit in there for 5 minutes. Then drain it and set aside.
- Chop spring onion into small pieces
- Crack egg into a bowl and whisk it up
- Chop seaweed sheets into thin strips.
Make Soup
- Pour 2.5 cups of the broth into a large pot.
- Add in soup soy sauce and give it a stir.
- Then add the Korean rice cakes and dumplings into the broth.
- Put it on a medium-high heat and bring it up to a boil. Once the soup comes to a boil, the rice cakes should float to the top - that means they are fully cooked
- Pour in the egg mix - in a circular motion. Use your chopstick to stir it around as you pour so that it doesn't clump up into one big egg.
- Add in the spring onions pieces.
- Turn off heat. Serve in bowl. Garnish with seaweed sheets, sesame oil and sesame seeds Enjoy!
Notes
- You can add some minced beef into this as well
- Save the leftover broth - that way you can remake the soup in less than 5 minutes!
- See video for more details
Mary says
Every single recipe here is DELISH!!! I have never been disappointed in any recipe you've shared.
After my Umma passed, there were many dishes I couldn't recreate. I tried other recipes and couldn't come close to my mother's dishes. I haven't had that issue with any of yours!!
Thank you so much!
Crystal says
Made this for my mom for New Years! Thanks for the delicious recipe! Cheers.