Korean Seaweed Soup or Miyeok Guk is an easy traditional soup that’s delicious and filled with lots of nutrients!
Seaweed soup is many things in a Korean household:
- A quick and easy soup that only needs 7 ingredients. Despite the few things you’ll need, it is very rich and nutritious. You can practically have it with any meal!
- A recovery soup for postpartum moms. Seaweed contains a lot of vitamins and minerals that nourish the body and help increase milk supply so moms who just gave birth typically drink this!
- It is traditionally served on birthdays. Since seaweed soup is a recovery food for moms who just gave birth, Koreans would typically have the soup as a way to honor their mothers for all the sacrifices they have been through.
Over time, the seaweed soup tradition has evolved to make it for your family and friends who are pregnant or are celebrating their birthdays. This is our way of showing that we care for each other.
When my wife was pregnant, our house was filled with all kinds of seaweed dishes and we’ve never felt more loved by the people surrounding us. Here, I’ll show you how to make it so you can express your love for your family and friends uniquely!
Korean Seaweed Soup Ingredients
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Dried Seaweed
Dried seaweed is a common pantry item that Koreans have at home because it’s very cheap but versatile. With just a small amount, you can turn it into a seaweed salad or chilled cucumber soup.
To prepare this, you only need about 20 grams of seaweed, soak it in water to hydrate, and it’ll be ready to use. It’s going to be long strands, so you need to chop them into bite-size pieces.
Beef
For the main protein of the soup, I like to use beef as it yields the richest flavor. You can use any cut of beef like ground, rib trimmings, or loins as long as you chop them into bite-size pieces.
Nevertheless, you can still also use other proteins such as seafood, and tofu, or completely leave it out. It will be just as good as long as you season it well.
Garlic, Sesame Oil, Soy Sauce, and Black Pepper
For this recipe, you will only need a few seasonings to make the soup taste great!
- Garlic is for the aroma.
- Sesame oil is what we’ll use to saute the beef, seaweed, and garlic so the nutty, toasty flavors coat each of them.
- Soup Soy Sauce is used because it is much more flavorful than regular soy sauce. You will only need a small amount so it enhances the taste without changing the color of the soup.
- Black Pepper is for contrast in flavor.
Rice Water
Rice water is the secret ingredient that most halmonis and ummas use in seaweed soup. The starch from it will lightly thicken the soup and at the same time give it that hint of sweetness that’s not overpowering.
To prepare the rice water, wash your rice two times, and on the third wash use the yielded rice water as soup stock.
TIP: To make the soup more flavorful, you can combine or simply use beef stock as your soup base.
Prepare all these ingredients and follow the recipe card for the instructions on how to make seaweed soup!
What to Serve with Seaweed Soup?
After getting the rice water, cook the rice as it goes perfectly with seaweed soup. This has been one of the staple dishes that my baby likes to have now that he can eat solid food.
To take it up a notch, pair seaweed soup with any fried rice like steak fried rice, galbi fried rice, kimchi fried rice, spicy ramen fried rice, or Korean BBQ!
What to do with leftover Miyeok Guk?
For any leftovers, you can simply store miyeok guk in the fridge and it can last for 5 days. You can also prolong shelf life by portioning it and freezing it so you can have seaweed soup anytime!
Other Korean soup dishes you might like:
- Dried Pollack Hangover Soup
- Soybean Sprout Soup
- Beef and Radish Soup
- Pepper Paste Stew
- Korean Rice Cake Soup
- Spicy Soft Tofu Stew
Make sure to leave a rating, a comment, or tag me on Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok when you chop them up! Yeobosayo!
Korean Seaweed Soup (Miyeok Guk)
Ingredients
- 20 grams Dried Seaweed
- 100 grams Beef Chopped to bite-size pieces
- 1 1/2 tbsp Sesame Oil
- 1 1/2 tbsp Minced Garlic
- 4 tbsp Soy Sauce for Soup
- Black Pepper
- 4 cups Rice Water
Instructions
- Soak dried seaweed in water for 10-15 minutes. Once bloomed, drain and chop it to bite size pieces.
- Prepare rice water by washing rice two times, and on the third wash, set aside the yielded water for the soup base.
- In a deep pot on high heat, sauté the beef in sesame oil.
- When the beef is 70% done, add the seaweed and garlic, then sauté it well.
- Season the seaweed with soy sauce and black pepper.
- Add the rice water and let it come to a boil.
- Taste and add more soy sauce as needed.
- Serve and enjoy!
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