Soybean Sprout JjolMyeon

Every now and then, I start to feel that the weather is getting warmer and warmer. Before too long, we will be in summer without enjoying the spring enough. We Koreans love to eat cold noodles in the summer. I’m ready for something cold and tasty too. So, today, I will share a variation of the Korean cold chewy noodle dish, JjolMyeon using soybean sprouts. It is called KongNaMul JjolMyeon. The chewy texture from the noodles goes very well with the crunchy texture of the soybean sprouts, and the spicy, sweet and sour sauce makes this dish even more special. I will share some of my special tips and secret ingredients for tasty jjolmyeon in this post, so please check them out too.:)

Yield: 2 Servings

Short Korean Lesson

YeonEo (연어) = Salmon
HyeonMi (현미) = Brown Rice

Video Instructions

Main Ingredients:

1 Pack Soybean Sprouts (12 oz) (6 Cups Water, 1 tsp Salt)
12 oz Chewy Noodles (a.k.a. JjolMyeon)
Some Black Sesame Seeds (Garnish)
Some Baby Sprouts (Garnish)

Sauce Ingredients:

¼ Cup Hot Pepper Paste
¼ Cup Grated Sweet Apple
1 Tbsp Hot Peppper Powder
1 Tbsp Sugar
½ Tbsp Soy Sauce
½ Tbsp Garlic, Minced
½ Tbsp Sesame Seeds
1 tsp Vinegar
1 tsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp Sesame Oil
⅛ Generous tsp Salt

Directions

Get 1 pack (12 oz) of soybean sprouts. Wash them good and remove any bad parts.

Put the soybean sprouts in a pot along with 6 cups of water and 1 tsp of salt.

Cook it covered for about 12 minutes on high. If you uncover it while it’s boiling, it will start to get an unpleasant flavor.

(To make the delicious sauce, we need these seasoning ingredients. Here, I have 2 secret ingredients for my jjolmyeon sauce: apple and lemon.) Peel the apple and grate it to get about ¼ cup. Squeeze the lemon to get 1 tsp of juice.

Add all the ingredients for the sauce in a small mixing bowl: ¼ cup hot pepper paste, ¼ cup grated apple, 1 Tbsp hot pepper powder, 1 Tbsp sugar, ½ Tbsp soy sauce, ½ Tbsp minced garlic, ½ Tbsp sesame seeds, 1 tsp vinegar, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp sesame oil, and generous tsp salt.

Mix everything together. You can make it ahead of time and chill it in the refrigerator to use later.

After 12 minutes, take out the cooked sprouts.

And then immediately put them in ice cold water. This will help them remain crunchy. Set them aside while cooking the noodles.

(This is Korean chewy noodles. I got a pack with pre-made sauce in it to show you an easy option for this dish, but normally I buy these noodles without the sauce since I prefer homemade sauce. Anyway, this pack has these spicy and sweet sauce packs which I’m not going to use today. One chunks will be about 1 serving. I will use 2 of them today.)

Put the chewy noodles in boiling water and cook them for about 3 minutes on high. You can also follow whatever instructions are on the package of noodles you got.

After 3 minutes, drain out the hot boiling water and wash the noodles in cold water several times to remove most of the starch.

Drain out the cold water.

And then, remove the soybean sprouts from the cold water.

In a large mixing bowl, add the cooked noodles, soybean sprouts, and sauce.

Mix everything together. I wiped away all the remaining sauce on the bowl with my noodles like this. lol It looks and smells great.

Put some of the jjolmyeon on a plate or serving bowl and garnish the noodles with some black sesame seeds and any kinds of sprouts. The garnishes are optional, so you can use whatever you want like normal sesame seeds, garlic chives, green onions, greet peppers, cucumber, perilla leaves, etc.