What Do Koreans Eat in Winter?
- Numaru Prague
- 16. 1.
- Minut čtení: 3
Korean winters are cold, dry, and unforgiving, the kind that seeps into your bones. Food becomes medicine, ritual, and social glue all at once. Winter eating in Korea leans heavily on warmth: bubbling broths, fermented depth, and dishes that cook slowly at the table while everyone huddles close.
Here are the dishes Koreans turn to when the temperature drops, and what makes them essential.
Winter Street Snacks
Korean winter streets come alive with vendors selling snacks that do one thing well: warm you up fast.
Hotteok are sweet pancakes filled with brown sugar syrup, cinnamon, and crushed nuts. They're crispy on the outside, molten inside, and best eaten immediately, burning your tongue slightly because you couldn't wait.
Bungeoppang are fish-shaped pastries filled with sweet red bean paste, pressed in iron molds until golden. The name literally means "carp bread," and they've been a winter staple since the Japanese colonial period.
Roasted sweet potatoes (goguma) and chestnuts (bam) are sold from metal drum roasters that send smoke curling into the cold air. The sweet potatoes come out caramelized and steaming. Chestnuts are peeled by hand while they're still hot. Both are the kind of snack you eat while walking, letting the warmth seep into your fingers before each bite.
Odeng / Eomuk (Fish Cake Soup)
Walk through any Korean neighborhood in winter and you'll find street vendors selling fish cake skewers in steaming broth. Eomuk is unpretentious: cheap, accessible, and usually eaten standing
up in the cold. People sip the broth from paper cups, holding the heat in their hands while working through the skewers. It's small, but for many Koreans, it's one of the most vivid winter memories they have.
At Numaru, you can enjoy Eomuk Udon set which is a comforting Korean winter dish made with chewy udon noodles in a light, savory broth, topped with fish cakes (eomuk).
Budae Jjigae (Army Base Stew)
Budae jjigae emerged after the Korean War, born from necessity and surplus American rations: kimchi, gochujang, ramen noodles, tofu, spam, and sausages all thrown into one pot. The result? Rich, salty, spicy, and absurdly filling. The kind of meal you want when it's freezing and you need something that stays with you. In winter, it becomes the centerpiece of long nights with friends, half food and half excuse to sit together.
Tteokguk (Rice Cake Soup)
Tteokguk is made of clear beef broth, soft rice cakes, a scatter of egg and scallions. It's deceptively simple, but carries a lot of meaning. It’s the staple Lunar New Year dish, and eating it marks the turning of a new year, literally aging you one year in the traditional system.
