A few weeks ago, I became an aunt! My sister and brother-in-laws are new parents to a beautiful baby girl. My husband went up to visit them recently, so I sent him up with some frozen food options to stock their freezer, including some of these Mandu Korean Dumplings.
I thought dumplings would be a perfect freezer friendly meal that also doesn’t add much to the cook time. You can cook mandu straight from the freezer, no need to thaw!
This version has a mixture of ground beef, pork, and vegetables, but the recipe can easily be adapted to fit whatever you have on hand, or have a craving for.
I’m seriously loving using my pressure cooker! My husband was out of town while I was experimenting with this recipe, so I enlisted the help of a couple of friends to be my taste testers. Luckily they were willing to oblige!
The unsuspecting friends showed up without knowing what exactly I was planning on preparing – they are very trusting! 🙂
I had a craving for bulgogi recently, so I decided to make a pressure cooker Korean beef. Bulgogi is typically made with thin, marinated slices of beef that are then barbecued. The marinade is usually a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, ginger, and garlic with a touch of crushed red pepper.
This recipe is inspired by the flavors of bulgogi, but instead of grilling thinly sliced beef, it instead uses chuck roast beef and a pressure cooker to make a super tender, shredded version.
Ingredients (serves 8):
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more if needed
4 lbs chuck beef, cut into cubes, excess fat trimmed
1 small onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 to 2 tablespoons beef stock
1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup reduced sodium soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make gluten free)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
green onions, sliced, for garnish
white sesame seeds, for garnish
4 cups cooked rice
To make, cut the beef into large chunks. Season with salt and pepper. (Go light on the salt, the soy sauce will provide all the salt you need!)
Press the “saute” function on your pressure cooker. Press the “cook time” button and increase the time to 25 or 30 minutes (it took me about 25 minutes to brown up all of my meat.) Press the “adjust” button and choose “more/high.” Press “on/start.” The pressure cooker will beep five times when it is preheated.
Carefully add the vegetable, oil and then add some meat to the pressure cooker (without crowding the beef).
Brown the meat on all sides. Remove from the pressure cooker and continue with the remaining beef.
When done browning the last batch, remove the final pieces and set aside. Press “stop/cancel” to turn off the saute function.
If needed, add a bit more vegetable oil. Add the onions and garlic to the pot and saute until fragrant, about 3 minutes.
Add a little bit of beef stock (1 or 2 tablespoons) to the pressure cooker and scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pressure cooker using a wooden or plastic spoon.
In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, soy sauce (or coconut aminos), sesame oil, red pepper flakes, and ginger.
Add back in all of the beef to the pressure cooker, as well as any juices from the beef.
Pour in the soy sauce mixture, evenly covering the beef.
Close the lid, ensuring that the steam valve is closed. Select the meat/stew pressurized cooking function. Press the “adjust” button and choose “more/high” to set it for 45 minutes. Press “on/start” to begin cooking.
Once the unit has reached optimal cooking pressure (~15 minutes), the unit will beep once and start counting down from 45 minutes. You’ll notice that the pressure release valve (red) rises up during this time.
The pressure cooker will beep 3 times to alert you when cooking has finished. It will automatically go on to “keep warm” mode for up to 6 hours. Once cooking is complete, turn off the pressure cooker by pressing “stop/cancel” and unplugging the power cable.
Let the unit cool down for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the float valve drops down. Using an oven mitt, move the pressure release value to the “release” position to let out any remaining pressure in the unit. Wait again for the float value to drop down before opening the pressure cooker.
The meat should be really tender.
Remove the meat from the pot, keeping the liquid in the pot, and shred with two forks. Add to a large bowl.
Measure out about 1 cup of the cooking liquid and add to the bowl.
Fill bowls with rice and top with the shredded beef. Garnish with sesame seeds and green onions and serve.
The beef is wonderfully flavorful and juicy. My friends and I just gobbled this up! It’s most certainly not spicy so if you prefer some heat, add a bit more crushed red pepper.
This is a great make ahead dish as well. If doing so, add some more of the cooking liquid to the container before refrigerating, so that when you reheat it, there is still plenty of juicy liquid to drizzle over the top!
I also made the rice in the Cosori Multicooker and it came out great! (Tip: if you have extra cooking liquid, substitute some of that in for the water/broth in your rice.)
If you’re looking for more information about the Cosori Multicooker, check out my review post here (plus a recipe for Barbacoa Beef Tacos).
4 lbs chuck beef, cut into cubes, excess fat trimmed
1 small onion, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 to 2 tablespoons beef stock
1/2 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 cup reduced sodium soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make gluten free)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
green onions, sliced, for garnish
white sesame seeds, for garnish
4 cups cooked rice
Instructions
To make, cut the beef into large chunks. Season with salt and pepper. (Go light on the salt, the soy sauce will provide all the salt you need!)
Press the “saute” function on your pressure cooker. Press the “cook time” button and increase the time to 25 or 30 minutes (it took me about 25 minutes to brown up all of my meat.) Press the “adjust” button and choose “more/high.” Press “on/start.” The pressure cooker will beep five times when it is preheated.
Carefully add the vegetable, oil and then add some meat to the pressure cooker (without crowding the beef).
Brown the meat on all sides. Remove from the pressure cooker and continue with the remaining beef.
When done browning the last batch, remove the final pieces and set aside. Press “stop/cancel” to turn off the saute function.
If needed, add a bit more vegetable oil. Add the onions and garlic to the pot and saute until fragrant, about 3 minutes.
Add a little bit of beef stock (1 or 2 tablespoons) to the pressure cooker and scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pressure cooker using a wooden or plastic spoon.
In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, soy sauce (or coconut aminos), sesame oil, red pepper flakes, and ginger.
Add back in all of the beef to the pressure cooker, as well as any juices from the beef.
Pour in the soy sauce mixture, evenly covering the beef.
Close the lid, ensuring that the steam valve is closed. Select the meat/stew pressurized cooking function. Press the “adjust” button and choose “more/high” to set it for 45 minutes. Press “on/start” to begin cooking.
Once the unit has reached optimal cooking pressure (~15 minutes), the unit will beep once and start counting down from 45 minutes. You’ll notice that the pressure release valve (red) rises up during this time.
The pressure cooker will beep 3 times to alert you when cooking has finished. It will automatically go on to “keep warm” mode for up to 6 hours. Once cooking is complete, turn off the pressure cooker by pressing “stop/cancel” and unplugging the power cable.
Let the unit cool down for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the float valve drops down. Using an oven mitt, move the pressure release value to the “release” position to let out any remaining pressure in the unit. Wait again for the float value to drop down before opening the pressure cooker.
The meat should be really tender.
Remove the meat from the pot, keeping the liquid in the pot, and shred with two forks. Add to a large bowl.
Measure out about 1 cup of the cooking liquid and add to the bowl.
Fill bowls with rice and top with the shredded beef. Garnish with sesame seeds and green onions and serve.
This post brought to you by Campbell’s Dinner Sauces. Weekend-worthy dinners with only weekday-level effort needed! Learn more at https://www.campbellsauces.com/
This year, my boyfriend and I are hosting a New Year’s Eve party. With a quite a few friends coming from out of town, I need a recipe that is simple to make but can feed a crowd. I also need something that doesn’t dirty up every pot and pan I own right before the party starts, which means I’m whipping out my trusty slow cooker!
Campbell’s has made this process even easier for me with their new Slow Cooker Sauces. I actually mentioned in a previous post how I wanted to try the Sweet Korean BBQ sauce, so here’s my opportunity! I made a test batch this week to see how it tastes.
As a member of the DailyBuzz Brand Ambassador Program, I once again get to work with Campbell’s to try out another one of their delicious sounding sauces. The sauces are currently available in supermarkets, typically in the Gravy or Boxed Dinner Kit aisles. (To learn more about the sauces, check out their interactive Facebook app that gives more information about both the Skillet and the Slow Cooker Sauces.)
Because the sauce is already prepared, getting everything into the slow cooker is a cinch. To stretch the beef a little further, I made these into tacos served with red cabbage, sriracha sour cream, and red bell peppers.
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 bunch green onions (scallions), divided
1 small yellow onion, chopped
3-4 lbs boneless chunk roast
1 package of Campbell’s Sweet Korean BBQ Slow Cooker Sauce
1 (8 oz) container sour cream
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon sriracha (depending on your spice tolerance)
Tacos are one of my go-to’s for a quick weeknight meal. However, there’s only so many nights you can make traditional tacos before you start craving some new flavors. Cooking Light’s Korean-Style Beef Tacos sounded like the best of both worlds: a quick meal with new spices. I ended up changing the method of cooking, but the ingredients remained the same. Cooking Light suggested topping the tacos with a Quick Pickled Cabbage as well, so I’ve included that below. This recipe does require you to marinate the beef for an hour, so plan accordingly. To make it a quick meal, you could also just marinate the meat overnight.
Ingredients for the tacos:
1/3 cup sugar
5 tablespoons lower-sodium soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons chile paste (such as sambal oelek)
the juice of 2 limes
1 tablespoon dark sesame oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
12 ounces flank steak, sliced against the grain into thin strips
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