This Korean Meat Mix recipe is incredibly tasty and used as a filling for Wontons, Fried Wontons, Korean Dumplings, Korean Egg Rolls and as Meatballs for a wonderful Korean Sweet & Sour Meatball dish. It’s very easy to put together too, just combine all the ingredients and mix.

Korean Meat Mix Ingredients

Ground Meat (Either Ground Beef, 50-50 Ground Beef & Pork, or Ground Pork), Soy Sauce, Rice Vinegar, Mirin, & Gochujang Paste, Sea Salt, Garlic Powder, Ginger Powder, Green Onion.

How to make Korean Meat Mix

It’s really simple, just toss in all the Ingredients in a bowl. Adding the thawed, but still very cold, ground meat last to mix very well. From here you can portion it out for the desired dish, we got some ideas below.

If making meatballs and a more tender meatball is desired, add in 1/2 Tbl of Potato or Cornstarch.

Korean Meat Mix Uses

Once you have the meat mixed up, it can be used in a wide variety of places. Some delicious ideas are below;

• Hoisin Noodles with Korean Meatballs (1 tsp portions or bigger)
• Korean Sweet & Sour Meatballs with 1 Tbl Meatballs over Steamed Rice
• Korean Fried Wontons (1 tsp portions)
• Korean Wonton Soup (1 tsp portions)
• Korean Dumplings — Omit the Soy Sauce, Sake, Sea Salt used for the meat (still use the salt for the Napa), and White Pepper, but include everything else with this Korean Meat mix.
• Korean Egg Rolls — Same as the dumplings above with omitting the same ingredients and black pepper in the egg roll recipe too.

The whole meat mixture weighs about 548 g. Portioned out to 1 tsp which weighs 6g on avg, yields about 91 meatballs. While portioning out to 1 Tbl which weighs on avg 17g, yields about 32 meatballs.

Vegetable Fillers

With Dumpling or Egg Rolls, you need to fill the meat out with Vegetables (Napa, Cabbage, and Carrot) so that the meat doesn’t clump up, forming a nugget of meat inside. When used for Dumplings, Napa Cabbage and other vegetables are the filler and when used for Egg Rolls, Napa as well as shredded Cabbage and other vegetables are used as the filler.

Wontons, whether for Wonton Soup or Fried Wontons, are more meat forward. They don’t need any vegetables for a filler. The Korean meat can be used just as is, the same for Meatballs.

Hoisin Noodles with Korean Meatballs

Use 1 tsp portions for the meatballs and place them on a baking sheet to freeze, once all the meatballs are made up.

For Hoisin Noodle with Korean Meatballs: Heat a pan over medium heat for 1–2 minutes. Add meatballs in an even layer, cover, and cook for 2–3 minutes. Nudge them loose, then cover and shake the pan every minute for 2–3 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking for another 3–5 minutes, moving the meatballs around for even browning. A total cook time of about 8 minutes.

This way of cooking the pan meatballs will create extra flavor on the bottom of the pan. To which, you just continue with the Hoisin Noodles recipe and when the sauce hits, all that flavor from the meatballs will be incorporated.

Korean Sweet & Sour Meatballs with Rice

These are the Korean Beef mixture shaped into 1 Tbl Meatballs and frozen. Steamed or Fried Rice is prepared while the meatballs are cooked, before the Korean Sweet & Sour Sauce goes in to thicken. Serve the Meatballs on the side along with Fried Rice or over Steamed White Rice. It can include toasted Nori to consume with the meatballs. Just divide the Nori sheets into 4 equal parts, toast them with a bit of oil brushed on and serve. You can also place the meatballs on the nori sheets as an appetizer tray.

Stove Top Korean Sweet & Sour Meatballs: Heat a pan over medium heat for 1–2 minutes. Add meatballs in an even layer, cover, and cook for 3 minutes. Nudge them loose, then cover and shake the pan every minute for 5 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking for another 4–5 minutes, moving the meatballs around for even browning and to evaporate any excess liquids. The fat can stay in the pan. A total cook time of about 12–13 minutes.

Korean Fried Wontons

Once the Korean Beef mixture is made up, use a whole package of Wonton Wrappers with 2 stacks, using 1 tsp per wonton for Korean Fried Wontons. Deep Fry at 350 F for about 4–5 minutes, or until golden and crispy. Serve them on the side with a dipping sauce. These are also excellent to use for Wonton Soup. While the below is a Sweet & Sour Sauce, the Korean Sweet & Sour Sauce is also an exceptional choice as a dipping sauce.

Korean Wonton Soup

The Korean Beef can also be used to make Wontons for Wontons Soup using 1 tsp portions. Since you are making wontons for the soup, set aside some wontons to deep-fry and serve the fried wontons on top of the soup or on the side for an added crunch when enjoying a Korean Wonton Soup.

Korean Egg Rolls

The Korean Meat Mix can be used to make Korean Egg Rolls, just the same as Chinese Egg Rolls. With omitting the Soy Sauce, Sake, Sea Salt & Black Pepper, White Pepper, used in the Chinese Egg Rolls. Since the Korean Meat Mix already contains the flavoring for the meat.

Korean Dumplings

You can pick up Dumpling Wrappers, but in my opinion, making the homemade wrappers are just way better for this, and they’re thicker too. Which helps the dumpling to hold up to the frying and steaming, yielding a good mouthful of dumplings.

Make them the same way as Gyoza Dumpling but omit the following; Ginger, Soy Sauce, Sake, Salt (because this is already in the Korean Beef Mixture), and White Pepper (because we have the heat coming from the Gochujang). Salt the Napa cabbage the same way, and everything else is the same. You need the vegetables added, so the filling stays loose. Too much meat and you’ll end up with a nugget of meat inside that just slides right out, same with the Egg rolls.

The below is Korean Dumplings with Korean Cucumbers and a side bowl of Miso Soup and Chinese Dipping sauce with Korean Chili Flakes (Gochugaru) added.