Korean Beef Bowls

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These Korean Beef Bowls are easy to make with ground beef in a flavorful sauce to serve with rice or in a lettuce wrap!

Prep Time10

Cook Time15

Total Time25

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American, Asian

Servings: people

Calories: 413kcal

Author: Stephanie

Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef
salt/pepper
3 cloves garlic minced
1 small yellow onion finely diced

Sauce

1 cup beef broth
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon hot sauce
½ teaspoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon ground ginger

Garnishes

Green onions
Toasted sesame seeds
Red Pepper Flakes

For Serving

Thinly sliced cucumbers
Julienned carrots
3 cups cooked rice see notes for my cooking method

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Combine the beef broth with the cornstarch and mix until well combined. Make sure the broth is not warm/hot so that you don’t activate the cornstarch. Mix in the remaining sauce ingredients and store in a cool place until ready to use.
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the ground beef. Cook and crumble for 3 minutes, then add the onions and garlic. Sauté until the beef is cooked through, 5-6 minutes. Drain any grease.
Add the sauce and bring it to a boil. Let it continue to boil, thicken, and reduce for 3 minutes, or until desired consistency is obtained. Stir periodically as it cooks. There will be a lot of sauce at first, but it will continue to reduce and thicken.
Remove from heat. Garnish with onions, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes. Serve over rice, cauliflower rice, or in lettuce wraps! (See notes for my method for making perfectly cooked rice.)

Notes

Pro Tips:

Hot Sauce- If you are very heat sensitive, you can leave out the hot sauce, but I don't detect the hot sauce in the finished product. I use Frank's Hot Sauce.
Ground Pork, Chicken, or Turkey may also be used in this recipe.
Broccoli makes a great addition to this meal, I like to sauté it for 4-5 minutes in the skillet with some olive oil at the beginning and set it aside, then add it to the sauce at the end.
Other ingredient additions include water chestnuts, celery, kale, spinach, and more.
Other topping options include roughly chopped peanuts, cashews, sliced almonds, and crunchy chow mein noodles.
To Control the Sodium in this recipe, consider using low sodium soy sauce and/or reduced sodium broth. Some soy sauce brands contain more salt than others.

Storage:

Store in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months. (Leftovers do freeze well!)

My Process for Perfectly Cooked Rice:

Add 2 cups of chicken broth to a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Add 1 cup of white long grain rice and submerge it into liquid. Bring back to a boil and cover the pot. Reduce heat to a gentle simmer (I put my heat on medium-low), and let it steam for 15 minutes. Check on it, if the liquid is gone and the rice is cooked, turn heat off. If not, simmer 5 more minutes, or until cooked through.
Optional: Remove it from the heat and let it sit with the lid on for 10 minutes. This makes the rice extra fluffy, and allows any rice stuck to the bottom of the pot to release naturally. Refrain from stirring as this will release starch and make it sticky.

The nutritional information provided is an estimate and is per serving. There are 4 servings in this recipe, 3 cups of cooked white rice is included.

Nutrition