A healthy and simple Korean Soybean Paste Stew (Doenjang Jjigae) recipe with the addition of delicious poke salad (sallet). Learn how to make this delicious stew at home.
Soups/stews (jjigaes) are a Korean staple to have with meals all year long. A pot of stew in the center of the table at mealtime is almost always a must. A typical Korean meal usually consists of a stoup/stew, freshly steamed white rice, and a variety of banchan. Korean fermented soybean paste (doenjang) is considered to be one of the essential items to have on hand for cooking authentic Korean cuisine. If you don’t have any doenjang on hand, we highly recommend you purchase some to add to your pantry – here is a good one on Amazon. Doenjang is very versatile when it comes to cooking Korean cuisine.
Health Benefits of Doenjang
There are also some health benefits eating Korean fermented soybean paste (doenjang). If you want to read about some of the benefits, make sure to check out our other doenjang stew recipe post here.
Key Features and Tips
This recipe is different from most doenjang stew recipes out there. We are using poke salad (sallet) or pokeweed in this recipe. Typically, you’ll see a lot of recipes with spinach, zucchini, or seaweed as the green vegetable in the doenjang stew recipe. So, we’re giving you another delicious green vegetable option to add to the Korean household staple. If you do not have access to poke salad (pokeweed), then feel free to substitute it with spinach or even zucchini slices.
If you do not know how to properly harvest and prepare pokeweed prior to use in any recipe, then please do your own research on the topic first. There are a ton of resources and how-to’s online with a simple Google search. We have our own how to harvest and prepare pokeweed post here as well. It explains how we prepare pokeweed prior to using it in any recipe.
Ingredients Needed to Make This Recipe
- 1 cup poke salad stems (properly prepared/boiled – see our “how-to” post here, thinly sliced on the diagonal 1/2” long)
- 1 cup poke salad leaves (properly prepared/boiled – see our “how-to” post here, cut into bite-size pieces)
- 1 Tbsp Korean fermented soybean paste (doenjang)
- 3 cups water
- 4 large-sized dried anchovies
- 1 Tbsp Dasida beef powder soup stock
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 green onions, sliced thinly on diagonal
- 1 green/red hot pepper, thinly sliced (optional)
How to Make Korean Poke Salad (Sallet) Soybean Paste Stew (Doenjang Jjigae)
- In a pot, put in the water, anchovies, and doenjang and place on high heat and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, then remove the anchovies.
- Place poke salad leaves and stems in the stew. Cover the pot. Continue cooking for about 5 minutes on medium-high heat. Turn the heat down to low and continue cooking for another 5 minutes.
- Add Dasida beef powder soup stock and salt to the stew and mix well.
- Add the green onions and thinly sliced green or red peppers (optional) on top when ready to serve.
- Enjoy!
Serving Suggestions
We recommend serving this stew with our Asian-style Poke Salad (Sallet) Rice with Spicy Sauce recipe. If you have already pre-prepared a bunch of poke salad (sallet), consider using some of it to make our rice to accompany this Korean Poke Salad (Sallet) Soybean Paste Stew (Doenjang Jjigae). You can also serve this stew with plain steamed rice if you prefer.
We also recommend adding a variety of side dishes (banchan). Here are some Korean side dish recipes that would go great with this stew:
- Spicy Korean Angelica-Tree Shoot (Dureup) Side Dish
- Korean Marinated Wild Chives (Dallae-muchim)
- Korean Stir-fried Fish Cake (Bokum Odeng)
- Korean Spicy Poke Salad (Sallet) Side Dish (Muchim)
- Easy Asian Pan-Fried Zucchini
We hope you enjoy our Korean Poke Salad (Sallet) Soybean Paste Stew (Doenjang Jjigae) recipe!
HUNGRY FOR MORE? Subscribe to our newsletter and follow along on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram for all of the latest updates.
A healthy and simple Korean Soybean Paste Stew (Doenjang Jjigae) recipe with the addition of delicious poke salad (sallet). *If you do not know how to properly harvest and prepare pokeweed to remove the toxins prior to use in any recipe, then please do your own research on the topic first & use it at your own risk. There are a ton of resources and how-to's online with a simple Google search. We have our own how to harvest and prepare pokeweed post here as well. It explains how we prepare pokeweed prior to using it in any recipe. 
Korean Poke Salad (Sallet) Soybean Paste Stew (Doenjang Jjigae)
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
Disclaimer: Under no circumstances shall this website and the author(s) be responsible for any loss or damages resulting from the reliance of the given nutritional information or ingredient/product recommendations. Recommended ingredients/products can change their formula at any time without this website and author’s awareness. It is your responsibility (the reader’s) to check the label/ingredients of any product prior to purchasing and/or using. We greatly appreciate your support and understanding.