The best way to ensure wealth and prosperity in the New Year is to eat a bowl of tteok mandu guk, aka dduk mandoo gook, 떡 만두 국 or Korean Rice Cake and Dumpling Soup on New Year's Day! This rich, brothy soup is a traditional New Year's dish, but it's also a cozy classic you can eat year round when you're craving those chewy little rice cakes and chubby dumplings. Shall we?
Jump to:
- What is Tteok Mandu Guk?
- Ingredients You Need for Dduk Mandoo Gook
- What Kind of Tteok for Soup?
- What Kind of Dumplings for Soup?
- What Kind of Broth Do You Use for Tteok Mandu Guk?
- Instructions for How to Make Tteok Mandu Guk
- Pro Tips and Techniques for Tteok Mandu Guk
- Best Traditional New Year Recipes
- Dduk Mandoo Guk | Korean Rice Cake and Dumpling Soup Recipe
What is Tteok Mandu Guk?
Tteok Mandu Guk, sometimes spelled dduk mandoo gook, is a classic Korean soup with a rich, soy-seasoned broth as the soup base and Korean rice cakes known as tteok and dumplings known as mandu as the main ingredients.
Originally, the version with only rice cakes, tteokguk, was a meal eaten on the morning of seollal 설날, the Korean celebration of the Lunar New Year. These days Koreans also have tteokguk on Western New Year’s day, January 1st, too. The tradition is likely based on ancient religious symbolism that the when the old year passes, all things in heaven and earth are reborn and should be clean and white. The white color of the tteok and the clear soup base represents "brightness" or "purity." Tteok for this soup are flat, oval discs that look like coins, so they symbolize a wish for upcoming wealth and prosperity for anyone who eats them.
Tteok Mandu Guk amps the original version of the soup by adding dumplings.
What's in the Bowl
There is no hard and fast rule for the kind of broth used as the base for tteok mandu guk. Historically, cooks made the broth from pheasant. Eventually, chicken replaced the pheasant, and today, you can simmer beef, chicken, fish, and even pork to make the broth base.
The stars of the tteok mandu guk are, of course, the chewy rice cakes called tteok and the savory dumplings called mandu. Tteok is a general term for a lot of different kinds of dumplings made from rice flour, but the kind used in this soup are the flat, oval shaped tteok.
Each bowl of tteok mandu guk gets colorful garnishes, which vary by region and personal taste. Scallions, eggs, and gim 김 Korean seaweed are traditional garnishes, but basically anything else for modern diaspora versions, everything from julienned red Fresno chiles to pickled carrots to roasted shiitake mushrooms depending on the broth base and whatever you happen to find at the market.
What is the Difference Between "Tteok Mandu Guk" and "Dduk Mandoo Guk?"
Tteok Mandu Guk and Dduk Mandoo Gook are different English spellings of the same Korean word 떡 만두 국.
Personally, I prefer "dduk mandoo gook" because that spelling reads more like the way word sounds out loud to me, but for some reason everyone now uses "tteok mandu guk," which if you don't already know how the word sounds out loud, is not that intuitive to sound out.
But if Costco calls it tteok mandu guk and sells it, then I'm ok with that.
How to Pronounce "Tteok Mandu Guk"
Don't think too hard by looking at the English letters, especially the "tt" or the "dd." In either case, it should sound like your tongue is stuck between saying "d" and "t."
Personally, I think "dduk mandoo gook" is a better translation of the Korean characters, because it literally sounds like "duck mon-doo gook." But if you pronounce "tteokguk" the way you read it, it might come out as "tee-ock guck" and guess what, it's good enough that we know what you're trying to say.
By the way, I used to be super self-conscious about pronouncing ANY non-English word Spanish Korean and otherwise and that held me back a lot from learning about cultural cuisines. How stupid was that. Now I go around and do my best, learn, do my next best and keep learning. You should too.
Ingredients You Need for Dduk Mandoo Gook
For Tteok Mandu Guk
- Tteok or dduk, flat oval rice cakes
- Mandoo, these days you can buy ANY kind frozen, but if you can go the distance, make your own!
- Beef, chicken other protein, or leave meat out
- Broth
- Korean soup soy sauce called "guk gan jang"
- Garlic is it even a Korean recipe if it doesn't have tons of garlic?
To garnish bowls:
- Green onions
- Eggs to make "jidan" 지단, a thin egg omelet sliced into long strips as garnish
- Nori seaweed, called "gim" 김 in Korean, for garnish
Additional garnishes you can include to make the soup more colorful are julienned red pepper or Korean dried chile pepper threads.
What is Tteok/Dduk and What Kind Should I Use for Tteok Mandu Guk
What is Tteok/Dduk?
The word “tteok" or "dduk” is generally translated to English as "rice cakes," but these aren’t what we know as styrofoam Quaker rice cakes for dieters. Tteok are more like dumplings or pasta, made from rice flour, and are similar to Japanese mochi.
There is a huge variety of tteok, made from different kinds of rice flours, different shapes, colors, flavored with other ingredients, and even formed into filled or stuffed dumplings. Some tteok are sweet, some are savory.
What Kind of Tteok for Soup?
The tteok used for this tteokguk is called garaetteok, which are made from regular, short grain rice flour and shaped like long, super thick noodles. The garaetteok gets sliced on the bias into flat ovals, as pictured in the spoon above! The flat oval shape is symbolic for the new year because the tteok looks like bright shiny coins, representing wealth and prosperity.
You can buy garaetteok and slice it yourself, or just buy it already sliced. Korean markets sell tteok for tteokguk fresh in the refrigerator and frozen.
What Kind of Dumplings for Soup?
What Kind of Broth Do You Use for Tteok Mandu Guk?
Every family has their own way of making tteok mandu guk. Most people make it with either rich beef stock or light anchovy stock. Here are the options:
- Anchovy Stock, made with only dried anchovies, super clean color and flavor, or Anchovy Kelp Stock with kelp/kombu
- Beef Broth, super rich, and if you really want some health benefits, use beef bone broth
- Chicken Broth
- Mushroom Broth or rich Vegetable Broth for vegetarian Dduk Guk
You can make any of the broths or stocks from scratch! However, if you are at the Korean or Asian grocery store buying tteok and mandu, you can also pick up dried or prepared stocks! There are entire grocery aisles dedicated to broths, stocks, and other ingredients for making soup.
For our family, tteok mandu guk has a rich chicken broth base that thickens slightly with the addition of the rice cakes. When I make tteok mandu guk, I use my ultra nourishing homemade chicken bone broth.
What is Guk Gan Jang aka Korean "Soup Soy Sauce?"
A whole separate soy sauce just for soups? Yes, guk gan jang!
Korean soup soy sauce 국간장, in English "guk gan jang" translates literally to "soup soy sauce." It is a type of soy based-sauce, though guk gan jang is made differently from regular soy sauce and thus tastes different. It is lighter in color, with a deeper umami. You will find guk gan jang in the same aisle as soy sauce, just look for "soup soy sauce" or "soy sauce for soup" as in the photo above, and read the ingredients to make sure there's no added grains or sugars. Amazon also sells different guk gan jangs. This one online is a great brand, made from non-gmo soybeans and has no added ingredients. The one I have is from HMart.
Additional Ingredients Notes and Resources
- Garlic. The real ones know that if you go to a large Korean grocery store, you can find jars of fairly recently pressed fresh garlic, which is a huge timesaver if you use a lot of garlic regularly. Otherwise, mice fresh garlic yourself.
- Nori. I use plain Korean seaweed, gim, lightly toast it in a pan, then cut into super thin strips. You can also just open one the small plastic packages of pre-toasted and salted squares and just crush them up with your hands into each bowl.
- All other fresh herbs and produce from either the Santa Monica Farmers' Market on Wednesday, or Whole Foods Market when I can't find what I need at the farmers' market.
Instructions for How to Make Tteok Mandu Guk
Tteok Mandu Guk is fairly straight-forward to make. The one key is timing the addition of the tteok and mandu to the broth just before serving so that the tteok doesn't break down too much in the soup!
Soak Tteok and Prep Egg Garnish
Soak Tteok: Soak tteok in cold water for at least 20 minutes, or until soft. If the tteok are frozen, it may take up to an hour.
Make Egg Garnish while rice cakes soak: Lightly beat egg yolks until no streaks are visible.
Heat neutral cooking oil in non-stick pan over medium heat. Pour beaten egg yolk into pan and swirl pan to spread out egg to the edges.
Cook egg until bottom is done and edges are starting to set, but not browned, about 1 minute. Turn off heat, flip egg to set the top side. Remove egg omelet to cutting board and slice into thin strips. Set aside.
Make Tteok Mandu Guk Soup
Make Soup Broth Base: Heat broth in large soup pot. This version is a homemade bone broth, which has a ton of minerals and nutrients—new year, might as well make it healthy!
Season Soup Broth Base: Add garlic, soy sauce, and salt/pepper to taste, and let simmer for about 10 minutes to flavor the broth.
Add Tteok and Mandu: Add tteok and mandu to broth. Bring to boil, then turn down heat and simmer until tteok and mandu float to top and are soft and fully cooked through, about 10 minutes.
Add Egg Whites: Lightly beat egg whites.
Stir egg whites slowly into simmering soup to create wisps.
Assemble Bowls: Ladle tteok mandu guk into individual serving bowls. Garnish with sliced egg garnish, sliced scallions, seaweed, and toasted sesame seeds.
Pro-tip #1: Garnish the bowls LITERALLY just before serving so the gim/nori/seaweed doesn't get totally soggy. It will anyway, but do your best!
Pro-tip #2: You can prepare each of the individual components of tteokguk in advance, and then just boil the tteok in the soup right before serving.
Ingredient Options and Substitutions
Here are a few suggested substitutions for the broth base as well as some of the slightly harder-to-find ingredients like Korean soup soy sauce.
Broth Substitution for Tteok Mandu Guk. Personal taste preference will win out every time here, so I use homemade chicken bone broth for the potential health benefits like minerals, collagen, and protein.
Korean Soup Soy Sauce. This is a fairly specific ingredient that's used as a salt seasoning. It has a unique flavor, which is similar to regular soy sauce, but lighter in both flavor intensity and color. If you plan to make a few Korean recipes, it's worth seeking out a bottle. However, if you can't find it, substitute with half the regular soy sauce or tamari, and season to taste with sea salt at the end. Fish sauce is also a 1:1 substitute, but will impart an anchovy umami with a different flavor.
Dietary Substitutions
Vegetarian Tteok Mandu Guk. To make this Tteok Manduuk vegetarian, use a rich vegetable or mushroom broth as the soup base and vegetable filled mandu—highly recommend kimchi and tofu filling!
Vegan Tteok Mandu Guk. To make a 100%-plant-based version of tteok mandu guk suitable for vegans, use a rich vegetable or mushroom broth as the soup base, vegetable mandu, and use a plant-based egg substitute to make the garnish, or leave the egg out completely.
Pro Tips and Techniques for Tteok Mandu Guk
- Use nutrient-dense, collagen rich bone broth. One of the key tenets of new year food is that it brings good health in the new year! Though tteok mandu guk primarily symbolizes wealth and prosperity, why not make it something healthy as well? Use a rich bone broth that has lots of minerals and collagen.
- Prep garnishes in advance. If you're serving a lot of people on New Year's Day, prepare the garnishes a day in advance so they're all ready to go right before serving. Make the egg omelet and slice scallions and store in air-tight containers in the refrigerator. You can julienne the seaweed and store in an air-tight container or a ziploc bag with the air squeezed out.
- Cook only as many tteok as you can eat at once. Tteok breaks down in the broth much faster than say, pasta or ramen noodles in soup, so only cook as many as you will eat in one sitting.
- Keep broth hot on the stove after assembling bowls, so if you need more servings later, you can just add a few more slices of tteok to the broth and simmer for a few minutes.
Tools and Equipment
As I always say, you don't need any special equipment to make almost any recipe. However, that's not to say there are a couple of gadgets and tools that might make it a LOT easier to get Tteok Mandu Guk from your pantry to plate.
- Korean soup bowls with lids, stainless steel
- Metal chopsticks and soup spoons, oversize like Korean-style!
- Perfect ceramic soup bowls
- Large 4- or 6-quart soup pot, my favorite with a heavy bottom
- Enamel Dutch oven, if you haven't already made the investment in Le Creuset, now's a good time!
- Stainless steel pan, for frying egg garnish
- Stainless steel spatula, technically "for fish," but my fav for eggs too
- Glass mixing bowls
- Mini whisk
- Glass storage container with airtight lids, perfect size for storing Bibimbap Sauce, and even transferring your gochujang out of the plastic container from the store into glass!
Advance Prep, Leftovers, and Storage
The broth base for Tteok Mandu Guk can be cooked in advance. The individual garnishes can be prepped 1 day in advance and kept in air-tight containers in the refrigerator.
Once the tteok and mandu have been simmered in the broth, leftovers do not store well. So cook only as much tteok as you can eat.
What Else to Serve with Tteok Mandu Guk
A generous bowl of tteok mandu guk adorned with all the colorful garnishes is meant to be an entire meal itself! A Korean table almost always has kimchi to go with the meal, but you can serve a few other banchan (side dishes) like:
- Oi Muchim, Korean Spicy Cucumbers
- Korean Sesame Spinach, Shi-geum-chi namul
- Spicy Cucumber Salad, Din Tai Fung dim sum dupe
- Spicy Korean Carrot Salad
- Spicy Cucumber Avocado Salad with Chili Garlic Vinaigrette
Best Traditional New Year Recipes
These are the best celebratory dishes to serve on New Year and Lunar New Year:
Dduk Mandoo Guk | Korean Rice Cake and Dumpling Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 16 ounce package tteok oval slices
- 8 cups rich broth or stock any kind: anchovy, chicken, beef, or vegetable
- 10 cloves garlic finely minced
- 2 tablespoons Korean soup soy sauce
- 20-28 mandoo, Korean dumplings about 5-7 dumplings per serving depending on size
- 4 eggs yolks and white separated
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil for cooking egg yolks
- 2-3 scallions sliced on the bias
- toasted nori julienned/crumbled for garnish, or furikake
- optional garnish: sesame oil, red pepper, toasted sesame seeds, spicy chili oil
Instructions
- Soak tteok in cold water for at least 20 minutes, or until soft.
- While rice cakes soak, heat broth in large soup pot. Add garlic, soy sauce, and salt/pepper to taste, and let simmer for about 10 minutes to flavor the broth.
- Add dduk and mandu. Allow to simmer until dduk is soft, about 10 minutes.
- Lightly beat egg whites, then stir slowly into simmering soup to create wisps.
Cook Egg Omelet Garnish
- Lightly beat egg yolks until no streaks are visible. Heat a tablespoon of avocado oil in a 10-inch non-stick pan over medium heat. Pour eggs into pan and let cook without browning about 3 minutes—you may have to turn heat down to medium-low. Turn omelet over in one piece, finish cooking, about 30 seconds.
- Remove egg omelet to cutting board and slice into thin strips. Set aside.
Serve Dduk Mandoo Gook Soup
- To serve, ladle broth into bowls and distribute rice cakes and dumplings equally among bowls. Drizzle each bowl with about 1 teaspoon sesame oil. Garnish with egg garnish, sliced green onions, toasted nori, toasted sesame seeds, and optional red pepper if using.
Notes
Food for Afterthoughts
For the first time, New Year's Eve was quiet this past year. I didn't do anything, but it had absolutely nothing to do with the giant fiasco that went down, downtown, Georgia Brown. Two days of drinking and dancing in a double dog dare between my liver and legs to see which gives out first—that was never in the plan to begin with. Four giant years in a row is enough for me, no matter how long that DJ named Jown was scheduled to spin, no matter that The Crystal Method would fuel the evening, no matter that Fergie would be phunking with my heart.
I think I might be getting *ahem* old.
Nuevo Año, Nueva Mia
Actually, saying I didn't do anything isn't quite accurate. Despite the ridiculous torrential rain that made Doordash sound like a delicious gourmet option, we forced ourselves to brush our teeth, take showers, and put on real clothes. We went all of two miles (or less?) to Casa Escobar for dinner. Yeah, I know, big night. We thought Casa would be relatively quiet, but we ended up waiting a little bit for a table because it was busy.
We were finally seated next to a table of the Texas version of Sex and the City. Casa Escobar is a low key Mexican restaurant and the five girls on holiday here in LA for the New Year's Day game were dressed to the nines (which is understandable, since they were probably hitting up the NYE party scene after), but their very loud, very explicit conversation was just...I can't go into it. It'll make me choke again.
Dinner was good and cheap, and the killer combination of margaritas at level 10 strength and salsa at level 10 spice were perfect against the miserable weather outside. I forced myself to stay awake until at least midnight to wish a fond farewell to 2005 and properly welcome 2006, but it took every ounce of energy left in my body to make it through almost an hour of Ryan Seacrest and Hilary Duff. Let's not even go into how it was downright depressing to see Dick Clark. I made it to midnight, then promptly fell asleep at 12:01 AM, January 1.
Reasons for the Season
The real reason behind my keeping it low key on New Year's Eve, though, was not that I felt too old to party it up nor that ice cold rain was pouring down on LA, nor that I had nothing to wear. The reason I kept it mellow this year is that last year, I didn't make it home on New Year's Day because I was still floating from party to party in downtown LA in a half-buzzed haze. I missed the traditional Korean New Year's Day at home with my family, but didn't think it was a big deal. So I have to show up on January 2nd, a day late, so what? At least I'm showing up and I'm still going to call on January 1 to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Is one day really that much of a difference?
Yes, you selfish disrespectful Korean-American girl, it is a big difference.
American-ness
I've written about Korean traditions for the New Year before, and how much I absolutely abhorred them as a child. The han-bok we had to put on as little kids were uncomfortably stiff and itchy and worst of all, to me, they were ugly. Kow-towing in front of my parents was stupid, and I didn't even really know the meaning of the Korean words I was mumbling, strictly memorized by sound. The only redeeming factors were the New Year's money my parents gave us, and the dduk gook we ate together, gathered around our taupe-colored Formica dinner table.
As we were growing up, it was important to my parents to make sure that some part of our Korean heritage remained with us. My sisters and I were born in the US. We didn't live on either Coast in a big city where there are decent sized Korean, or even Asian, populations. No, we were in Detroit, Buffalo, San Antonio, and Cincinnati, bombarded from all sides with "American"-ness. I have mentioned many times before how Dad trained us to "be American" because we are in America now, but it is still important to recognize from where we came before. Thus, not only were holidays like New Year's Day important because that's just tradition so that's just what you do, but they were lessons in culture in which my parents could really help us to remember where we (didn't) come from.
We are American. We are Korean. Not one or the other, nor one before the other, but both at the same time.
January Won
I know my parents weren't devastated when I called them last New Year's Day to wish them "Sae-hae-bohk mahnee bah-duh-sae-yo" over the phone. But I know that they probably wondered if their lessons in culture and tradition and family were in vain all those years. My Mom had told me to be safe because she knew what I was (still) up to on New Year's Day the previous year, and told me she'd save some dduk-gook for me until the next day (and my sae-bae money, too). It was delicious (dduk gook is one of my favorites), but I know that I missed out. I told myself I wouldn't be so stupid and selfish this year. I went to bed early; I woke up early; I drove down to Orange County in the rain to be with my family on New Year's Day.
Mom's dduk gook this year tasted sooo much better on January 1st than it did last year on January 2nd. Maybe it was the fact that after all these years, my Dad has finally found a new lecture topic - the migration of the nomads and the creation of the different races of people. Or maybe it was that our whole family was sitting around the table eating dduk gook together. Maybe it was that in addition to our Korean dduk gook and other bahn-chan, we also had that very traditionally American New Year's food, steaks grilled in the decently warm-for-January weather outside on the patio. Maybe it was that Champagne tastes great at lunch time, especially paired with kimchee.
Of course, tradition never dies, and Dad did mention that spaghetti comes from China.
hermz says
sae hae bohk mahnee bah dah sae-yo!
sarah says
aw, same to you, hermz! and i'll just pretend like you didn't read it in the title and actually remembered it from when i screamed it in your ear on sinday night. LOL!
djjewelz says
We made up for all the partying...from Paul Van Dyk, Bassrush (DnB) to Deep @ Vanguard with Miguel Migs, and many stops to various ktown joints throughout the evenings, our NYE celebrations started Friday and didn't end until Monday ;) (and that's with me breaking a 102 degree fever Saturday night!). But it's good to hear you got to spend NYD with family, because they are the most important.
sarah says
ai yai yai! you ended up at TAO!!! LOL! that's okay. i'll let that one slide this one time, even if it was pvd (one of my favorites)
Daily Gluttony says
Happy New Year Sarah!
um, I think I beat you by four minutes...it was 12:05 am that my ass fell asleep! ;)
Catherine says
Happy New Year! Just dropping by (again) to see what your cyber kitchen's up to these days, and it looks like I'm behind on what you've been dishing out! We stayed home this NYE, too - as a matter of fact, a lot of people stayed home this weekend - AND i'm sure the 200,000 people who were turned away from Giant's NYE (us not being two of them, but our outdoor shingdig was washed out too but with plans to recover this weekend!) a couple of hours before doors were to open probably weren't the happiest wet kitties either. Anyway, I still enjoy your blog! Keep the treats coming!