Korean BBQ Sauce

This Korean BBQ sauce recipe is sweet and savory, packing in loads of flavor from the fresh garlic and ginger. Baste pork chops or chicken while grilling, drizzle it over a grain bowl, or use this sweet, sticky sauce as a dip.

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We love a saucy moment and our Korean BBQ sauce recipe has us covered.

Sweet, Savory, & Saucy. The Keys To My Heart.

I’m a sucker for a good sauce. In fact, I once drove 6 hours round trip just to eat a restaurant that had 27 different varieties of ranch dressing. I got the ranch flight, a pile of fries, and a ranch infused bloody mary. Worth every second of the drive.

Anyway, I’m a big fan of sauce and this Korean BBQ sauce does all the work when it comes to turning a boring dinner into an exciting meal.

We’re currently obsessed with drizzling this Korean barbecue sauce over rice bowls (we start with our Instant Pot jasmine rice, of course) that are topped with browned ground beef and loads of fresh vegetables, like shredded carrots, cabbage, peppers, avocado, snow peas, and cucumbers. It’s a rainbow of a meal that is fresh and crunchy and sweet and saucy and also ready in 30 minutes.

During the warmer months, we like to baste pork chops and chicken breasts with this sauce as we’re grilling. It gets all sweet and sticky on the grill with the perfect amount of spice to keep us interested.

Ingredient Notes:

Soy Sauce – We recommend low sodium soy sauce for this recipe to keep the sauce from being too salty. This is easy to find at Walmart.

Brown Sugar – A little sweetness balances out the salty, savory, spicy flavors and helps make a sticky sauce.

Chili Paste OR Sriracha – I love the flavors of sambal oelek and it’s great in this sauce but you can also use sriracha if that’s what you have. They’re very similar as far as spiciness, but sriracha has a much stronger garlic flavor.

Minced Ginger & Garlic – Fresh garlic and ginger go a long way towards adding big, bold flavor in our Korean sauce.

Sesame Oil – I always have a bottle of this sauce on hand for drizzling over our sausage egg roll in a bowl or using in our Asian cucumber salad. It’s a very flavorful oil and a must for Asian cooking.

Cornstarch – We’ll use a bit of cornstarch to thicken the sauce up.

How To:

Add everything but the water and cornstarch to a sauce pan and turn the pan to medium. Give it a good stir.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and water to form a slurry. Whisk that into the sauce.

Bring the sauce to a boil, whisking often, and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Once the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and is nice and glossy, remove from the heat to cool.

Ways to Use Korean Barbecue Sauce:

Korean Rice Bowls: Brown some beef and stir in some Korean BBQ sauce after draining. Let it cook for a couple of minutes to soak the sauce into the beef. Top some rice with the beef and fresh veggies, such as shredded carrots, cabbage, and bell peppers. Fresh sliced cucumber and avocado are a great addition. Snow peas, pickled red onion, and shelled edamame are all great additions. Drizzle it all with extra sauce.

Korean BBQ Grilled Chicken: Season pounded out chicken breasts with garlic powder and onion powder and grill on one side for about 5 minutes. Baste with the sauce, flip, and continue basting and grilling until the chicken is cooked through.

Korean Pork Chops: Baste pork chops with our Korean BBQ sauce as you grill. We like thin cut pork chops and they cook very quickly!

Recipe FAQs:

More Favorite BBQ Recipes!

• BBQ Meatballs – The perfect comfort food!
• Bourbon BBQ Sauce – Another great homemade sauce for grilling!
• Mustard BBQ Sauce – Check out this easy low carb mustard based BBQ sauce!
• BBQ Dry Rub Recipe – Not everyone likes sauce, and sometimes you’re just in the mood for something different. This homemade dry rub is what you need.
• Alabama White Sauce – This white BBQ sauce has a totally different flavor than tomato based sauces!