Are you a fan of porridge (juk, 죽)? Porridge is hugely popular in Korea as a breakfast or a light meal. Because it’s healthy and easy to digest, porridge is also commonly served to the ill, elderly, and babies. Dakjuk (닭죽, chicken porridge) is a family favorite! This chicken-flavored creamy porridge is one of the best when it comes to comfort food, especially on cold winter days!
Made with all sorts of grains, proteins, and vegetables, there are endless variations of porridges in Korea. Along with this chicken porridge (dakjuk), red bean (patjuk,팥죽), pumpkin (hobakjuk, 호박죽), pine nuts (jatjuk, 잣죽) and abalone (jeonbokjuk, 전복죽) porridges are some of the popular varieties.
Chicken stock and meat for porridge
Traditionally, chicken porridge is made with chicken stock and pulled chicken meat. Often, it’s made with leftover chicken soup, such as dak gomtang (닭곰탕) or baesuk (백숙).
3 ways to prepare pulled chicken and chicken stock for this porridge:
- Boil a small chicken or a few bone-in chicken pieces with onion, garlic cloves, ginger and scallions until the chicken is cooked through. Enjoy some of the boiled chicken just with salt and pepper if you like, and use the leftover stock and meat for a porridge.
- Use good quality commercial chicken stock and boil some boneless chicken pieces in the stock until the chicken is cooked through.
- Use leftover roasted chicken, make chicken stock by boiling the remains in a pot along with some aromatic vegetables. If you want to roast chicken at home, this Thomas Keller’s roast chicken recipe is great. The leftovers from a store-bought rotisserie chicken work as well. Reserve some chicken meat and make chicken stock with the remains by boiling the bones in a pot along with some aromatic vegetables. What an excellent use of the remains of roast birds!
What type of rice to use
Dakjuk can be made with either short grain rice or sweet rice (aka glutinous rice, chapssal 찹쌀 in Korean). I prefer sweet rice as it gives the porridge a creamier texture and a sweeter taste. Traditionally, the rice is stir-fried in sesame oil before the liquid is added. This adds a deep nutty flavor to the porridge and coats the rice with oil, thus yielding a better porridge texture.
Vegetable options
Typically, dakjuk also features some chopped vegetables. In this recipe, I used carrot, celery, and mushrooms. Zucchini, green cabbage, potato, and garlic chives are all good options. You can chop them finely or roughly, depending on your preference. Adjust cooking time appropriately.
More porridge recipes
Turkey porridge (with Thanksgiving leftovers)
Jeonbokjuk (Abalone porridge)
Hobak juk (pumpkin porridge)
Patjuk (sweet red bean porridge)
For more Korean cooking inspirations, follow along on YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Ingredients
- 1 cup short grain rice or sweet rice glutinous rice
- 6 cups chicken stock (see notes)
- 1 to 1-1/2 cups pulled chicken seasoned with salt, garlic, sesame oil, pepper
- 1 medium carrot
- 1 celery stalk
- 3 to 4 mushroom caps
- 2 tablespoons sesame oil
- Optional garnishes:
- Finely chopped scallion
- Sesame seeds
Instructions
- Soak the rice for about an hour, and drain.
- Finely chop the vegetables.
- Add 2 tablespoons of sesame oil to a medium size pot. Add the rice and stir-fry for a few minutes over medium heat, until the rice turns translucent.
- Pour the stock to the pot and bring it to a boil. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until the rice is cooked and softened. Start with medium low heat, but reduce to lower heat when the stock is visibly reduced. Stir occasionally (more frequently as the stock is reduced) so the rice doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.
- Stir in the vegetables, cover, and simmer for an additional 10 to 15 minutes until the vegetables are soft. You can also adjust the consistency of the porridge to your taste by adding more stock or water.
- Since the chicken is already cooked, stir it in during the last few minutes of simmering, leaving some to use as a garnish, if desired. You can add salt and pepper at the end or serve on the side. Serve hot with the optional garnish on top.
Carolina says
Thank you for the recipe! It’s delicious and easy to make. I used sticky rice and love the texture. Any suggestion of the best banchan to accompany this juk?
Hyosun says
Glad to hear that! You don’t really need much of banchan with dakjuk. Some kimchi, oi muchim (spicy cucumber salad), or pickles will be nice.
Jody says
What a fantastic recipe! It was fun and easy to make too. My husband and I both loved it. I made this as written although I used a bit more mushrooms and more chicken. We couldn’t stop eating it. So grateful for your recipes and the commenters too.
Hyosun says
Happy to hear that! Thank you!
Eli says
Iโm very sick right now and I am taking antibiotics, but have been craving something warm and comforting like this. Itโs seriously delicious! I seasoned with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and white pepper and added soy sauce to enhance the flavour even more. I ate my whole bowl in less than 5 minutes ๐
Hyosun says
Oh sorry you’re not feeling well. Glad you had this warm bowl of porridge. Hope you get better soon!
Andrea Wells says
I noticed when reading at the top something was mentioned about ginger being added. I was wondering how much?
remas says
์๋ ํ์ธ์. ์ ๋ ์๋ฅด๋จ ์ถ์ ์ธ ๋ ๋ง์ค์ ๋๋ค. ๋ชธ์ด ํธ์ฐฎ์ผ์ ์ด๋จธ๋๋ฅผ ์ํด ์ด ์๋ฆฌ๋ฒ์ ์๋ํด ๋ณด์๋๋ฐ, ์ด๋จธ๋๊ป์ ์ข์ํ์ จ์ต๋๋ค
Hyosun says
That’s great to hear! ์ด๋จธ๋๊ป์ ์ข์ํ์ จ๋ค๋ ์ ๋ง ๊ธฐ์ฉ๋๋ค. ๋นจ๋ฆฌ ํ๋ณตํ์๊ธธ ๋ฐ๋๋๋ค. ๊ฐ์ฌํฉ๋๋ค.
Trudy says
I am stocked with brown rice. Do you think that the recipe would still work even though it’s not traditional?
Hyosun says
Yes it will. Soak it for a few hours. The brown rice will take longer to cook.
Sarah says
I made this for my son who was visiting from college and he loved it! Love all your recipes can’t wait to try more!
Hyosun says
Happy to hear that!! Thank you for letting me know and for the love!
Melissa says
I love this recipe. It’s so easy to make and tastes fantastic. I’m fortunate enough to live near a large Korean population and have access to wonderful Korean restaurants. One of them is juk. This recipe is very similar to the one I can buy at the restaurant. The suggestion to boil the chicken in a commercial chicken broth is excellent and makes my homemade version as good as what I can buy.
I have also ordered beef juk and loved it. I have searched your site for a beef juk recipe and have not found one. From what I can tell, the ingredients are similar to chicken juk, except it uses finely ground beef instead of chicken and a different broth. However, I don’t know what type of broth is use. Vegetable, beef, or plain water? What would work best? Thank you!
Michelle Thomson says
Lovely! I am a major fan of Kdramas, and looking at going to teach in Korea. In the drama shows everyone aways eats porridge when they are unwell, and I couldn’t quite understand what the meal was……but it looks amazing, and so delicious. I am excited to try it, too. Thank you for sharing your recipe and pictures.
Gina says
At the bottom of the recipe it says this is an older recipe and the updated one is here, but there is no link or anything to the new one. ๐
Hyosun says
hmm this is what it says at the bottom of the post: “This dakjuk recipe was originally posted in March 2010 during the first year of my blogging. Hereโs the much needed update with an improved recipe and new photos.” So this post is the updated one.
Colette Plaska says
Kamsahamnida Eomeonim ๐ I made this juk for a family as theyโre unwell and it was namoo mashisoyo! I was short on time so I bought a roasted chicken, I also sautรฉed the veggies a little in sesame oil and butter before adding to the juk and for a little extra oomph I fried garlic in the sesame oil and some butter before frying the rice ๐ I felt like I was back in Korea and I felt comforted eating it ๐
I love it says
It’s absolutely amazing…Can we eat this with brown bread?
Hyosun says
You can eat it with anything you want. Koreans don’t typically eat porridge with bread.
Oddfellow says
It looks good by itself, but I, as a European, might even eat it with French fries, or even better yet, with some cheese if my mood were that way.
Stephanie Kim says
Good afternoon! I just got sick so I decided to make Jook for the first time and it turned out great! Thank you very much as it is delicious! I was just wondering when I ate this dish before and my older cousin would make it, she would have a small side dish with a salty sauce/add-on to put in the jook to add flavor. Do you perhaps know what it is? Any replies would be helpful, thank you again!
juklover says
sounds like some type of seasoned soy sauce.
Ann says
Probably Jangjorim!
Kristen says
Thank you for all your recipes! This is my go-to site for Korean food ๐ I am wondering if I make this with a rice cooker, should I just chop up the garlic and ginger and add it in with the rice, stock and cut-up raw chicken?
NicoleCG says
I just put some on in my rice cooker this AM. I parboil my chicken in a bit of the stock (after putting it in an oyster sauce/corn starch marinade) before adding to the veggie/broth/rice mixture. I put the garlic in the rice cooker but since I use ginger paste I usually put the ginger on upon serving. Itโs definitely my go to!
Fred Wolff says
Love your page! I have enjoyed Korean food for years and have always wanted to try it. Your recipes are amazing! Jook is one of my favorite foods, especially this time of year! Will definitely try your recipe!
Karena George says
Hi, I have recently found your page and I love it. I’ve always loved Korean food and have recently started wanting to learn to make dishes. I love the way you layout recipes for it makes it very easy to follow. I do have a question, my husband is allergic to mushrooms, I know that there are many recipes that call for them especially for broths, is there anything I can replace them with? Or is it fine to not use them at all? Thank you!
Hyosun says
Yes it’s fine to simply omit it. Thank you for the nice words! Hope you find many recipes to try.
Carolina Guzman says
This is delicious. I recently realized that I have an aversion to gluten, so I’ve been eating many more rice-based dishes rather than bread and glad to add this to my normal dishes.
Sophie Legg says
Hello! I’m just curious if this dish can be frozen? I’m tempted to make a big batch of it and I want to know if I can save some in the freezer. Thanks for the recipe. ๐
Hyosun says
Hi Sophie! It should freeze well.
Marie says
I made this today so my husband can have it after morning golf, 37 degrees out. We absolutely loved it. Thank you.
Cynthia Kantor says
I LOVE PORRIDGE
Mariola S. says
Can I make this in rice maker? (I have thin or thick porrage selection) Thank you.
Hyosun says
of course!
Marivic Mercado says
Thank you for this recipe. In the Philippines, we also have rice porridge almost similar to DakJuk. I am excited to try this one!
Anita says
Hi! I just wanted to let you know that you are killing me with these recipes! I was fortunate enough to live in South Korea for about two years, and while I was there I got food poisoning, and my boss made me Juk…. it was so wonderful, I started making it for myself on a regular basis! Now, I’m vegan, so I can’t ๐ I still love your blog though!! Everything looks so wonderful, and it brings back amazing memories for me ๐
Anita
Elle says
Anita, substitute chicken stock with veggies stock and omit the chicken. Still realllllly good!
Joyce says
Great idea! Iโm going plant based, so I was hoping I could still make this.
Kate says
I love this dish so much and so does my family! They are always asking me to make it! I love your blog so much! You’re amazing!
Hyosun says
aww so happy to hear that, Kate! Thanks for letting me know!
Amy says
You can try making the broth with seaweed or just use store bought vegetable broth and just add the veggies without the chicken. I am also vegetarian and make juk a lot for myself and my family
Sunshine โ๏ธ says
Delicious! best dish, itโs tasty and healthy at the same time. Wow
I cooked it for my parents and they loved it! Thanks a lot๐
You have the most cute blog ever!
Hyosun says
aww happy to hear your parents loved it. Thank you so much for the lovely words!
Sunshine โ๏ธ says
Really delicious! best dish, itโs tasty and healthy at the same time. Wow
I cooked it for my parents and they loved it! Thanks a lot๐
You have the most cute blog ever!
Ruthie says
can i add all the ingredients to my rice cooker and use the porridge setting?
Hyosun says
Yes you can. If using raw chicken, chop it up into small pieces.
Aaisha says
When I tell you this is the best thing I ever cooked-
ITS SO GOOD like its not even funny, if you have time to make this then do it 200%, just make sure you have enough time, it took me an hour and a half (maybe because I’ve never made it before) but keep that in mind!
Hyosun says
That’s awesome to hear! Try some quicker options I talk about in the post next time as well.
Kristen says
If I use 6 cups of water instead, then would it not be tasty?
Hyosun says
Certainly not as flavorful as using a flavorful broth, but it will still be good.
Pija says
It’s so simple and delicious. Thank you for the recipe. I think this recipe will be my fav for my daily menu… ๐โจโจโจ
Ann says
I have been watching some kdramas lately and was curious about what exactly rice porridge is.To my surprise, is no other than the food I grew up with back in Europe called rice pilaf.We did eat as a side dish though.Tastes so good and my kids love it.
Hyosun says
That’s great to hear!
Melissa Marin says
Wow, I believe dakjuk is one of the easiest and delicious whole hearty meals that I’ve made this year… I used sweet rice as for the vegetables I used finely chopped carrots, green onion, red cabbage with roasted chicken breast.
I will be making more of this porridge trying different vegetables to discover the best flavor and filling meal.
Thank you for the recipe..
Hyosun says
You’re welcome! Great you liked it.
Leena says
Can I use sushi rice to make this?
Hyosun says
Yes you can!
Eunkyung Han says
This food is one of my sonโs favorite food to have in cold days and even hot days as well. Especially when he is sick, he wants to eat Dakjuk.
That looks really yummy and makes me cook it for my family this holiday season.
The plating is always nice on your photo!
Hyosun says
Thank you! Such a comfort food! Nice your boy enjoys it.
Barbara Garcia says
Thank you for helping us non-Koreans who love Korean food to cook some of our favorite dishes. For me, Dakjuk and Kimchi are some of my favs.
Julie says
Can you use brown rice to make juk?
Hyosun says
Yes, you can. It’s called hyun-mi-juk in Korea. Enjoy!
Laura Navarro says
Does it matter if is long or short grain rice?
Julie says
Asian style short grain, sticky rice is best for taste & texture.
Dave Feucht says
We’ve been making rice porridge a lot using leftover rice – if we cook a dish with rice, and we have more rice than we need for the dish, we’ll wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the freezer. Then, if we want to make porridge, we just pull out about 2 cups frozen cooked rice, and use about 4 cups of stock, and cook it just like this, with whatever we have around to put in.
Hyosun Ro says
Great idea! I sometimes use leftover rice too. It’s a nice way to use it up and much easier than starting from scratch. Thanks!
Chloe says
May i put it in the fridge and have it the next day?
Hyosun says
Of course! It will thicken slightly, but you can add some water or chicken broth to thin it if you want.