Nokdujeon, aka nokdu bindaetteok, is a savory pancake made with ground nokdu (mung beans). These crispy golden brown pancakes are soft on the inside with some crunch from the vegetables and deliciously nutty!
In Korea and many other Asian countries, the holiday season is not over until after the lunar New Year, which falls on January 25 this year. Called Seollal (설날) in Korea, it’s one of the two most celebrated traditional holidays. Along with tteokguk (떡국, rice cake soup), nokdujeon (녹두전) is a must for the New Year’s Day feast.
As for my family, these crispy golden brown savory pancakes are a favorite year round!
What is nokdujeon?
Nokdujeon is a type of savory Korean pancake made with ground mung bean batter. It’s also called bindaetteok (빈대떡) or nokdu bindaetteok (녹두 빈대떡). While nokdujeon is a classic holiday dish, it’s highly popular also as a street food, as you may have seen in the Netflix Street Food episode of Gwangjang Market in Seoul.
You may be thinking you’ve never heard of mung beans. Actually, you might know these beans better by their sprouts — those bean sprouts which are common in many Asian dishes. The most well known Korean dish made with mung bean spouts is the side dish called sukju namul (숙주나물).
Importantly, mung beans are highly nutritional and provide many health benefits. In Korea, they are well known as a detoxifying food. Hope you add more mung beans and their sprouts to your diet this new year.
How to make mung bean pancakes
To make these pancakes, you’ll need to soak the dried mung beans in water for a few hours, and then ground into a batter. I usually buy pre-hulled and split ones, so soaking and preparing the beans is fairly simple.
Growing up, we used to have a stone mill, called maetdol (맷돌), to grind soaked beans. These days, most people use an electric blender. Be sure not over blend the beans. The batter should be creamy but slightly coarse and sandlike.
Typical additions to the batter include ground pork, bean sprouts, gosari (fern brakes), scallions, and kimchi. These add tons of flavors and textures to the pancakes. I blanch the bean sprouts before adding to the batter, but you can add fresh sprouts if you want.
For a vegetarian or vegan bindaetteok, you can simply omit the pork and use vegetarian/vegan kimchi.
If you’ve seen these pancakes being made on the streets of Korea, you’ve probably noticed that the vendors deep fry them in a bath of hot oil. At home, we pan fry these pancakes with much less oil. However, for crispy, delicious pancakes, use a generous amount of oil.
This recipe makes quite a few pancakes, but it’s very easy to cut the recipe in half if desired.
These pancakes will keep well in the fridge up to 4 days. They also freeze well. Simply defrost them at room temperature, and then reheat in a pan over low heat or in the microwave. Also try adding the frozen nokdujeon to your kimchi jjigae within the last few minutes of cooking. Delicious!
More Korean pancake recipes
Haemul pajeon (seafood pancakes)
Buchujeon (garlic chives pancakes)
Kimchi jeon (kimchi pancakes)
Gamjajeon (potato pancakes)
Hobak buchim (zucchini pancakes)
For more Korean cooking inspirations, follow along on YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Ingredients
- 2 cups dried peeled and split mung beans* yields about 4 cups soaked
- 8 ounces sukju namul (mung bean sprouts)
- 8 ounces kimchi
- 6 - 8 scallions
- 4 ounces pork , ground or finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon garlic
- 1 tablespoon sesame oil
- salt
- vegetable oil for pan frying
Dipping Sauce
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon vinegar (or to taste)
- 2 tablespoons water
- pinch of black pepper
- pinch of red pepper flakes gochugaru - optional
Instructions
- Rinse and soak the mung beans in water for 3 - 4 hours. Drain.
- Meanwhile, cook the mung bean sprouts in boiling water for about 2 minutes (you can skip this blanching if preferred). Rinse in cold water to stop cooking. Drain and gently squeeze out excess water. Thinly slice the kimchi and scallions. In a large bowl, combine the kimchi, bean sprouts, scallions, meat, soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic. Mix well.
- In a blender, grind 2 cups of the soaked beans in 3/4 cup of cold water with 1/2 teaspoon of salt until it has a coarse, sandlike consistency.
- Add to the vegetable and meat mixture. Repeat with the remaining beans. Gently mix the mung bean batter until the ingredients are evenly distributed.
- Heat 2 tablespoons or more of oil in a non-stick pan over medium to medium high heat. (See note.) Ladle the mixture into the pan and spread it evenly into a thin round shape. Cook until the bottom is golden brown (2 - 3 minutes), and turn it over, adding more oil. Press it down with a spatula, and cook for another 2- 3 minutes. Repeat the process with the rest of the mixture.
- Serve hot off the pan with a dipping sauce.
Notes
This mung bean pancake recipe was originally posted in December 2011. I’ve updated it here with new photos, more information and minor changes to the recipe.
Simon says
Hi. I’m keen to try these. What type of vinegar should be used for the dipping sauce??
Hyosun says
Any clear vinegar such as rice vinegar, white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, etc.
megan says
Hi! I have used a number of your recipes and have thoroughly enjoyed each one. I have never heard of these pancakes before and made them for family- I loved them so much! Thank you for sharing, and thanks for your site- it is my go-to for any and all Korean food!
Hyosun says
How wonderful you try to make something totally new to you! So happy to hear you love them so much. Thank YOU so much for making my site your go to for Korean cooking! Really appreciate it.
Katarina Leander says
Easy to make and tasty! I started to peel the mungbeans by hand after one hour and went ahead with shells and all. Still tasty and very good! Definetly will make it again and again 🙂
josephine says
I just made these tonight because I grew up eating them but never paid much attention to them then. Well, fast forward several decades. As I explore more home cooking and indulge in my culture’s food varieties, I knew I had to try making this recipe (especially, since I had all the ingredients on hand), except I had the whole mung beans (not peeled). Little did I know that prepping the soaked mung beans would be sooooo tedious and cumbersome…Now, I know why you buy peeled mung beans!
The only “major” mistake I made was to spend 2 hrs. peeling each bean by hand. I failed to research on-line a quicker method; live and learn!
The second “not as major” mistake I made was to put 3/4 cup of water to only 1 cup of peeled and soaked mung beans to grind the beans in my blender; hence a very runny batter. Never mind the mistakes I made, let’s discuss the end result!
I did blanch the mung bean sprouts. If you used raw sprouts, I think the Nokdujeon will have a “crunchier” consistency. But since I blanched my sprouts, the bean sprouts cooked nicely with other ingredients.
My son and daughter, who helped me “peel” each and every tiny little bean skin by hand said, “the Nokdujeon is very good but it was NOT worth spending two hours peeling the skins!” LOL
Besides buying dry, peeled mung beans, how do you recommend you peel by hand? One method I now know is to rub them by hand in the soaked water, thus releasing the peeled skins to float to the top and leaving the mung beans to sink to the bottom.
Thank you so much for this recipe. It has taken me back to my childhood.
Luisa Andrade (Luka [email protected]) says
I tried it once. Did not work, so I will try now your recipe, for the first time. It is so well explained that there is no room for mistakes. Can´t wait to try it! Looks so yummy!!!! Thank you so much!
Mandy says
Can you make the mung bean mix and save it for future use, or should you cook it immediately?
Hyosun says
You can soak the beans and store, but once you ground the beans and season, it’s better to cook right away. The ground beans start breaking down after a while.
Maria says
Hi,
I can only get my hands on whole mung beans. After I have soaked them to remove the skin do I need to soak the peeled beans again or can I just use them right away?
Thank you <3
Hyosun says
Hi Maria! You don’t need to soak them again.
Flo Lee says
I change out the pork with ground chicken. Still yummy!
Hyosun says
Great to hear that! Thanks for letting me know.
Brian says
Use same dipping sauce as described in the kimchi pancakes recipe or is another one better for this recipe? Under ingredients for kimchi it says “8 ounces grams kimchi”…? I assume it’s supposed to be 8 ounces and the word grams should be ignored? Loved the kimchi pancakes, the bibimbap, japchae, dak galbi & kimchi jigae recipes. I think I’ll be trying this next.
Hyosun says
The dipping sauces are pretty similar, so you can use either one. And thank you! That should have been deleted. I used to have both units for ingredients.
Jessie says
Hi,
Is it possible to make this dish with mung bean flour?
Hyosun says
While you can make savory pancakes with mung bean flour, they will be quite different from these which are made with soaked beans.
MONICA PERES says
Hi, can I use previously cooked and froze mung beans. I’m excited to try this, look so good.
Thank you for the recipe 🙂
Hyosun says
hmm not sure about “cooked” mung beans. The batter is made with raw mung beans. It might not bind well if it’s already cooked.
MONICA PERES says
Ok.I will buy more mung beans. Thank you for the quick replly 🙂
Sandra says
I was nervous making these because I have never made anything like this before, but your recipe was so easy to follow that I gave it a try. I know this is categorized as a snack, but we ate them for dinner with your Mu Doenjang Guk as a side soup just to make it feel like a complete meal. It was delicious! Thank you for sharing this!
sha daugherty says
Thank you for this amazing recipe!
I had these at a restaurant and I loved them so I looked up a recipe and found myself here! This is an excellent recipe. I made these this morning for breakfast and I will probably make them again tomorrow they are so delicious!
Hyosun says
Thank you! So happy to hear that.
Jennifer says
So, I was binge-watching Kim’s Convenience on Netflix and there is a whole episode about nokdujeon. I had never tried them, so several Googles later, I landed on this recipe. I had everything in my house already other than the fresh mung bean sprouts, so I subbed diced mushrooms to make up some of the volume. Not authentic, I am sure, but delicious. These are AMAZING! We loved them with the dipping sauce, and also topped with some leftover bibimbop sauce (https://www.koreanbapsang.com/bibimbap/). Definitely best hot out of the pan.
Tom says
The mung beans I know are green. These look light yellow. Are these some variety? Thanks for the recipe. I’ll try it, but without the meat.
Hyosun says
No. These are hulled, split mung beans. They are the same mung beans with green skins. It will still be delicious without the meat. Enjoy!
Genoa says
I just made this recipe and it was amazing! I thought soaking and blending the mung beans would be a lot of work, but it was much easier than I expected. My whole family enjoyed this recipe, including the kids. I will definitely make this again.
Hyosun says
Thrilled to hear that! True it’s not that hard. I’m glad you decided to try it.
Cece says
My Korean friend, Kim Sum, made these for me and added perilla leaves thinly sliced, so when I made these I added the leaves and they were delicious.
Hyosun says
Great! I’m sure perilla leaves added a lot.
My says
I made these without the pork and they are delightful. Thank you!
Hyosun says
Awesome! Thanks for letting me know.
Nzinga says
May Says — Will you please share how you handled omitting the pork? Did you increase any of the other ingredients or did you simply leave it out?
Hyosun says
You can simply leave it out. There’s really not much seasoning in the recipe, so it should be fine.
pj says
can eggs be added to the batter or would eggs spoil the consistency?
thanks for the recipe, i’m eager to try it!
Hyosun says
You can add eggs. I don’t think it’ll spoil the consistency. Just use the yolk part.
Jung-ah Sombke says
Your presentation and plating is simply beautiful. I have admired your ceramic dishes and bowls so much that I have actively been searching for and collecting beautiful and interesting pottery. I often find them in resale shops, but also support our local potters. I know it sounds silly, but I believe that food tastes better in beautiful receptacles!
Norma says
Hyosun, thank you for this recipe! I have loved the Mung Bean pancakes from H-Mart especially because they seem to be Gluten free? AND are full of nutritious vegies. Just curious–why did you leave out the fernbrake? I see elderly ladies picking it near where I live, and H-Mart includes it in its Bibimbap vegies. What is so good about fernbrake?
Anonymous says
I just make these and they are so delicious!! My family loves them!!
Hyosun Ro says
Great to hear that! Thank you, Anonymous!
Anonymous says
Can you tell me which brand of the split and peeled mung beans you use? I can get to several Korean (and Indian) grocery stores so I should be able to find it. Thanks!
Courtney
Hyosun Ro says
Courtney – I like Jayone Nara brand. It’s a Korean brand but the beans are grown in the U.S. I will add a photo of it to this post soon.
Anonymous says
Thanks so much. Can you tell me which store you usually buy it from? (Lotte, H-Mart, Grand Mart?)
Courtney
Hyosun Ro says
I bought a couple of bags from Hanaro in Centreville a while back, which has been taken over by H Mart. I don’t think H Mart carries this brand. I saw them in Grand Mart in Centreville today. Hope this helps.
Hyosun Ro says
update – I recently bought a bag from Lotte in Fairfax.
Anonymous says
Excellent recipe, thank you for sharing.My family loved the pancakes.
Hyosun Ro says
Anonymous – I am delighted to hear your family loved the pancakes. Thank you so much for trying out my recipe and leaving me the feedback. I greatly appreciate it.
Little Corner of Mine says
Looks wonderful! This is actually on my to-try-list, when I first saw this mungbean pancake recipe in a cookbook, it’s really intriguing me and I wanted to know how it tastes like. I am curious about using the mungbean in the batter and the nutty taste. It’s kind of tedious but I will sure to make it one day. 😉
Hyosun Ro says
Little Corner of mine – Hope you try it! You’ll really like it. Cheers!
Suzi says
Hi, I am a new follower, it is nice to meet you. I have been looking for a recipe like this, thank you, I just bought mung beans yesterday. Can’t wait to try this. Happy New Year.
Hyosun Ro says
Suzi – Nice to meet you as well! Try it. You will like it. Happy New Year!
Anonymous says
AMAZING!!! i LOVE nokdujeon and when i saw the recipe i got very excited. i made this for new years day lunch at my in-laws and everybody raved about them. thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
Hyosun Ro says
Hi, Anonymous! I am so happy to hear you and your in-laws like them. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave me the feedback. I really appreciate it.
Emily says
Delicious. These remind me of these other korean pancakes we would eat a lot while living there. I think they were called Pajeon? I just ate some kimchi, and now I want those!
Hyosun Ro says
Thank you, Loveforfood! You are so kind.
Emily – Pajeon is great too. Thanks for stopping by!
Loveforfood says
I would say these are some of the best photographs I have seen.