Lazy One-Pan Pork and Vegetable Bulgogi

By Jeannie Kim

This is one of my favorite go-to lazy recipes when I want a low-effort but highly nutritious dinner for my ever so picky three-year-old. I originally found it on a Korean forum, but made my own tweaks to make the preparation faster and the recipe relatively easy to make. The marination is incredibly effortless and requires a blender to smoothly blend the bulgogi marinate. Pork loin shabu can be found in Tops or Villa, either in the butcher section or the frozen meat section.

There are a few essential tricks to making this recipe super tasty: first, marinate the pork for at least one hour—overnight is even better; second, let the pork marinate sit out at room temperature for 30-60 minutes before cooking; and lastly, cook the vegetables with the pork in stages to retain their texture.

I tend to serve this pork bulgogi with rice and mix it with egg so it becomes an even lazier bibimbap without the hassle of having to cook vegetables separately. 

Ingredients

Marinate ingredients

• 1 peeled apple (remove core)
• 4 large cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon white sugar or honey
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2 tablespoon cooking sake
• 2 cm piece of peeled ginger

Pork and vegetable ingredients

• 300g pork loin shabu
• Cooking oil—Olive or Avocado are my preferences.
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 thinly sliced brown onion
• ½  carrot (thinly sliced)
• ½ pack green beans (chopped into 2 cm pieces)
• 1 pack of shiitake mushrooms (chopped into 2 cm pieces)
• 1 pack of spinach (washed and chopped)

Preparation

1. Blend all the Marinate ingredients. If you don’t have a blender, then grate the apple, mince the garlic, and combine with the remaining ingredients in a stainless steel bowl.
2. Add the pork loin Shabu to the marinate in a large mixing bowl and combine thoroughly until all of the pork is covered in the marinate.
3. Place the pork bulgogi marinate in the fridge overnight to marinate. If pressed for time then leaving it out of the fridge to marinate for one hour is OKAY.
4. Put carrots and onions in one bowl, beans and mushrooms in a second bowl, and keep the spinach in a third bowl.

Cooking

1. Take the pork bulgogi marinate out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking.
2. Heat a large frying pan to medium high heat. Add avocado oil or olive oil when the pan is hot.
3. Stir fry the carrots and onion until slightly soft.
4. Then add the pork bulgogi to the carrots and onion and stir fry.
5. When the pork is slightly pink stir in 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce and add the beans and mushrooms.
6. Once the beans and mushroom are soft add in the spinach and cook until the spinach is slightly soft
7. Serve with rice

If you want to try something a little different these are a couple of other vegetable combinations that I’ve tried and my family has loved:

Eggplant, capsicum, oyster mushrooms, bean sprouts (add the bean sprouts last)

Napa cabbage, broccoli, sugar snap peas, bok choy (add the bok choy last)

Any of these combinations make a delicious and healthy meal that can be prepared at any stage through the day and then quickly cooked when you’re ready. 

About the Author

Jeannie is currently pursuing an honors degree in psychology with a focus on clinical applications. Prior to this, she was an acupuncturist specializing in fertility, stress management, and pain relief in Sydney for 12 years. With her unique blend of Eastern and Western therapeutic approaches and maternal perspective, as feature writer, Jeannie promises a valuable contribution to BAMBI Magazine.