Korean food list: 30 dishes with their official English names, ingredients and heat

By the Real Korea 101 editorial team · Published November 13, 2026 · Sources checked November 13, 2026

Short answer: Most Korean menus in tourist areas follow standard English names set by Korean public bodies. The Korea Tourism Organization's 2023 food translation guide, which builds on the 800-dish list from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Korean Food Promotion Institute, keeps famous names like Bibimbap, Bulgogi and Kimchi as they are and translates the rest by ingredient and cooking method, such as "Soybean Paste Jjigae" or "Spicy Stir-fried Pork". The table below lists 30 common dishes with that standard English name, the main ingredients and a simple heat cue.

Where the official English names come from

Korean restaurant menus used to translate the same dish in many different ways. To fix that, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) and the Korean Food Promotion Institute (KFPI) have published a standard list of Korean menu names in English, Japanese and Chinese since 2017. KFPI says food, cooking and language experts translated the list, and that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the National Institute of Korean Language and the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) helped compile it. The current edition covers 800 dishes and is searchable on the KFPI website.

In 2023 the KTO published A Guide to Translating Korean Food for restaurants and tourism businesses. Its preface says it follows the National Institute of Korean Language's rules for translating public terms and the official Romanization of Korean, and that its Korean food categories and descriptions are based on the KFPI 800-dish list. It also states the principle we see in the names below: when a Korean name is already known abroad or worth preserving, such as kimchi, bulgogi or bibimbap, the Korean name is kept.

The romanized names in our table (for example, Doenjangjjigae) follow the Revised Romanization of Korean published by the National Institute of Korean Language, which writes words as they are pronounced in standard Korean and avoids accent marks and apostrophes.

Menu words that unlock most dishes

The KTO guide groups Korean dishes by how they are cooked. Knowing these endings lets you guess what a dish is even if it is not on our list.

• Bap (밥): cooked rice. Bibimbap is mixed rice; gukbap is a rice soup.
• Guk (국) and tang (탕): soups eaten with their solids. The guide describes tang as a soup with more meat, fish or vegetables than guk.
• Jjigae (찌개): a stew with less broth than guk or tang and plenty of meat, fish, shellfish or vegetables. The guide keeps the word "Jjigae" in English.
• Jeongol (전골): a hot pot that keeps boiling at the table; translated "Hot Pot".
• Jjim (찜): braised or steamed; translated "Braised" or "Steamed".
• Bokkeum (볶음): stir-fried over high heat; translated "Stir-fried".
• Gui (구이): grilled; translated "Grilled".
• Jeon (전): pan-fried in batter; translated "Pancake" or "Pan-fried Battered".

The list: 30 Korean dishes

English names come from the KTO 2023 guide. Ingredient notes come from KTO descriptions where one exists; otherwise we only state what the official name itself tells you.

How to read the heat column

There is no official national spice scale for Korean dishes, so the heat column is our own simple guide built from the sources:

• Spicy: the standard English name contains "Spicy", or the KTO description says the dish is cooked with spicy sauce or gochujang. The KTO guide says "Spicy" may be added to dish names that are spicy by nature.
• Mild: the KTO description lists the main ingredients and seasonings and none of them is chili. That does not guarantee a particular restaurant adds no chili, but it is not a chili-based dish by definition.
• Ask: the sources we checked do not say either way. Many of these, like kimchi stews, can be spicy depending on the recipe.

Some restaurants let you choose the heat. The KTO guide includes a standard menu notice for this: "The level of spiciness can be adjusted," with mild, regular and spicy options. For bibimbap, the National Institute of Korean Language's phrase sheet for visitors gives a ready-made request: Gochujang ppae juseyo (고추장 빼 주세요), "Please leave out the gochujang."

Notes on a few famous dishes

Bibimbap

KTO describes bibimbap as cooked rice mixed with vegetables and sautéed beef, and VISITKOREA's About Korean Food page calls it the dish that best represents Korean cuisine as a "culture of mixing": warm rice, toppings and gochujang mixed together by the diner. For a stone-pot version, the guide's English name is Hot Stone Pot Bibimbap.

Kimchi

KTO describes kimchi as a fermented dish of vegetables and a variety of seasonings, with more than three hundred varieties. The guide names many of them by ingredient: Diced Radish Kimchi (kkakdugi), Radish Water Kimchi (dongchimi), Cucumber Kimchi (oi-sobagi) and Green Onion Kimchi (pa-kimchi). Kimchi often arrives as one of the free side dishes; see our guide on how to order at a Korean restaurant.

Naengmyeon

Naengmyeon means cold noodles. KTO explains that the broth was historically made with the brine of dongchimi (radish water kimchi) and that recipes vary by region. On menus, plain "naengmyeon" or "mul-naengmyeon" is Cold Buckwheat Noodles and "bibim-naengmyeon" is Spicy Buckwheat Noodles.

Tteokbokki

Today's tteokbokki is a red, sweet and spicy street food, but KTO notes that the royal court version, gungjung tteokbokki, was simmered in soy sauce with beef and vegetables, and that the gochujang version is believed to have appeared in the 1950s. Our Korean street food guide covers it alongside eomuk, sundae and hotteok.

This article explains public naming standards and official descriptions. Recipes differ between restaurants, so ask staff about ingredients if you have allergies or dietary restrictions.