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Instant Pot Korean Seaweed Soup (Miyeokguk, 미역국)

If you grew up in a Korean household, chances are you ate miyeokguk on your birthday. Korean moms typically will make this "Birthday Soup" for their children to celebrate. This is because Korean moms will eat tons of this soup after giving birth! They say that miyeokguk is good for breast milk production, and healing from delivery. I can tell you from experience that miyeokguk was a soothing meal after delivering a baby! I wish I had an Instant Pot after delivering my kids, as it would have made making this soup so much easier!

Quick Notes:

⏲ ~30 min cooking time

🇰🇷 Some ingredients may need to be bought at a Korean grocery

👉Click the links to buy Korean ingredients shipped to your door!

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Serves 6+ people

👍 Very easy and great for beginners!

What you need:

1 lb of beef cut into small pieces (I used beef flap for this recipe, but short rib would work great too)

1 tbsp of sesame oil

4 cloves of minced garlic

12 cups of water

2-3 tbsp of soup soy sauce

Salt to taste

Prep your ingredients:

Soak about 50g of dried seaweed in water overnight, or at least 3 hrs (most Korean dried seaweed packages come in 100g bags). Chop the seaweed into bite sized chunks (doesn't have to be perfect!) and rinse under running water. Mince your garlic.

Instant Pot Time!

Press SAUTE button. When the display says HOT, add sesame oil. Add the beef and saute for several minutes until browned. Add the rehydrated seaweed and garlic. Saute/mix the ingredients together. Add the water. Then add the soup soy sauce. Close the lid. Press MEAT/STEW, and set the time to 15 minutes. Set the seal to SEALING. When the timer is done, QUICK RELEASE. Add Salt to your taste. Ahjumma tip: if you prefer a softer seaweed texture, then increase your time to 20 minutes.

Serve this with a pickled side dish and rice!

And when you're done, be sure to post some pictures and tag them with #ahjummarecipes. I'd love to see your results!

Some common Korean ingredients that may be hard to find at your local grocery store!

Black Bean Paste

Red Hot Pepper Paste

Red Hot Pepper Flakes

Dried Kelp (for broth)

Dried Anchovies (for broth)

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Who am I? YouTube/internet self-taught Korean cook, full-time working mommy of two, ahjumma and proud of it, I'm a Kim that makes bap!

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