Slow Cooker Korean Beef Tacos
These Korean Beef Tacos are made in the slow cooker and served with a crunchy slaw and spicy Korean Chili sauce. Very unique and delicious tacos!
Slow Cooker Korean Beef Tacos
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One of the first food trucks I ever had the pleasure of enjoying was a little cart in Austin, Texas. I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it (possibly due to beer), but I know that they served very good Korean tacos. As soon as I was able, I rushed home and whipped up these Slow Cooker Korean Beef Tacos in tribute!
The good news is that the filling for these Korean beef tacos is super easy to make thanks to the good old kitchen tool the slow cooker. While the ingredient list looks long, it’s worth finding all the stuff.
Once you have the ingredients, the recipe couldn’t be easier and definitely ends up being a really authentic and delicious meal.
The spicy, sweet, savory flavors of this beef filling were meant to be shoved in a taco.
- Want a different slow cooker beef recipe? Try this Slow Cooker Pepper Steak!
Slow Cooker Korean BBQ Tacos
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 pounds beef chuck roast cubed and browned
- ½ white onion diced
- 3 inches fresh ginger minced
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- ½ cup gochujang
- ½ cup hoisin sauce
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup rice wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sesame oil
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 cup water
- Salt and pepper
Quick Carrot Slaw:
- 2 large carrots shredded
- ½ small green cabbage shredded
- 2 red chilis minced
- ¼ cup rice wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
Taco Fixings:
- Flour tortillas
- Fresh cilantro
- Sesame seeds
Instructions
- Cube roast into large 2-inch chunks. Try to cut off any larger pieces of fat. Season beef well with salt and pepper.
- In a large skillet, add a good drizzle of oil over medium-high heat. Add chuck roast cubes and sear well on all sides until browned. Transfer browned beef pieces immediately to a slow cooker.
- When all beef is browned, add onions, ginger, and garlic to the skillet along with some water to scrape up any bits stuck to the pan. Cook for a minute and then transfer liquid and veggies to the slow cooker.
- Add all other beef ingredients to the slow cooker along with one cup of water. Stir together, cover, and let cook for 6 hours on low.
- For slaw, grate carrots and shred cabbage. Remove seeds from chiles and mince finely. Stir together with a big pinch of kosher salt, sugar, and rice wine vinegar. Store in the fridge until needed.
- When beef is done, remove and shred. Pour out liquid from slow cooker, but save it. Add beef back to the slow cooker along with enough liquid to make it moist, but not super-wet. Keep warm until serving.
- To make a taco, heat a flour tortilla in a skillet or in the oven. Top with shredded beef, cabbage slaw, fresh cilantro, and sesame seeds.
Nutrition
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How to Make Korean Beef Tacos
There’s a little bit of work on the front end of this recipe, but after you do this part, it’s smooth sailing and a really easy meal.
You could use a wide range of beef for this dish, but there’s no need to get an expensive cut. I recommend using a roast of some sort. You want something in the three pound range and try to find a roast without a ton of fat on it.
To be honest, I think you could just cube up this roast and toss it in a slow cooker with all the other ingredients and be in fine shape for your Korean tacos.
If you have the time though, it’s always a good idea to brown meat before adding it to a slow cooker. It’ll make the end flavors a bit more complex. If you have the time, just cube up the roast and season the pieces with salt and pepper.
Then add them to a large skillet with a good drizzle of oil over medium-high heat and sear them on all sides until they have some color.
When the beef is browned, you can transfer it to the slow cooker right away.
You’ll be left with a skillet that has lots of brown bits stuck to it. Don’t wash it! Instead, add the onions, garlic, and ginger straight to the skillet with a little water and use that to scrape up those bits. That’s all flavor!
Once these have cooked for a minute, transfer the aromatics and liquid to the slow cooker.
Spices for Korean Beef Tacos
These days you can find all of these things in any supermarket. I’ve even seen the gochujang chili paste at my local supermarket. Either way, it’s worth hunting down, but if you don’t have the time, you could leave it out.
If you leave out the gochujang, I would add something spicy like maybe a few spoonfuls of chili garlic sauce.
There’s no science to this part. Just scoop all that stuff into your slow cooker with the beef and aromatics. Add about a cup of water just to give it some liquid to cook in.
Let the beef cook for about six hours on low heat. If you have a programmable slow cooker, you can set it to switch over to warm after the cook time if you are going to be out of the house all day.
Can you Use a Pressure Cooker?
If you wanted to make this dish in a pressure cooker like the Instant Pot, you definitely can. I would still brown the beef and use some water to scrape up the pan bits. Add the water to the cooker along with all the spices and cook it on high for 45 minutes. Should work great!
When the beef is done, remove it all from the slow cooker and pour out any juice. Don’t toss the juice, but remove it from the slow cooker to start.
Then shred the beef and add it back to the slow cooker with some of the cooking liquid. You won’t need all of it, but pour back enough to make sure the shredded beef is nice and moist. I would start with about a cup and play it by ear after that.
This stuff will be super-flavorful and ready for a taco!
Finishing the Slow Cooker Korean Beef Tacos
There’s no need for some of the toppings that you might think of for tacos. Namely, cheese.
Instead, mix up a quick batch of carrot slaw for these guys. Just grate a few carrots and stir together with shredded cabbage and a minced red chile.
Stir these together with some rice wine vinegar and a big pinch of salt and sugar and this will be the best topping for these tacos.
Making the Slow Cooker Korean Beef Tacos couldn’t be easier. Warm up a flour tortilla and pile one some shredded beef.
Top with the slaw, some fresh cilantro, and sesame seeds.
If you’re using medium sized tortillas, two or three of these is a fantastic meal.
The recipe makes a lot of the beef filling. It’ll keep fine in the fridge for a week or so, but you can also freeze it for later. It’s freezes beautifully!
Here are a few other great taco recipes to try!
- Spicy Pineapple Chicken Tacos
- How to Make a Homemade Taco Bowl
- Fried Tacos
- Grilled Steak Tacos from Two Peas and Their Pod
This looks great! I wanted to let your readers know that gochujang has become more mainstream these days – I bought some at my local Harris Teeter, which is a completely mainstream, if somewhat upscale, grocery store. The brand I found there was Annie Chun’s. I am including a link to a picture below, since pictures always help me find weird ingredients. Since I still have some in my fridge, I will be making your recipe very soon! Love Korean tacos.
http://www.anniechun.com/our-food/gochujang-sauce
Oh that’s awesome Renee! Thanks for the heads up on that brand.
The first Korean food truck that pops into my head is Chilantro. However, there are a LOT of food trucks here in Austin! That aside, these look great. Can’t wait to try it out.
Woa! I think it maybe was actually Chilantro. Sounds very familiar. ;)
It’s GOTTA be Chi’lantro! They have the BEST tacos and fries – thanks for this recipe, I was just searching for a slow cooker Korean BBQ Taco recipe!
Yum! I think Im going to try this with tofu, probably minus the slow cooker cause Im not sure how well the tofu would fare in there. This looks like a wonderful sauce to use up some of the tub of gochujang I have in the fridge!
These were fantastic! A lot of slow-cooker recipes I’ve tried end up tasting too mild and almost watered down, but this beef had bright, intense flavors. And it was a great way to use some of the giant container of gochujang in the fridge.
Hi Nick, I tried this recipe over the Easter weekend for five adults and two kids (increased to about 4lbs of meat) and my husband and I still had leftovers for the next day’s lunch! It was a huge hit and tasted fantastic with a Korean salad and roasted and honeyed sweet potatos. This recipe’s a keeper in my household, for sure.
After I added the juice/cooking liquid back to the beef post-shredding, I still had about a cup leftover. It ended up getting poured down the drain during a co-operative family kitchen cleanup, but I was wondering if you had ideas on what else I might be able to use the liquid for? I suppose I could always freeze it and use it for future cooking…
Hey Gemini! The thing that comes to mind immediately that you could use the leftover sauce for is a homemade BBQ sauce. It’s already super-flavorful so you could just simmer it down with maybe a little sugar, some rice wine vinegar (go easy on it), a few spices, maybe a dash of Worcestershire sauce… simmer that until it’s thick and it would be a nice quick sauce. Good luck and glad you liked the tacos!
BBQ sauce, of course! That will be perfect with our brand new BBQ. :D Thanks!
Listen. Seriously. I made this, and when the alarm on the crock pot went off, and I sampled the big bundle of yums, I dropped the spoon and did a round of champ hands and was awarded a medal for excellence in meats and bravery. I’m pretty sure there was a crowd cheering as well, but there was so much celebratory confetti and fireworks I can’t say with certainty. Whatever, you win. I’ll buy that book now, you wizard.
No Melissa. YOU win for best comment ever. ;)
Made this last night and it came out delish. Didn’t have any gochujang so used Sambal Oelek instead; will make sure to pick up some gochujang next time I’m at H Mart/asian market! Omitted the browning since I got this started at 10pm, but came out just fine. Used today in tacos with a quick sriracha mayo drizzle (sriracha, mayo, lime, fish sauce, water) and some cilantro – yum! Thanks for the inspiration.
Sounds awesome Erin! Nice substitutions. :)
Can i cook this mixture up and then let it sit and serve it up the following day ..how would you best reheat it?
cheers mate
Hey Chris. Absolutely you can. Once it’s cooked, the beef mixture would store fine in the fridge for a few days. To reheat it, just toss everything back in the slow cooker with maybe 1/4-1/2 cup of water to give it a little liquid. You want to reheat it gently so just put it on low and let it slowly warm for an hour or so before serving. Good luck!
Hi Chris-
how spicy is this. my husband and i will love the gochugang heat, but i want my daughter (no heat pls) to eat it. making this now and have pulled back the gochugang to a tsp – think it’s safe?
hope so…
thanks for the post.
mare
Hey Mari! Sure… you could cut way back on it or leave it out entirely and still end up with a great taco. I might increase the hoisin sauce a bit if you leave it out entirely. Good luck!
o dear i meant Nick!! Not Chris… ;-0
Oops – I meant Nick!! Not Chris! ;-0
I made this recipe today and it was delicious!! It went together very easily and the taste was amazing. My boyfriend, who isn’t super adventurous when it comes to new foods, even liked them. Thanks for an excellent recipe. I, too, am interested in doing something with the left over sauce and may try making it into a BBQ sauce. Any idea on what kinds of spices to use when doing this?
Made this today, and it’s a keeper. Served some Korean sides from H Mart with the slaw and beef. Delicious!
Awesome Nat! Thanks for the feedback sir!
Hi,
Just wondering what capacity my slow cooler would need to be to fit all the ingredients? Thanks! Super excited to try this recipe. :)
Hey Deborah!
I used a bit 6 qt. slow cooker, but it didn’t come close to filling it up. I think a 3-4 qt. slow cooker would be plenty big. Good luck!
Hi,
Just wondering what capacity my slow cooker would need to be to fit all the ingredients? Thanks! Super excited to try this recipe. :)
This was incredibly delicious and so easy! Thank you for sharing!
Thanks Tammy! Really glad you liked it!
My crockpot blew up, literally, cooking food in it and I saw a puff of flames comming off the bottom end of my crockpot, heavens knows what might of happen if i werent home., anyhow i threw it away. My question to you, is can I make this in my dutch oven. How much meat do i use and for how long, and what temp. would u advice,—help
Hey Cecilia! yikes!
Yep… you could absolutely make this in a dutch oven as it is essentially a braised dish. Ingredients are the same. Just add it to your dutch oven, cover it, and stick it in a 300-325 degree oven for 2-3 hours. You should end up with essentially the same finished product! Good luck!
This was so easy and sooooo good! We tried it with family in town and t was a huge hit! We loved it with the tortillas and also with a bagged Asian salad (slaw) and some rice noodles–it had a great pad Thai flair! Way to go!!!
What do you think about substituting pork instead of beef with this recipe?
You absolutely could Vanessa. I think I would use a small pork butt that shredded easily. It would work great!
Yes, that looks amazing. I am always looking for new slow cooker recipes! Love a bit of spice too.
I want this for my dinner
This was so delicious and simple to make! We gave it a try with family in town, and everyone loved it! We loved it with the tortillas, as well as with some rice noodles, a bagged Asian salad (slaw), and a great pad Thai flavor! Well done!
Now this is some great korean beef tacos. Gonna try it soon
Now this is some great korean beef tacos. Gonna try it soon. Thanks a lot for the recipe
best korean beef tacos
Thank you nick for the recipe. this will help me a lot
This korean dish is so delicious
Korean Beef tacos hits different
I think i saw a best in my life. loving it !
good article good recipe
what a Dishes ! Korean Beef Tacos looks so delicious. I will try it soon.
wow
This dish is excellent and very appealing.
I am 0bsessed with this Korean beef Tacos.