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As I was photographing this Shortcut Bibimbap recipe, the kids came up to me to ask what I was making.

“Bibibap — Bibimpap, ” I stuttered.  “I mean Bibimbap!”

They just stared at me with puzzled looks on their faces, and walked away. It’s a hard word to say (for me anyway), but trust me, it’s easy to make. My version is particularly easy because I’ve taken a few shortcuts. It’s not exactly authentic Bibimbap, but it does the trick. Bibimbap is basically a bowl of rice topped with various vegetables and meat. Normally the meat is thinly sliced or minced, and the dish often includes a fried egg — or a raw egg, if you want to get really authentic. It’s generally seasoned with a red chili pepper paste called Gochujang, but I knew my kids wouldn’t like anything too spicy so I used soy sauce instead.

Here are my tips for making this meal more quickly:

• Use ground beef instead of slicing or dicing the beef.
• Don’t use too many different types of vegetables and additions, just keep it simple.
• Use fast-cooking vegetables (bok choy, spinach), and/or vegetables that don’t require cooking at all (bean sprouts, canned mushrooms, cucumbers).
• Set out all the ingredients and let your family members/guests assemble their bowls themselves. That saves you the time of having to put everything together yourself.
• Make and freeze your rice ahead of time so you can simply reheat it when you’re preparing this meal. See my tutorial here: How to Freeze and Reheat Cooked Rice for Quick Meals

This time I used the spiralizer my mom gave me to make curly carrots. They were thin enough that I didn’t have to cook them; I just added them raw for a nice crunch. If I wanted to make it even faster, I’d use a package of broccoli slaw (like Mann’s Boccoli Cole Slaw). I love that stuff, because the veggies are already prepared in perfect thin slices to be used raw or cooked.

To get those nicely shaped eggs, I actually poached them instead of frying them. I got a pan with a poacher insert from Circulon when I did this blog post a while back and I still use it all the time for making eggs. It’s really quick and makes perfect eggs every time.

If you like Kimchi, it makes a great addition to this dish but don’t worry about it if you can’t find it or you don’t like it. This is a great meal with or without Kimchi. I happen to love the stuff, but my kids are not fans.

I’m including a meal template for Bibimbap so you can adapt this to your own taste. I really like using templates instead of strict recipes, so you’ll notice that I’ve been doing them for a lot of posts recently. But if you prefer a recipe to follow, I have that for you, too.

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Bibimbap Meal Template

Base:

• White or brown Rice
• You could also use noodles, although this wouldn’t technically be Bibimbap, since Bibimbap literally means “mixed rice” but it would still be tasty!

Meat/Protein:

• Beef (ground, sliced, or diced)
• Chicken (ground, sliced, or diced)
• Shrimp
• Tofu
• Salmon
• Tuna

Vegetables:

• cucumbers
• carrots
• spinach
• bok choy
• mushrooms
• bean sprouts
• zucchini
• lettuce
• cabbage
• radishes
• squash
• potatoes

Other additions:

• egg (fried or poached)
• Kimchi
• Gochujang

 

 

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• 1/2 tsp minced garlic
• 1 lb ground beef
• 2 bunches of baby bok choy, chopped
• 1 can of sliced mushrooms, drained
• 4 eggs, poached or fried
• 2 carrots, shredded or spiralized
• 4 cups cooked white rice
• Kimchi (optional)

Instructions

1. In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, honey and garlic. Set aside.
2. In a skillet over medium heat, cook the ground beef until browned. Drain any excess fat.
3. Add the soy sauce mixture to the beef. Turn off the heat and put the beef mixture into a bowl and cover with a lid.
4. Put the bok choy into the hot skillet you just used for the meat. Saute for 2-3 minutes, until bok choy has wilted. Moved all the bok choy to one side of the skillet and add the mushrooms to the other side just to heat them through. Remove from heat and place the bok choy and mushrooms into serving bowls. 
5. Dish out rice into 4 bowls. 
6. When you serve the rice, lay out all the ingredients on the table: beef, bok choy, carrots, mushrooms, eggs, and kimchi (if using). Invite everyone to add toppings to their bowls of rice. 
7. Alternatively, you can prepare each bowl yourself before serving, but this will increase your prep time.