Easy Korean style pan fried zucchini recipe! This is a popular Korean side dish, which can be made in under 20 mins. All you need is zucchini, flour, egg and some salt.
Thinly sliced zucchini is lightly seasoned with salt then coated in a thin batter of flour and egg. Then it is pan fried in a lightly greased pan.
While hobak jeon can be made any time of the year, summer tends to be the popular time for making it. It is also commonly served on New Years’ Day (Seollal) and Korean Thanksgiving Day (Chuseok) with other Korean celebratory food.
Korean Vegetable Pancake
Often, young Korean zucchini (Aehobak) is used in making hobak jeon. However, regular zucchini also known as courgette, summer squash, green zucchini or Italian zucchini will work as well.
Although, I find that the flesh of young Korean zucchini is more tender than regular zucchini. Also, the color of the skin is much lighter too.
Pan fried zucchini has a savory taste and very mild flavor profile. If you are used to the stronger taste of many Korean dishes, you may find this a bit bland. To help with that, you can serve the pan fried zucchini with a Korean soy dipping sauce.
Very Crunchy And Savory Zucchini Jeon Leek Jeon Zucchini Jeon Ma
Pan fried zucchini can be refrigerated in an air tight container for 2-3 days. While it can be eaten cold or warm, I do find that it tastes nicer when it is warm.
When reheating, I recommend doing it in a pan over the stove top to minimise the zucchini getting overly soggy, however it can be microwaved for your connivence.
Place the sliced zucchini on a flat surface (I used a rimmed baking sheet). Sprinkle salt (1/4 tsp) around the zucchini evenly. Rest for about 5 mins. Gently wipe any excess moisture from the zucchini with kitchen paper.
Hobak Jeon Recipe
Place the flour and remaining salt (1/2 tsp) in a freezer bag and add the zucchini. Shake the bag, while holding tightly the open end with one hand, ensuring the zucchini is evenly coated.
Take out the zucchini from the bag one by one, gently shake off excess flour, dunk them into a bowl of beaten egg. Coat both sides of the zucchini with the egg in batches.
Preheat a skillet over medium to medium low heat. Once heated, add some cooking oil and spread well. Gently place the zucchini and cook both sides until lightly golden brown.
Hobak Jeon (pan Fried Zucchini In Egg Batter)
(It is important to cook the zucchini over medium to medium low to heat to avoid burning it. It will take about 3-4 mins to cook both sides but it will depend on the thickness of your zucchini. Flip them over halfway through. You may have to cook them in batches.)
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Calories: 62 kcal | Carbohydrates: 6 g | Protein: 5 g | Fat: 2 g | Saturated Fat: 1 g | Cholesterol: 82 mg | Sodium: 469 mg | Potassium: 255 mg | Fiber: 1 g | Sugar: 1 g | Vitamin A: 359 IU | Vitamin C: 17 mg | Calcium: 23 mg | Iron: 1 mg
Galbi Wraps And Zucchini Jeon
The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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I'm Sue, the author/cook/photographer behind My Korean Kitchen. Here I talk all about my love and passion for Korean food and Korean fusion food.Korean Zucchini Fritters (Hobak Jeon) is a great banchan(side dish) for your everyday meal. I made this with some Dduk guk and they went together surprisingly well. In the past, I have not cooked many Jeon dishes because I felt that they were really not worth the effort – especially if you are having a party and have many other dishes competing with them. In a way, most Jeon dishes are kind of bland and the taste gets easily lost when there are other bigger tasting dishes such as BBQ meats. But I have recently found that when Jeon plays more of a leading role or when accompanied by more mild tasting foods, you can really appreciate the taste of the underlying ingredient much more – like the subtle sweetness of the Korean zucchini in this zucchini fritters.
Vegetable Pancake (yachaejeon)
My girl is now back from college for the summer and it was great to have her help me with this dish. She loves all kinds of Jeon (Korean Fritters) – potato, mushroom, buchu (Korean chives)- and I was so happy that I could finally teach her to make them. Even though my kitchen was covered in flour and she had to dig for egg shells from the egg batter because she cracked them too hard 😉
Korean baby zucchini (애호박) is the best kind of zucchini to use for this recipe. It is lighter in color, more tender and sweeter than your average zucchini. If you don’t have a Korean market nearby, you can also use Italian zucchini which is pretty similar. Since zucchini is the main star in this dish, the freshness of the vegetable is very critical – the egg, flour and oil just adds a bit of richness but they can only do so much. So, how do you choose and buy a good, fresh zucchini? Like many similar vegetables, choose one that is firm (there should be no give when you press with your finger). The skin should be smooth and shiny. Also, pick smaller ones and not too fat because the bigger their size, the older they are (in terms of age) and older zucchinis often taste bitter.
1. Cut zucchini into 1/4 inch slices and lay them in layers out on a plate. Can you see the little condensations around the edge of the zucchini after it is cut? This means the zucchini is still very fresh!
Hobak Jeon (korean Zucchini Fritters)
2. Lightly sprinkle the cut zucchini slices with good quality sea salt before you add another layer. Don’t over salt the zucchini since you will be dipping the Jeon pieces in soy sauce.
3. In the mean time, put some flour onto a plate or a shallow bowl. Also whisk one egg into another shallow bowl and add a pinch of salt to the egg. Check the zucchini to see if they are ready. The Zucchini slices should bend easily once ready like you see below.
5. Now you are ready to cook the Hobak Jeon or Zucchini fritters. Heat about 2 T of vegetable or olive oil in a large frying pan over medium high heat. Make an assembly line of the flour coated zucchinis -> beaten egg -> pan. Dip each floured zucchini piece into the egg, coat it fully and then put it in the frying pan. Lower the heat to medium once there are enough pieces to fill the pan.
Hobak Jeon, Pan Fried Zucchini With Dipping Sauce Stock Photo
When the edges start to brown (or you look to see how much each piece has cooked by lifting it slightly off the pan), turn them over. When both sides are nicely browned (like the photo below) Jeons are ready to be taken off the heat. Zucchini cooks pretty quickly so it’s hard to under cook it. And even if you do, you won’t get sick from it so don’t worry. If your are starting to burn them, make sure the heat is not too high. Novice cooks tend to burn things because they are not fast enough in turning things over before they are burned.
Relax! And lower the heat further to “low” if you feel overwhelmed at anytime or if you have other stuff cooking at the same time or if you just want to take things slow.. Adjust back to medium when you feel you have caught up with the cooking. Th great thing about this Jeon is that it is pretty tough for you to mess things up so don’t worry! Repeat the process until all of them are cooked. Make sure there is enough oil to go
