Must try in South Korea

Pajeon.

Name: Pajeon (Korean Scallion Pancakes)
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 27 min
Yield: 2 servings
Cuisine: South Korea
Ingredients: 10 scallions, trimmed, halved lengthwise if thick; 100 g plain flour; 40 g potato starch or cornstarch; 180 ml ice-cold water; 1 egg, lightly beaten; ½ tsp fine salt; 4 tbsp neutral oil, for frying; 3 tbsp soy sauce; 1 tbsp rice vinegar or white vinegar; 1 tsp toasted sesame oil; ½ tsp sugar; ½ tsp gochugaru (Korean chili flakes); 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Korean Scallion Pancakes

파전 · Pajeon · say it: pah-JUN

Pajeon is a savory Korean pancake in which the scallions are not a flavoring but the structure: whole lengths of them laid in a hot, well-oiled pan and bound together with just enough thin batter to hold, then fried until the underside crackles deep golden and the edges go lacy and crisp. It tastes of sweet softened scallion, toasty browned batter and the sharp soy-vinegar sauce it is dipped in. The whole trick is restraint and temperature — a cold, lumpy, almost-too-thin batter, generous oil, and the patience not to flip early. From mixing bowl to table takes twenty-five minutes, and it disappears in five.

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Korean Scallion Pancakes

Gate: South Korea
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 12 min
Total time: 27 min
Serves: 2
Status: Easy
Nutrition / serving · estimated: Calories 440 kcal; Protein 10 g; Carbs 54 g; Fat 21 g; Fiber 3 g; Sodium 1400 mg

Why this recipe works.

Ice-cold, barely mixed batter — the documented route to crisp, lacy edges instead of bread.
Whole scallion lengths, the way pajeon is actually built, not chopped-scallion pancake batter.
Generous-oil shallow fry with sound cues, so you know when to flip instead of guessing.
The dipping sauce is included — pajeon without it is half a dish.

Tips from our kitchen.

Keep the batter cold — ice water, and mix it only at the last minute. Cold batter hitting hot oil is what makes the edges shatter instead of turning bready.
Stop stirring while the batter is still a little lumpy. Overmixing develops gluten, and gluten makes a chewy pancake instead of a crisp one.
Use more oil than feels virtuous — 3–4 tablespoons per pancake. Pajeon is shallow-fried, not dry-griddled, and the oil is where the lacy edge comes from.
Do not crowd or thicken: a thin pancake with scallions showing through the batter crisps; a thick one steams itself soft in the middle.
Flip only when the edges are visibly deep golden and the pancake slides loose when you shake the pan — an early flip tears it.
Eat immediately. Pajeon loses its crispness within minutes, which is why it is fried last and served straight from the pan.

Substitutions.

Potato starch → Cornstarch or rice flour: Any of these lightens the wheat flour and adds crispness; plain flour alone works but the result is noticeably breadier.
Scallions → Garlic chives (buchu): Makes it buchujeon, an equally traditional pancake — slightly more garlicky, same method.
Korean pancake mix (buchimgaru) → This from-scratch batter: It works the other way too: if you find buchimgaru at a Korean grocery, use it straight with ice water — it is seasoned and pre-blended for exactly this job.

Variations.

Haemul pajeon (seafood): The restaurant favorite: scatter 150 g of chopped squid and shrimp over the scallions before the batter goes on. Richer and heavier — press gently so the seafood anchors into the pancake.
Kimchi jeon: Swap the scallions for well-fermented chopped kimchi and a spoon of its juice stirred into the batter — tangy, reddish, and arguably even better with makgeolli.
Small party jeon: Fry palm-sized pancakes instead of one large one — easier to flip, crisper overall, and better for a table of shared dishes.

Storage & reheating.

Pajeon is at its best minutes out of the pan. Leftovers keep 2 days refrigerated; revive them in a dry hot skillet or air fryer until the surface re-crisps — a microwave turns them limp. You can freeze cooked pancakes between parchment for a month and reheat from frozen in a pan, accepting some loss of crispness. The dipping sauce keeps a week refrigerated.

Serve with

Makgeolli (Korean rice wine) or cold beer, and other banchan if it's part of a bigger Korean spread.

The story behind Pajeon.

Pajeon belongs to the jeon family — the broad Korean category of ingredients pan-fried in batter or egg, made everywhere from holiday tables to street stalls. The name is literal: pa means scallion, jeon means pan-fried thing, and in a proper pajeon the scallion carries the dish, laid in whole lengths rather than chopped into the batter. Jeon of many kinds have deep roots in Korean royal and household cooking; pajeon is the everyday, scallion-forward member of the clan that every Korean home and pub knows.

The most famous regional version is Dongnae pajeon, from the Dongnae district of Busan in the country's southeast — a lush, thick pancake loaded with seafood and finished with egg, associated with the area's old market culture; local tradition holds it was once presented to the king, a claim best filed under proud local lore rather than verified history. The seafood-studded style in general is called haemul pajeon and is what many restaurants serve by default.

Pajeon also owns one of Korea's most charming food customs: it is rainy-day food. When it rains, Koreans crave pajeon with makgeolli, the milky rice wine, and pajeon restaurants genuinely expect the bump in business. The popular explanation is sensory — the sound of rain on the roof resembles batter sizzling in oil — and whatever the real psychology, the pairing is a fixture of Korean life, referenced constantly in conversation and pop culture. That is the correct way to serve this: cut into rough squares, communal plate in the middle, dipping sauce within everyone's reach, and ideally something drumming on the window.

Questions, answered.

What is pajeon?

Pajeon is a Korean savory pancake — pa means scallion and jeon means pan-fried — in which whole lengths of scallion are bound with a thin wheat-flour batter and shallow-fried until golden and crisp at the edges. It is served cut into pieces with a soy-vinegar dipping sauce, as an appetizer, a shared snack, or a companion to drinks.

Why do Koreans eat pajeon when it rains?

It is a genuine and much-loved custom: rainy weather in Korea means pajeon and makgeolli, the milky rice wine, and pancake houses see real spikes in business when it pours. The popular explanation is that rain hitting the roof sounds like batter sizzling in hot oil. Whatever the true origin, the pairing is a fixture of Korean food culture.

How do I make pajeon crispy instead of soggy?

Four levers: use ice-cold water in the batter and mix it minimally (lumps are fine); lighten the wheat flour with potato starch or cornstarch; keep the batter layer thin enough that scallions show through; and shallow-fry in a properly generous amount of hot oil, flipping only once the edges are deep golden. Thick batter and timid oil are the two usual causes of soft pajeon.

What is the difference between pajeon and haemul pajeon?

Haemul means seafood — haemul pajeon is the same scallion pancake with squid, shrimp or other shellfish scattered in before the batter sets, and it is the default version in many Korean restaurants. The most famous regional take, Dongnae pajeon from Busan, is a particularly rich seafood-and-egg style. Plain pajeon, as written here, is the simpler home version.

What goes in the dipping sauce for pajeon?

The base is soy sauce sharpened with vinegar, usually with sesame oil, a little sugar, sliced scallion and toasted sesame seeds, plus gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) if you want gentle heat. It is mixed in a minute and matters more than it looks — the salty-sour dip cuts the fried richness, and pajeon feels incomplete without it.

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