Korean Food in Bon Appétit Your Majesty

Netflix’s popular Korean drama ‘Bon Appétit Your Majesty'(폭군의 셰프) combines royal fantasy, romance, and fusion Korean food. Chef Yeon Ji-young, a Michelin-starred chef from the future, travels back 500 years to the Joseon dynasty. Using traditional Korean ingredients, she creates innovative Korean-French fusion dishes. Many recipes are surprisingly simple and can be recreated at home. Let’s explore the most iconic dishes featured in the drama.

The Story Behind Korean Drama ‘Bon Appétit Your Majesty‘

The Netflix Korean drama tells the story of King Yeonhee, a tyrant with a refined palate, and chef Yeon Ji-young, who introduces him to the true meaning of taste. Their encounters highlight how food transcends time, politics, and even love. At its heart, the series emphasizes that cooking is not only nourishment but also a powerful form of connection.

This Korean drama is not only fun to watch for its variety of Korean food with Korean-French fusion dishes, but also educational as it introduces cooking techniques, while the light romance adds extra charm.

Korean Food from Bon Appétit Your Majesty

Butter Gochujang Bibimbap 버터 고추장 비빔밥

This gochujang butter bibimbap uses hazelnut brown butter instead of sesame oil, topped with mountain vegetables that capture the flavors of spring. Back in the Joseon era, gochujang didn’t exist yet, and most dishes were mild. That’s why King Yeonhee and Yeon Ji-young’s friend Seo Gil-geum were shocked at first by its spiciness. But the nutty, rich flavor of brown butter softens the heat of gochujang and elevates its depth, creating a French-inspired fusion bibimbap. It’s so delicious that both the King and Seo Gil-geum can’t stop eating.

Recipe of Gochujang Butter Bibimbap

This butter gochujang bibimbap is an easy Korean food to recreate at home. While fernbrake (gosari) and mountain greens are hard to find outside Korea, you can use common bibimbap vegetables like spinach, bean sprouts, carrots, and mushrooms. Add hazelnut brown butter, gochujang, and a soft-fried egg or
poached egg on top. Since butter replaces sesame oil, don’t add both—otherwise, the flavors will clash. This dish shows that butter can be a perfect substitute if you don’t have Korean sesame oil at home.

Sous Vide Steak 수비드 스테이크

Yeon Ji-young discovers beef that’s fresh but extremely tough. Unlike Koreans today who love juicy, marbled beef like Wagyu, this cut needed to be tenderized. She chose the sous vide method to transform it into a melt-in-your-mouth steak.

Recipe of Sous Vide Steak

Cook the steak at 49–55°C using sous vide. She also prepares a seasoning powder with anchovies, salted shrimp, and mushrooms—a Joseon-era version of what we now know as MSG, bursting with umami. The King calls it cheon-ha il-mi (meaning “the best taste under heaven”), falling even more in love with the dish.

Korean French Haute Cuisine 코리안 프렌치 오뜨 퀴진

Rooted in the grandeur of Versailles, Chef Yeon presents authentic French haute cuisine with a Korean twist.

Recipe of Korean French Haute Cuisine

• Starter (Hors d’oeuvre): Yukhoe is originally a Korean beef tartare, but in this case, she made it using venison instead of beef, mixed with vegetables like pear, scallions, and sprouts, topped with egg yolk. And it’s served on crispy fried kelp chips.

• Soup (Potage): A thick pea soup.

• Main (Viande): Grilled venison tongue, cooked lightly over charcoal Korean BBQ style to enhance texture and flavor.

A funny moment happens when the King, unfamiliar with French, mimics the presentation in his own Korean way.

Trendy Yukhoe Recipe

This is a trendy Korean yukhoe recipe. At fusion Korean food bars, it’s often served with crispy fried rice paper, alongside the yukhoe (Korean raw beef tartare), for a modern, playful presentation.

Jaecheop Doenjang Soup Set Meal 재첩 된장국 반상

In a royal cooking contest, other chefs prepare elaborate court dishes like eomandu (dumplings wrapped in thin fish slices) and yeonpotang (clear tofu soup). But Yeon Ji-young surprises everyone with a humble meal: rice, spinach doenjang soup, fried tofu, and seasoned spinach.

Recipe of Jaecheop Doenjang Soup

Her special twist is adding freshwater clams (jaecheop) to the soup, making it refreshing and deeply flavorful. The Queen Mother is moved to tears, recalling her mother feeding her rice with doenjang soup before entering the palace.

By including spinach, Yeon softens the flavor and adds natural sweetness. She also explains that spinach is good for bones and anemia, emphasizing the Korean concept of sik-yak dong-won—food as medicine.

Doenjang Pasta 된장 파스타

Of course, pasta didn’t exist in Joseon. So Yeon Ji-young makes pasta noodles from buckwheat instead.

Recipe of Doenjang Pasta

She makes buckwheat pasta noodles first and creates a savory sauce with stir-fried doenjang, clams for umami, and tops it with spinach and garlic for sweetness.

The King slurps it down in delight, twirling buckweat noodles with chopsticks and a spoon since forks didn’t exist at the time—a scene that adds a playful touch.

Creamy Doenjang Pasta

Although this isn’t one of the fusion Korean dishes from the drama, it’s a fusion Korean pasta made with doenjang, similar to the one in the show. By adding cream, it becomes a smooth, creamy doenjang pasta. The savory umami of the doenjang blends with the cream, creating a rich, cheese-like flavor.

FAQs About Bon Appétit, Your Majesty and Korean Food

The Korean dishes featured in upcoming episodes of Bon Appétit, Your Majesty will be updated here as each episode is released — so stay tuned!