Gim Bugak: Korean Fried Seaweed Chips (김부각)
A finished piece of gim bugak snaps rather than bends, and the snap comes from a coating that goes on and dries long before the oil ever gets hot. Korean home cooks make these seaweed chips in batches, keep them flat and unfried, and fry them only when someone is about to eat.
Cooking Order
Ingredients
Editor's Detail
A finished piece of gim bugak snaps rather than bends, and the snap comes from a coating that goes on and dries long before the oil ever gets hot. Korean home cooks make these seaweed chips in batches, keep them flat and unfried, and fry them only when someone is about to eat. Three stages settle the result: the paste, the drying, and the few seconds at the end.
Table of Contents
- What Gim Bugak Is, and How It Differs from Twigak
- What Goes Into Gim Bugak: Laver Sheets and a Rice-Flour Paste
- Why the Rice Paste Makes Laver Puff
- Coating and Drying, the Stage That Decides the Texture
- Frying Gim Bugak: What the Records Actually Say
- Where Gim Bugak Goes Wrong, and How to Keep the Crunch
- From 1950s Cookbooks to the Laver-Chip Aisle
- Questions Cooks Ask About Korean Laver Chips
- Make the Sheets Now, Fry Them Tonight
What Gim Bugak Is, and How It Differs from Twigak
Bugak (부각) — a technique of coating food in glutinous-rice paste before frying — covers a whole family of foods. The Academy of Korean Studies lists perilla leaves, chrysanthemum leaves, burdock leaves, green chili peppers, potatoes, and gim (김) — the paper-thin sheets of dried Korean laver — among the raw materials. The named types of Korean gim and how they differ belong to a guide of their own.
The National Folk Museum of Korea’s encyclopedia separates bugak from twigak by the paste: food coated before frying is bugak, food fried without a coating is twigak. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture adds that some foods made the same way are called jaban (자반) instead. Gim jaban sits on that list. The paste is a reliable test, but not an exhaustive one, and a separate guide covers the other things Koreans make from gim.
The usual construction takes two sheets, glued face to face with the paste, and English-language shops sell the result as laver chips or seaweed chips.
What Goes Into Gim Bugak: Laver Sheets and a Rice-Flour Paste
Starting With Plain Dried Laver
Two of the five national entries tell the cook to pick specks and grit out of mareun-gim (마른김) — plain dried laver — before any paste touches it.
Choosing sheets is its own subject, covered in what Korean laver is as an ingredient, and which coasts grow Korea’s laver is a different question altogether.
Chapssal-pul, the Paste That Does the Work
Chapssal-garu (찹쌀가루) — glutinous rice flour — is cooked with liquid into chapssal-pul (찹쌀풀). That paste holds the sheets together and does the puffing. Two of the five entries, from South Gyeongsang and North Gyeongsang, record the same ratio, 1 cup of flour to 1½ cups of water. The North Jeolla entry works from a smaller batch, 4 tablespoons to ½ cup, cooked over low heat until it thickens.
The South Jeolla entry replaces the water with a stock of anchovies, kelp, and shiitake, seasoned with salt and soy sauce, which makes the liquid there an anchovy-and-kelp broth (myeolchi-dasima yuksu). The stickiness comes from glutinous rice (chapssal) in Korean cooking, and wheat flour appears in the record as an alternative.
What Goes On Top, and What It Is Fried In
Once the paste is on, three of the five entries scatter toasted sesame seeds and gochugaru (고춧가루), Korean red chili powder, over the wet surface — the South Gyeongsang entry specifying a fine grind. Two of those three also season the paste itself. North Gyeongsang uses soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, and ground sesame salt. The fifth entry, the one the database files under everyday cooking, uses soy sauce and sugar. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture names soybean oil and deulgireum (들기름) — perilla oil for bugak generally, while the national recipe entries simply specify neutral cooking oil.
Why the Rice Paste Makes Laver Puff
The Academy of Korean Studies’ Encyclopedia of Korean Culture states the mechanism outright and puts the cause in the paste. The entry describes the result as crisp and nutty.
In gim bugak the glutinous-rice paste is what swells in hot oil, and that swelling is what makes a limp sheet turn brittle. The paste has been dried onto the laver long before the oil is hot. The heat meets a skin, not a wet batter.
The same encyclopedia calls bugak an unusual technique in a cuisine that fries relatively little.
Coating and Drying, the Stage That Decides the Texture
The South Jeolla entry describes the order on a cutting board. One sheet of laver goes down, paste is brushed over it, a second sheet is laid on top, and paste goes over that face too before toasted sesame seeds are scattered over the top. The pieces then go out to dry in the sun with space between them, since they stick otherwise.
What is drying at this stage is the paste, not the laver. The sheets came in already dry, so this is a second drying and a different process from how wet laver becomes a dried sheet.
None of the five entries puts a time on the drying. They describe states instead. At the leathery stage the South Gyeongsang entry has the cook pull each piece flat and cut it into three, then dry it hard again. The North Gyeongsang entry gives the sharpest cue, telling the cook to gather the pieces in just before the laver starts to curl. The North Jeolla entry flattens each sheet before the paste goes on, then folds the pasted sheet in half rather than laying a second one over it. The same entry waits until the sheets are dry, then cuts them into squares about 4 centimeters (1½ inches) across.
Frying Gim Bugak: What the Records Actually Say
Korea’s national traditional-foods database records frying gim bugak at 140–150 °C (284–302 °F) in its South Gyeongsang entry. That is one of five entries in the Rural Development Administration’s traditional local foods database, and they do not agree. The North Jeolla entry runs hotter, at about 160 °C (320 °F), and dusts the pieces with sugar while they are still warm. The South Jeolla entry gives no number, asking instead that the oil not be allowed to run hot so the frying stays quick and light.
Food scientists have fried these sheets under their own conditions, which do not converge either.
| Source | What was fried | Temperature | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| RDA entry 91631 (South Gyeongsang) | gim bugak | 140–150 °C (284–302 °F) | fried when it is eaten |
| RDA entry 92428 (North Jeolla) | gim bugak | about 160 °C (320 °F) | not stated |
| RDA entry 90258 (South Jeolla) | gim bugak | oil kept low, not hot | quick and light |
| Korean Journal of Food and Nutrition, 2011 | lab-made gim bugak | 90 °C then 190 °C (194 °F → 374 °F) | 20 s in the first stage |
| Food Science and Biotechnology, 2017 | bugak, pan-fried | 180 °C (356 °F) | not stated |
| Food Research International, 2025 | a deep-fried laver snack | 175 °C (347 °F) | 2–23 s tested, 8 s optimal |
In the 2025 study of a deep-fried laver snack, eight seconds came out best, and the study reports no further improvement beyond that. The study measured things you can see at your own stove: how far the coating swelled, how dark it went, and whether the sheet held its shape. Watch the coating rather than the clock.
Deep-frying is the standard finish, but it is not the only one on record. The North Gyeongsang entry lets the pieces be pan-fried, and the everyday entry brushes the dried sheets with sesame oil and grills them on a wire rack. The South Jeolla entry has the cook fry a few pieces at a time.
Where Gim Bugak Goes Wrong, and How to Keep the Crunch
Most of what goes wrong is already written into the national entries as a warning rather than a step. In the South Jeolla entry the pieces are laid out with space between them and moved as they dry, so they will not stick. The same entry asks for oil cool enough to keep the frying quick and light.
Both timing cues in the five entries point to the same risk. A sheet left out past the point the North Gyeongsang entry describes shrinks out of shape, and one that is never pulled flat mid-drying, as the South Gyeongsang entry directs, sets crooked.
The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture says bugak has to be kept in a sealed container so moisture cannot reach it. The South Jeolla entry adds that the pieces should be dried hard so moisture cannot settle in them, and two entries store them standing on edge, one of them in a box.
The National Folk Museum of Korea’s online magazine records the fix for a sheet that curls while it dries: brush the paste past the edge of the laver. The entries themselves ask for an even coat.
From 1950s Cookbooks to the Laver-Chip Aisle
Gim bugak belongs to the mareun-chan (마른찬), the dry banchan (반찬) — side dishes — that a Korean household keeps on hand. The national database files all five entries under that heading. The sheets are made in quantity, stored, and cooked a handful at a time. The wider spread is covered in where dry banchan sit on a Korean table and the other ways Koreans eat gim.
The National Folk Museum of Korea’s encyclopedia traces the name gim bugak to cookbooks of the 1950s, with the fullest early account in Ijo gungjeong yori tonggo (이조궁정요리통고, 1957), a compendium of Joseon royal-court cookery.
Bugak as a technique is tied to Korean temple cooking, and the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture’s example is a potato bugak made at Songgwangsa (송광사), a Buddhist temple. Gim bugak itself is documented from mid-twentieth-century cookbooks, not from temple kitchens.
Outside Korea the chips are eaten as a snack rather than beside rice, the National Folk Museum of Korea records, and at least one Korean maker prints LAVER CHIPS across the bag. The same museum credits a sharp rise in domestic demand to a 2018 episode of MBC’s I Live Alone, in which Mamamoo’s Hwasa ate gim bugak. The K-Beauty Kitchen column takes up how seaweed fits into the everyday Korean diet, and a mini-gimbap shop in Myeongdong shows where laver ends up in the city.
Questions Cooks Ask About Korean Laver Chips
What makes gim bugak authentically Korean?
Gim bugak starts as a pair of dried laver sheets bonded by a paste cooked from glutinous rice flour, dried hard, then fried for seconds, and that paste is what makes a piece bugak and not twigak. Sesame seeds and chili powder go over the wet paste in three of the five entries Korea’s Rural Development Administration records.
What if I can’t find glutinous rice flour for gim bugak?
The documented substitute for glutinous rice flour is wheat flour, which the National Folk Museum of Korea’s encyclopedia records in its place. Leaving the coating off is not an option, because the coating is the part that swells in the oil.
How do I know when gim bugak is properly fried?
The coating is what to watch, not the clock. A 2025 study of a deep-fried laver snack judged results on three visible signs: the coating has expanded, the color has not gone dark, and the sheet has not buckled. The two national entries that give a number put the oil between 140 and 160 °C (284 to 320 °F).
What should I serve with Korean seaweed chips?
Gim bugak counts as a dry side dish, so it sits alongside rice and wetter banchan. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture’s entry on twigak defines that family as banchan (반찬) — side dishes — made by frying in oil, and notes bugak is used the same way. Abroad the chips are treated as a snack instead.
Make the Sheets Now, Fry Them Tonight
Most of what decides the texture is settled before the pan is even hot. The paste goes on evenly, a second sheet usually goes on top, and the pieces dry until they are hard, however long that takes. Frying is the short part, a few seconds somewhere between 140 and 160 °C (284 to 320 °F), and the coating tells you when to lift them out.
Make a tray of sheets now, keep them sealed against moisture, and fry a handful the evening you want them. If there is laver left over, beef gimbap is another way to use it.
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