Tofu Artistry: Vegan Korean Cooking Class in Seoul

Seoul is an endless parade of cute cafes, outdoor events, and pop-ups you can take photos at and post online to feed the every growing sense of FOMO that makes the world go round.

But there’s another side to the city that can be easily missed if you don’t know what to look for. That’s the side with tea ceremonies, museum exhibitions, and, for those with culinary inclinations, cooking classes. A few years ago, cooking classes were all the rage for locals in Korea. They’ve always been popular at community centers, but then they started being held at high-end shopping malls, restaurants, cafes, bakeries and just about everywhere else you could imagine. Of course, there was always one common factor… the instructors only spoke Korean.

That’s why we were so excited when we found Tofu Artist on Instagram. Her recipes are vegan, the classes are short (2 hours) and the instructor speaks English. The holy trinity. That isn’t to say we’re vegan. We’re not. But traditional Korean food tends to be more vegetarian or vegan without trying and it’s the simplest thing to add some egg, fish, or bacon if you so choose.

Clean Eating, Delicious Recipes

Tofu Artist’s classes are held in Itaewon, just off the mainstreet and a 5-minute walk from the subway station. When we arrived, we were a little surprised to see that most of the veggies had been precut and the sauces were already prepared. It’s a good thing, believe me. This meant we didn’t have to do any preliminary food prep and we could immediately jump into cooking (and she gave us the recipe for the sauces after).

First up was a Korean dish that we never tire of eating: gimbap. While the dish is by no means difficult to prepare, it’s also incredibly easy to get wrong. Especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. The rice was pre-prepped which made it easier to spread on to the seaweed wrap. From there, we added the fillings and toppings before using the bamboo roller to finalize the roll. Here’s where a few tips actually helped us put it together in a way that (a) doesn’t lead to broken seaweed and (b) add the final brush of sesame oil to make it extra-delicious.

Next up, we went in for another classic and favored dish: sundubu jjigae, or spicy soft tofu stew. This time around, we chopped the onions ourselves and measured out the chili pepper and sesame oil along with some vegetable stock. Like many Korean dishes, there’s isn’t much else to do besides add it all together and start cooking. But the recipe we got start with cooking the onions first in the ceramic pot with a healthy drizzle of sesame oil. Once the onions were nice and translucent, we added the pepper flakes, vegetable stock and tofu. This is one of my favorite dishes and it literally took less than 20 minutes to cook. I would have never imagined.

For the final two dishes, we were working with bean curd and rice cake. The bean curd pancakes consisted of an easy mix of bean curd, flour, and green onion before frying them in oil. Likewise, the rice cake was easy enough with extra special attention paid to the choosing and placement of the edible flowers which made them look absolutely beautiful. And almost too pretty to eat… almost.

After two hours and multiple conversations about European cuisine later, we had a veritable feast. We finally had the chance to dig and… it was delicious! Ridiculously so! The recipes were easy enough that we’d feel comfortable replicating them at home with a few additions (like eggs with the sundubu jjigae). It was a fun way to spend our early afternoon and a great way to get out of the summer heat.

How can I take these cooking classes in Seoul?

Reservations can be made online here. The chef does spend a fair amount of time bouncing back and forth between Korea and Europe, so her classes can be limited in number and the classes themselves are small to encourage conversation and a more intimate experience.

Was it worth it?

Yes. Full-on 100% yes.

To be honest, we don’t get tired of cute cafes and delicious Korean cuisine, but Seoul is slowly shifting to offering more experiences rather than just things to buy and places to take photos. This may not be for everyone, but if you’re looking for a unique experience that you can take home with you, this is it.