Haejangguk (해장국) is the Korean soup for the morning after a long night. The name says so: haejang is usually traced to haejeong (解酲), to relieve a hangover.
It is a hearty beef-bone broth, usually with bean sprouts, napa cabbage and doenjang, and in its best-known form, slices of congealed ox blood.
It is not a Korean New Year dish. On Seollal, the lunar new year, the bowl on every table is tteokguk, the rice cake soup. Haejangguk belongs to any morning after a long night, which makes it a good pot for January 1.
Whether it cures anything is a separate question. Koreans have eaten it the morning after for centuries regardless.
An old soup with an older name
The oldest written trace of the dish is a word. A late Goryeo-period language manual, the Nogeoldae, written to teach spoken Chinese, records a soup called seongjutang (醒酒湯), “soup for sobering up.” It describes a broth with sliced meat, noodles, scallion and a peppery spice, which is close to the basic shape of haejangguk now. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture treats it as the likely origin of haejangguk, though the line between the two is an inference rather than a record.
Joseon-era cookbooks do not mention haejangguk by name. It appears instead in paintings and later documents. A genre painting by Shin Yun-bok, Jumakdo, shows a roadside tavern where the keeper ladles soup out of a cauldron for a group of idle young men from well-off families. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes the scene as idle sons of wealthy families gathering to eat haejangguk, which suggests the morning-after soup was already part of tavern life.
What goes into it
Haejangguk is a family of soups, not one recipe. Most share three things: a long-simmered broth, something green and crunchy, and a deep, savory seasoning.
The broth. Beef bones, sometimes with brisket, simmered for hours until the stock turns rich. Anchovy and kelp broth makes a lighter version.
The vegetables. Soybean sprouts are the most common, along with dried napa cabbage leaves or siraegi, dried radish greens. Scallions go in at the end.
The seasoning. Doenjang, the fermented soybean paste, gives most versions their body. Gochugaru adds heat and color. Soup soy sauce and garlic finish it.
The protein. In the central region around Seoul, the classic is seonjitguk (선짓국), made with seonji, slices of congealed ox blood, which have the texture of soft tofu and a mild, iron-rich flavor. Many versions skip the blood and use shredded brisket instead.
Regional pots
Each part of Korea has its own morning-after soup.
Seoul and Gyeonggi: ox-bone broth with bean sprouts, napa cabbage and seonji, the version most people picture.
Jeonju: kongnamul gukbap, a clear bean-sprout soup ladled over rice in a hot earthenware bowl, often with an egg, raw or lightly poached. It is lighter than the beef versions and is eaten as a hangover breakfast across the country.
Busan and the Seomjin River: jaecheopguk, a clear soup of tiny river clams and chives, delicate and pale.
Gangwon’s east coast: seopguk, a mussel soup from Yangyang and Sokcho, best from late winter to early spring.
Everywhere: bugeoguk, a clear soup made from dried pollock.
Five things Korean home cooks do differently explains how doenjang and the other fermented pastes give soups like these their depth.
Does it work
Korean folk wisdom credits several ingredients with helping a hangover, most often the bean sprouts. The scientific support for that is thin. What the soup certainly does is deliver salt, water, warmth and a meal that is easy on a tired stomach, and those are most of what a person needs the morning after.
The ritual matters too. December in Korea is crowded with songnyeonhoe (송년회), the year-end gatherings of colleagues and friends that see the old year out, and the mornings after them are what haejangguk restaurants are for.
A New Year’s Day pot
For an American New Year’s Day, haejangguk makes sense in a way a fancy brunch does not. It can be made the day before, it reheats well, and it feeds a crowd who stayed up late.
Serves 4 to 6.
The day before. Put 2 pounds of beef soup bones and a 1-pound piece of brisket in a large pot, cover with water, bring to a boil for 10 minutes, then drain and rinse to remove the scum. Return to the pot with 12 cups of fresh water, half an onion and a 3-inch piece of Korean radish. Simmer for 2 to 3 hours. Lift out the brisket, shred it, and strain the broth. Refrigerate both overnight and lift off the fat in the morning.
The vegetables. Rinse 8 ounces of soybean sprouts. Blanch 6 to 8 leaves of napa cabbage for 2 minutes, squeeze dry and tear into strips.
The seasoning. Mix 3 tablespoons of doenjang, 1 to 2 tablespoons of gochugaru, 4 cloves of minced garlic and 1 tablespoon of soup soy sauce with the cabbage and the shredded brisket, and let it sit for 10 minutes.
On the morning. Bring the broth to a boil. Add the seasoned cabbage and brisket and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the bean sprouts and cook for 5 minutes with the lid on, so they lose their raw taste. Taste for salt, add sliced scallion and serve in heavy bowls with rice on the side and a dish of radish kimchi.
Rice can go into the bowl, as a gukbap, or beside it. Both are correct.
If a second Korean dish is wanted on the first day of the year, tteokguk, the rice cake soup of the lunar new year, is the gentler, ceremonial option.
The short version
Haejangguk is the Korean morning-after soup, named for relieving a hangover. It is not a New Year tradition in Korea, where Seollal belongs to tteokguk.
A late Goryeo language manual records an ancestral “soup for sobering up,” and a Joseon tavern painting is often read as showing it being served. Most versions are a long-simmered beef broth with bean sprouts, napa cabbage and doenjang; Seoul’s classic adds congealed ox blood. Regional pots range from Jeonju’s bean-sprout rice soup to the clam broth of the south. It is best made the day before, which makes it an easy New Year’s Day pot.
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