21 Popular Korean Desserts to Try

This adorable pastry is the Korean version of Japanese taiyaki, a popular snack during the cold winter months!

These charming little fish can come with a variety of fillings, such as custard, chocolate, Nutella, or red bean paste.

You can also make it savory with ham and cheese!

Dalgona Candy has a sweet and luscious flavor and texture that melts in your mouth.

It's made with melted sugar and baking soda, resulting in a crunchy candy that looks like a cookie!

It has a sweet honey flavor with the richness of caramel for a delightful treat, making it perfect for every occasion. 

If you love a small and elegant dessert, you'll love these cute Korean tea cookies, which come in all kinds of flavors.

This kind of cookie is soft and delicate with a sweet, chewy dessert experience.

Some common flavors include sesame, matcha, and red bean. The best part is these are easy to make, even for people who aren’t the most confident bakers. 

If you want a Korean dessert that you can get away with eating in the morning, save this recipe for sweet pancakes!

They’re made with dark brown sugar, giving them a rich and toasty flavor that blows normal pancakes away.

These hot cakes are fluffy and flavorful and take minutes to make. 

A Pepero cake is an elegant chocolate cake using rolled wafers to add a surprising crunch.

You can make this cake quickly and easily, making a moist and tasty cake in less than an hour.

You can also get creative with this chocolate wafer cake, using your favorite chocolate or wafers to make it unique. 

Here’s a Korean dessert you can drink!

This sweet rice drink is a distinct experience, with a barley smell and a well-balanced flavor.

If you love malted milkshakes, you’ll be obsessed with this earthy but sweet flavor.

It has a sort of nutty, slushy texture, depending on the ingredients you incorporate. 

Sujeonggwa is a spicy Korean punch often consumed as a light dessert.

It features pine nuts, cinnamon, ginger, and other warm spices that many people associate with autumn.

Some consider this drink a Korean version of fall drinks like warm apple cider or a hot toddy. It can be served chilled or piping hot when it's cold outside. 

Koreans know how to incorporate rice into everything and make it taste fantastic, and this bundt cake is no exception.

With sweet rice flour, bean paste, and standard cake ingredients, this bundt cake has an unassuming appearance but a mighty powerful flavor profile. 

One of the most decadent Korean desserts is this Korean honey pastry, made with pine nuts, soju, and rice syrup.

This sweet pastry is traditionally fried and then coated in an indulgent rice syrup that is sweet and sticky.

It’s a chewy, brightly-flavored pastry, perfect for when you want to treat yourself. 

This half-moon rice cake dessert has a distinct and unmatched herby flavor you don’t find in too many desserts.

It includes pine needles, sesame oil, tea powder, and other intriguing ingredients which combine to make a mesmerizing flavor.

The cakes have a bouncy texture and are soft and smushy when you bite into them. 

If you want a healthy Korean dessert, try this fancy melon dish.

This dessert is perfect for people of all ages, from babies to grandparents, thanks to its healthy ingredients and mushy texture.

It's a combination of melon balls with sweetened milk cleverly served in the hollow melon for a beautiful presentation. 

Banana Tteok isn’t the most common Korean dessert, so you can widen your foodie horizons by making this recipe.

It’s a simple recipe that combines bananas with rice powder or a different binder, resulting in this soft balls that look like donut holes.

But the rice cake balls are boiled, making them healthier than fried donut holes. 

It doesn’t get easier than this microwave rice cake.

You can make this luscious Korean dessert in less than 10 minutes and still experience all the wonderful Korean flavors you want.

The tiny rice cakes use sweet rice flour for the traditional Korean flavor, and the soybean coating makes for a soft, powdery mouthfeel. 

This Korean dessert can be made with a variety of nut fillings, but I love this chestnut black sesame recipe because the flavor is deep and cozy.

You can make these sweet waffles in the morning and treat yourself to a fancy Korean breakfast, or make them for dessert and plop a scoop of ice cream on top. 

Hwajeon is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful Korean desserts you can make.

They are little pancakes with fresh flowers in them, usually pear blossoms or rose petals.

You can enchant and impress your guests with these vibrant and elegant pancakes. And once you get the hang of this dough recipe, you can make these anytime. 

Way better than a snowcone, this shaved ice dessert features red beans and freshly cut fruit for a colorful and refreshing dessert.

The shaved ice is filled with sweetened condensed milk for a creamy texture similar to ice cream but with a bolder taste. 

This Korean dessert puts classic fruit cakes to shame!

It’s a sweet rice cake made with dried fruits and nuts, offering a complex flavor profile of fruit and the delectable crunch of your favorite nuts.

I love this recipe with pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, and chestnuts, but you can use your favorite nuts, like pistachios or pecans!

A lovely Korean treat is these pan-friend sweet dumplings.

You’re probably familiar with Korean savory dumplings, but this recipe is a sweet version of those yummy dough pockets.

With fresh flowers in the dough and a decadent filling like red bean paste, these will become your new favorite dessert. 

A lesser-known but fabulous Korean dessert is gangjeong, a crunchy, nutty candy.

It’s a rice candy syrup, so it has a super chewy and slightly tacky texture with a distinct crunch.

I love this specific recipe for gangjeong because it uses homemade rice syrup, which tastes better than the store-bought stuff. 

One of the more interesting Korean desserts is yeongeun jorim, braised lotus roots.

Lotus flower roots aren’t a common ingredient, but these sweet soy roots have a tender texture and captivating flavor.

They’re sticky and perfectly gooey, traditionally served as a side dish in the fall. 

A classic Korean dessert you’ve likely seen is sticky rice dumplings.

You can often find these at Korean restaurants or Asian supermarkets, but nothing beats homemade ones.

They are sweet and chewy with the vibrant flavor of red bean paste. A brilliant reason to make these is they keep for a long time, so store them in the fridge as a delicious snack.