Buffalo Cauliflower Korean Pancake

A crispy chewy Korean style pancake loaded with the flavors of buffalo cauliflower and served with a spicy soy gochugaru ranch! There is so much flavor packed into these Korean style pancakes, but the ranch might steal the show, as ranch often does. I spiked the ranch with some rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and gochugaru to make it a cross between what I would have with buffalo cauliflower and what I would have with a Korean pancake.

The inspiration for this recipe

Korean pancakes are one of my favorite foods, so why should kimchi hog all the fun? I have made these with pickles before and they are awesome, so I decided to try some other flavors. The reason it is so awesome with pickles is because it tastes like fried pickles without the effort of deep frying and battering the pickles. Buffalo cauliflower is another thing I love but often feel like is too much effort to make at home. Doing it this way gives you the flavors and amazing crunch with half the work!

Make the soy gochugaru ranch

There are a lot of ingredients in this ranch, and in this recipe overall. It’s easy to make though! It’s one of those recipes with a long ingredient list and a short instruction list. The base of the ranch sauce is yogurt and mayo, and then I added some ranch ingredients like garlic, lemon, parsley, and dill. I also added some things I would put in a Korean pancake dipping sauce like soy, sesame, rice vinegar, and gochugaru.

Salt and season the cauliflower

I like to salt the cauliflower ahead of time to get some excess water out. It also helps the buffalo flavors soak into the cauliflower. I also like carrot and celery with buffalo anything, so I added some to the pancake! Kimchi is optional in this recipe, but I had some on hand and added it in.

Make the buffalo cauliflower Korean pancake batter

After it soaks for an hour, add in the flour and cornstarch and stir to combine. If it doesn’t look like the photo below, you can add some water or more flour and cornstarch until it gets the right thickness and veggie density.

Cooking the buffalo cauliflower Korean pancake

Pour the mixture into a super hot pan with some peanut oil or other oil with a high smoke point. I needed to use a big cutting board to flip this cause I made it so big!

Make sure to cook it long enough to get some great browning and charred edges. After it cooks, let it rest on a rack for a few minutes, this will help it stay crispy.

Serve the buffalo cauliflower kimchi pancake

Chop it up, top with some more scallions, carrots, and celery, and serve it with the ranch! So good.

The level of crispy on these is as high as you can get. The cauliflower doesn’t get overcooked so it adds such a great texture to the inside of the pancakes.

And of course, that ranch steals the show. I couldn’t stop eating these amazing buffalo cauliflower Korean pancakes!!!

Twists on this recipe

You could skip the kimchi if you wanted but I love it in there. You could also replace the water in the pancake with more cayenne sauce. I thought it was well balanced though.

For a traditional kimchi pancake recipe, I like this one. I choose that one because it has cornstarch. Some recipes do not have the cornstarch but I love the texture it gives, and it reminds me more of the ones I have had in restaurants.