Yakgwa (약과)
Honey-soaked fried pastry — a traditional sweet back in fashion.
- Korean name
- 약과
- Spice level
- Not spicy
- Flavor
- sweet · honeyed
- Typically contains
- wheat flour, honey
- Vegetarian / vegan
- Vegetarian — contains egg, dairy or honey, so not vegan
- Typical price
- ₩1,000–₩3,000 per portion checked 2026-07 — varies by area
- Good to know
- Beginner-friendly ●●●●● Solo dining ●●●●○ Kid-friendly ●●●●○
- Also written as
- yak gwa, yakwa, korean honey cookie, honey pastry
What is Yakgwa?
Yakgwa (약과) is a deep-fried honey pastry — a flower-pressed cookie of wheat flour, sesame oil, and honey, fried low and slow, then soaked in ginger-honey syrup until densely moist. The name means "medicinal confection," from the old belief in honey's healing value. A royal-court and ancestral-rite sweet for centuries, it has recently boomed back into fashion in Korean cafés and convenience stores.
How to eat it
- Eat it in small bites with tea. Yakgwa is intensely sweet and rich; it is a tea-table confection, traditionally paired with barley tea or sikhye.
- Expect moist, not crunchy. A proper yakgwa is syrup-soaked through — dense and slightly chewy, closer to baklava than biscuit.
- Modern forms count too. Yakgwa-topped cookies, croissants, and ice cream in cafés are part of the current "halmaenial" (grandma-millennial) trend.
Cooking it at home
- Make a dough of flour, sesame oil, honey, and a spoon of soju or rice wine; rest it, fold gently (do not knead hard), and press into molds.
- Fry at low temperature (around 110–140°C), raising heat gradually so the layers open without burning — this slow fry is the defining technique.
- Soak the hot pastries in ginger-cinnamon honey syrup for several hours until saturated.
Good to know
- Wheat, honey, and a deep-fry — it is one of the most calorie-dense traditional sweets; the standard serving is one piece.
- Convenience-store versions vary greatly in quality; bakery or traditional-market yakgwa is a different league.
Yakgwa is a fixture of charye (ancestral rite) tables and traditional gift sets — you will see boxed sets at every holiday.
Nutrition
| Calories | 399 kcal |
|---|---|
| Carbohydrate | 84.89 g |
| Protein | 4.2 g |
| Fat | 4.75 g |
| Sodium | 57 mg |
Per serving (~30g): ≈120 kcal · sodium ≈17 mg (1% of the WHO daily guideline, 2,000 mg)
