Trader Joe's Just Gave Vegan Korean Food Fans A Reason To Get Excited

If you're unfamiliar with tteokbokki, the dish is a popular street food in Korea, likened by The Squishy Monster to an afterschool snack of mac and cheese. The comfort food can be prepared with any number of additional ingredients to suit your taste (Korean cooking expert and YouTube sensation Maangchi recommends adding hard boiled egg and fish cakes to the mix), but at its core, tteokbokki is centered around stir-fried rice cakes in a spicy-sweet gochujang-based sauce.

Depending on where in the U.S. you live, you may have trouble finding tteokbokki or all the ingredients needed to make it yourself at a local store. But now, Korean food fans will be able to buy the snack at their closest Trader Joe's — but that's not all. While many tteokbokki recipes (or premade packs, like the one now sold at Trader Joe's) often contain fish sauce or anchovies in the sauce mix, the U.S. grocery chain's interpretation of the popular dish is vegan. 

Trader Joe's shoppers are always excited to discover new products from the brand, especially ones that fit their dietary needs. Folks who follow Instagram fan account @traderjoeslist know that the comment section can quickly spiral into a discussion about unwanted ingredients, even for fairly well received products. But when the Instagram user posted about spotting tteokbokki at a Trader Joe's in West Hills, California, the majority of followers had no problem keeping it positive.

Among the excited comments from Trader Joe's fans — a few of which simply stated "OMG" — one user shared, "I literally just moved back to the U.S. from Korea and have been craving these!" Many commenters called tteokbokki their favorite Korean dish, with others stating how excited they are to try it and sharing plans to make a trip to their local Trader Joe's as soon as possible in search of the new snack.