When you think about pizza, you might think…
Or this.
According to The Huffington Post, the top 10 most-ordered pizza toppings include pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, sausage, bacon, extra cheese, black olives, green peppers, pineapple, and spinach. In Korea though, pizza has something more than cheese or pepperoni.
As many Korean people eat pizza more frequently, pizza has become Koreanized. Let’s see what’s unique about Korean pizza.
Potatoes or sweet potatoes on pizza
Honestly, as I was born and raised in Korea, I didn’t think potato or sweet potato pizza was bizarre. Actually, sweet potato is one of my favorite pizza toppings.
Some pizza stores also add sweet potato paste. I think sweet potato paste makes the pizza a little bit moister. The picture below shows the “Korean Sweet Potato” pizza of Domino’s Pizza Korea.
I personally prefer sweet potato pizza to potato pizza. For me, sweet potato pizza has a pleasing taste since sweet potato’s sweetness and cheese’s salty taste harmonize well.
But potato pizza… I don’t know. It tastes bland for me. Also, it’s dry. While sweet potato pizza has sweet potato paste for a bit of moisture, some potato pizza just has many pieces of potatoes and (sometimes) several slices of bacon.
Cheese + cheese + cheese …
Someone says, “Mozzarella is considered the best cheese for pizza for a few reasons: its delicate, milky flavor, its smooth, elastic texture, and its fabulous meltability.” I totally agree.
What made me shocked was cream cheese pizza. I thought mozzarella was the one and only cheese that can be put on pizza dough. Cream cheese and pizza… It sounded bizarre, but I tried.
Domino’s Pizza Korea created this very new, unique kind of cheese pizza. As a cheese lover, I expected a lot, but… didn’t like it that much. Warm cream cheese was not my type. And its mushy texture was not pleasing at all. The overall flavor was not terrible, but in my opinion, cream cheese just wasn’t mixed well with other ingredients.
But it’s just my personal opinion. So many Koreans are crazy about cheese (as you can see in the picture, we put cheese in any kind of food – from ramen to samgyeopsal), so I’m sure some people like multiple layers of cheese on pizza.
Korean food as toppings
Bulgogi is already famous food, but it can also be a topping on pizza. For me, bulgogi pizza is a soft option in a 3-page long pizza menu – because bulgogi itself tastes good.
Garlic is a universally-used ingredient, but I think Koreans are almost the only people who put garlic cloves on pizza. I recently had garlic bulgogi pizza (picture above), and it was alright. Not too good, not too bad. Well, I might order this one again later, but I’d rather try another kind of pizza next time.
There are so many different types of pizza in Korea. You can find thousands of Mukbang videos on YouTube. Even if these toppings look weird on pizza, I think it’s worth trying – because they are not terrible. Who knows, you will like Korean pizza!
Enter your details below to save your shopping cart for later. And, who knows, maybe we will even send you a sweet discount code :)
3 Comments
I’ve never thought of putting some of those toppings on my pizza, but I would really love to try them now. Especially the Sweet Potato ones! It’s sounds like it would be really good!
I wish I could try sweet potato pizza here in the States
You can make sweet potato paste at home and spread it on top of cheese pizza! Get some Japanese sweet potatoes, the ones that turn gold when baked, and bake it. Add a little bit of milk so when you mash the sweet potato, it becomes more like a paste. It should be sweet enough without any sugar or honey added to it!