As a kid, I could not stand cheese. The moment I peeled the clear plastic wrapper from a yellow processed cheese slice, the smell seemed strange next to the foods I was used to eating: rice, kimchi, soup, and Korean side dishes. Some of my friends could eat a slice straight from the refrigerator, but I always passed.
These days, my reaction is completely different. When I order pizza, I like extra cheese, and melted mozzarella on spicy dishes such as dakgalbi or buldak feels perfectly natural to me. The combination of spicy Korean seasoning and rich cheese is now so familiar that it is easy to forget how foreign cheese once seemed on a Korean table.
That change in my own taste happened alongside a much larger change in Korean food. Dairy had only a limited place in traditional Korean diets, but cheese gradually entered everyday cooking through imported processed foods, domestic dairy production, bunsik menus, spicy dishes, and eventually products such as Carbo Buldak.
Before Cheese, Dairy Was Rare in Traditional Korea
Korea did not traditionally have a major dairy culture. Cattle were extremely valuable in an agricultural society, particularly as working animals, so milk was never an ordinary drink available to most households.
That does not mean Koreans had never consumed dairy products. Historical records show that cattle were raised for milk by the Goryeo period and that processed dairy products were consumed by some members of the upper classes. During Joseon, tarak-juk, a porridge made with milk and rice, was eaten in the royal court and some upper-class households.
Milk was scarce enough to remain unusual, however, and dairy never became part of everyday meals for most people in the way fermented soybean products, grains, vegetables, and seafood did.
Cheese therefore did not develop as a traditional staple of Korean cuisine. Its widespread place in Korean food is a much more recent story.
Processed Foods and the Beginning of a New Taste
The years following the Korean War brought Koreans into much greater contact with American processed foods, particularly around U.S. military bases.
Budae-jjigae is one of the best-known foods to emerge from that period. Its early forms developed around ingredients such as ham, sausages, bacon, canned beans, and other foods obtained through or around American military bases, which were combined with Korean ingredients and seasonings. Cheese is common in many versions today, but it was not cheese itself that created the dish.
That distinction is important because the history of cheese in Korea was not a single moment when someone dropped an American cheese slice into a Korean stew and created a new food culture. Imported processed foods were becoming more visible at the same time that Korea was rapidly changing economically and socially.
By the time I was growing up, the square processed cheese slice was already familiar enough to recognize immediately, even if I personally disliked it. It was still different from the foods I thought of as traditionally Korean, but it was no longer something completely unknown.
Imsil and the Beginning of Korean Cheese Production
Another important part of the story developed far from the U.S. military bases, in Imsil in what is now Jeonbuk Special Self-Governing Province.
Belgian missionary priest Didier t’Serstevens, better known in Korea as Father Ji Jeong-hwan, was assigned to the Catholic church in Imsil in 1964. Looking for a way to help local farmers earn more income, he began working with goat milk and eventually turned to cheesemaking.
It was not an immediate success. After repeated trials, Father Ji succeeded in producing cheese on a small scale in 1966. The following year, in 1967, he established what Korea.net describes as Korea’s first cheese plant. Full-scale production followed later, and Imsil eventually became so closely associated with domestic cheese that “Imsil Cheese” became a familiar name throughout Korea.
So 1964 should not be treated as the year Korean cheese was suddenly “born.” It was the year Father Ji began his work in Imsil; the successful production and cheese plant came later.
Cheese Became Familiar Through Everyday Korean Food
Cheese did not become common in Korea because people suddenly began eating European-style cheese boards. For many Koreans, it became familiar in much more ordinary forms.
Processed cheese slices appeared in foods such as cheese gimbap and ramyeon. Mozzarella became a popular addition to tteokbokki, dakgalbi, pork cutlets, fried rice, and many other casual dishes. Budae-jjigae also became one of the places where a slice of processed cheese looked completely normal.
That is close to how my own relationship with cheese changed. I did not learn to enjoy it by developing a taste for expensive imported cheeses. I became used to cheese after repeatedly encountering it melted into foods that were already familiar to me.
Cheese ramyeon is probably one of the simplest examples. A single processed cheese slice melting into a bowl of spicy instant noodles changes the broth without turning it into an entirely different dish. Cheese is simply another optional ingredient, much like the eggs, dumplings, rice cakes, or sausages people add according to their own preferences.
I talk more about those everyday variations in my Korean Ramyeon Guide.
The same thing happened with tteokbokki and dakgalbi. Melted mozzarella adds richness and softens the overall impression of a strongly seasoned dish, while the Korean seasoning remains the main flavor.
Why Cheese and Spicy Korean Food Work So Well Together
As extremely spicy foods became more popular, cheese found an especially comfortable place beside them.
Koreans even have the slang word maepjjil-i for someone who does not handle spicy food particularly well. I can understand the appeal of adding cheese in that situation. You still get the flavor of a spicy sauce, but the dairy makes the overall experience feel less harsh.
There is some science behind that effect, although the explanation is more complicated than simply saying that “fat melts capsaicin.”
Capsaicin, the compound responsible for the burning sensation of chili peppers, does not dissolve well in water. Research has found that dairy proteins can reduce the amount of free capsaicin available in the mouth, with casein showing a particularly strong binding effect in some experiments. Other research suggests that protein, fat, temperature, and other properties of dairy foods can all contribute to reducing the perceived burn.
That does not mean cheese chemically switches off the receptors on your tongue. It simply helps explain why dairy foods can make a very spicy meal feel easier to eat.
The flavor relationship matters just as much as the chemistry. Spicy Korean sauces tend to be salty, sweet, fermented, and strongly seasoned, while cheese adds fat, saltiness, and a creamy texture. The combination can be heavy, but in the right dish the contrast works.
From Buldak to Carbo Buldak
The relationship between cheese, creaminess, and spicy food eventually became part of packaged Korean food as well.
Samyang Foods released the original Buldak Bokkeummyeon in 2012. The noodles became known for an unusually strong level of heat and eventually developed into a much larger Buldak product line.
In December 2017, Samyang released Carbo Buldak as a limited product commemorating one billion cumulative Buldak sales. It combined the spicy Buldak sauce with a powder containing mozzarella cheese powder and cream flavor, giving the noodles a much creamier profile. The product remained in the lineup after its initial release and is now one of the most recognizable variations of Buldak. Samyang still lists its official release date as December 2017 on the Carbo Buldak product page.
For me, this kind of product says more about cheese in modern Korean food than the idea that Koreans somehow replaced traditional food with Western dairy.
The underlying dishes are still recognizably Korean. Tteokbokki is still tteokbokki. Dakgalbi is still dakgalbi. Ramyeon remains ramyeon. Cheese became another ingredient that people could add, remove, or adjust depending on what they liked.
Cheese No Longer Feels Out of Place
When I think back to that yellow cheese slice I disliked as a child, the biggest change is not simply that I learned to like cheese. It is that cheese itself no longer looks unusual beside Korean food.
There are still plenty of Korean dishes where adding cheese would feel completely unnecessary. Traditional soups, grilled fish, namul, fermented sauces, and countless other foods continue perfectly well without it. Cheese did not become a universal Korean ingredient.
But in ramyeon, tteokbokki, dakgalbi, budae-jjigae, fried rice, pork cutlets, and many other casual foods, seeing melted cheese is now completely ordinary.
That is probably the clearest way to describe how cheese found its place in Korea. It did not arrive as part of an old culinary tradition, and it did not replace one. Over several decades, Koreans simply found particular foods where they liked the taste and texture it added.
I was part of that change in a very small way. The cheese slice that once smelled completely wrong beside my Korean meals eventually became an ingredient I now willingly add to some of the spiciest foods I eat.
For me, that difference between then and now says enough.
About the Author 🇰🇷
I live in South Korea and write about the small details of Korean life and culture that I experience and observe firsthand.
English is my second language, so I sometimes use tools such as Gemini and Google Translate to help with translation and editing. The experiences, observations, opinions, and cultural perspectives in my articles are my own, and I personally review and edit every article before publishing it.
My goal with Korea Core Info is simple: to share everyday Korea from a local perspective and help international readers discover things they might not always find in a typical travel guide.
I hope my stories and guides help you understand Korea a little better — not just as a place to visit, but as a place where people live their everyday lives.