Lee Jung-hyun’s Cabbage Pasta: No Noodles, Shrimp and a Cheesy Chili Sauce

Lee Jung-hyun’s cabbage pasta uses cabbage in place of pasta noodles. Her Fun-staurant recipe pairs 400g of cabbage with shrimp and mushrooms, then finishes them in a milk sauce with Korean chili powder, cheddar and Parmesan. The important first step is browning the cabbage before adding the sauce.

Photo: KBS Fun-staurant, Episode 340.

There are no pasta noodles in the ingredient list

The name describes how the cabbage is used. KBS tells readers to cut the middle of the cabbage in substantial sections, about 2cm thick, so it can stand in for noodles. This is different from finely shredding cabbage into a salad.

The sauce contains butter, milk and two cheeses. A noodle-free ingredient list does not by itself establish a calorie count or make this a dairy-free dish. The official recipe provides neither nutrition figures nor a tested dairy-free alternative.

The ingredients and quantities

• 400g cabbage
• A handful of frozen shrimp
• ¼ onion and 4 button mushrooms
• 1 heaped tablespoon minced garlic
• 35g butter
• Olive oil, salt and black pepper
• 200ml milk
• 3 tablespoons fine Korean chili powder (gochugaru)
• 2 slices cheddar and 40g Parmesan
• Extra Parmesan and chopped scallions for the topping

The shrimp is measured by the handful in the source; there is no gram weight to translate into a precise shopping quantity. The cheese weight, in contrast, is explicit: 40g Parmesan goes into the sauce, with additional Parmesan used at the end.

Brown the cabbage before the milk goes in

1. Prepare the vegetables. Cut the cabbage into 2cm-thick sections, slice the onion and quarter the mushrooms. KBS says to thaw the frozen shrimp in cold water for ten minutes.
2. Start with butter. Melt the 35g butter in a pan. Add the cabbage and two pinches of salt, and cook over medium heat until the cabbage develops brown colour.
3. Turn and add the other ingredients. Turn the cabbage over. Drizzle olive oil around the pan three times, then add the shrimp, mushrooms, onion, garlic and another pinch of salt. Stir-fry together.
4. Add the sauce ingredients. Pour in the 200ml milk and add the fine chili powder, cheddar, 40g Parmesan and a few shakes of pepper. The published method says to simmer this mixture for four minutes.
5. Finish the plate. Add extra grated Parmesan and chopped scallions.

The four-minute simmer is only one part of the method. It does not include thawing the shrimp, preparing the vegetables or browning the cabbage. KBS does not provide an overall cooking time, so it is more useful to follow the stages than promise a four-minute dinner.

What to check before making it

Use the specified fine Korean chili powder when following the original recipe. Three tablespoons is the published amount; a different chili powder or a reduced amount is an adaptation, not a substitution tested in this source. The sauce also has both cheddar slices and Parmesan, rather than one unspecified cheese.

Keep the milk until after the browning and stir-frying stages. Adding it at the start would change the method. The recipe supplies no exact browning time, so the visual instruction—brown colour on the cabbage—is the guide for moving to the next stage.

Lee Jung-hyun’s original KBS recipe · Korean →

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Source: KBS Fun-staurant, Episode 340. Checked November 1, 2026. English explanation of the official recipe; not a personal cooking review.