What Korean rice cake is eaten during Chuseok?

The Korean rice cake traditionally eaten during Chuseok is songpyeon. This small tteok is usually shaped like a half-moon and filled with ingredients such as sesame seeds, beans, chestnuts, red bean paste, or honey.

Families traditionally prepare songpyeon during Korea’s autumn harvest festival, Chuseok, using newly harvested rice. The cakes are steamed over pine needles, which gives them a distinctive pine fragrance and helps keep them from sticking together. After steaming, they are often brushed lightly with sesame oil.

Songpyeon is more than a seasonal snack. It is associated with harvest gratitude, family gatherings, ancestral memorial rites, and hopes for good fortune. The half-moon shape is often interpreted as a symbol of growth because the half moon will become full. Regional versions vary in color, size, shape, dough ingredients, and fillings. Tteokbokki is a spicy street-food dish, garaetteok is a long cylindrical rice cake, and injeolmi is coated with powdered beans, so none is the specific Chuseok cake described here.