Samgyeopsal is thick-sliced (1–1.5 cm) pork belly grilled at the table on a gas or charcoal grill, cut into pieces with scissors, and wrapped in leafy greens (ssam) with garlic, kimchi, and ssamjang (fermented bean paste with gochujang).
The ssam ritual
The diner assembles each bite: a leaf of perilla or lettuce in the palm, a piece of grilled pork, a sliver of raw garlic, a dab of ssamjang, a strip of kimchi. Fold into a pouch and eat in one bite. The combination of fatty pork, bitter greens, raw garlic, and fermented paste is the intended flavour unit.
Three-layer reference
The name means ‘three-layer meat’ (sam = three, gyeop = layer, sal = meat), referring to the alternating fat-lean-fat structure of pork belly cross-section.