Cooking in a Korean Apartment When There's No Oven
Most Korean studio apartments have a two-burner electric or gas cooktop, a small fridge, and no oven at all — teachers manage with a rice cooker, a toaster oven, and grocery apps like Coupang, plus a weekly trip to the local market or Homeplus.
Park English2026-09-133 min read
Nobody tells you this before you land: your new one-room apartment almost certainly does not have an oven. Not a small one, not a broken one, none. Korean home cooking runs on stovetop, rice cooker, and steamer, and rental units are built around that. If you're the kind of teacher who bakes on a Sunday to feel normal, this is the first adjustment to make, and it trips people up more than the visa paperwork does.
The fix is a countertop convection oven, sometimes sold as a "broil oven" or 오븐토스터 (obeun-toseuteo). You'll find one at Coupang or a Daiso-adjacent appliance shop for somewhere in the 40,000–90,000 won range depending on size. It plugs into a regular 220V outlet, no special wiring needed. Check the wattage against your building's breaker before you run it at the same time as the space heater in December — that's the one appliance combination that trips a fuse in older buildings, and it's always at 11pm on a weeknight when you're trying to reheat pizza.
For everyday cooking, most teachers end up running the kitchen off three things: a rice cooker (usually already in the apartment, or under 30,000 won new), a portable induction burner if the built-in cooktop is single-burner, and a decent pan, because the one left by the last tenant is never non-stick anymore.
Where the groceries actually come from
| Source | Best for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Coupang (Rocket delivery) | Pantry basics, snacks, meat | Orders before midnight often arrive by 7am |
| Homeplus / Emart | Weekly shop, produce, household goods | Closed roughly two Sundays a month by law — check the store's posted schedule |
| Traditional market (재래시장 — jaerae-sijang) | Cheap produce, banchan, fish | Cash is still king here, cards not always accepted at small stalls |
| Costco (Korea membership) | Bulk, imported goods, cheese | Membership was around 39,000 won a year last we checked — confirm at the door, it does change |
The traditional market is worth the ten minutes it takes to find your nearest one. Every neighborhood has one, they run on a rotating schedule (some are 2-7 days, meaning open on dates ending in 2 or 7), and a bag of vegetables that costs 8,000 won at Emart is often half that from an ajumma who's been at the same stall for twenty years.
So where do teachers actually gather to complain about all this over dinner? Usually a Facebook group specific to their city — "Foreigners in [city name]" pages exist for basically every place with more than a handful of hagwons — or a Kakao open chat someone in the group set up. Itaewon and Hongdae in Seoul still function as informal meeting points on weekends, and every second or third city has one bar that's become the unofficial foreign-teacher spot without anyone deciding that on purpose. Ask in your group chat before you move; someone already knows the answer.
One thing that genuinely varies and nobody can tell you in advance: whether your specific building allows a washing machine hookup, a gas range versus induction, and how strong the water pressure is. That's building by building, sometimes floor by floor. Ask your co-teacher or your recruiter to walk the apartment with you before you sign anything, and take a photo of the kitchen setup so you know what you're buying for before you land.