Although widely applied in the food industry, extrusion cooking has not been applied to the traditional red ginseng process for steaming and drying ginseng. We therefore investigated the change in the effective components in red ginseng (total saponins, ginsenosides and maltol) from extruded raw ginseng. The variables were the drying temperature of the sliced raw ginseng (80 and $90^{circ}C$) before the extrusion process and the moisture content (15 and 22%, w.b.) during the extrusion process. Ginsenosides Rg1 and Rg2 were detected in dried ginseng at $80^{circ}C$, but ginsenoside Rg3, which was contained in red ginseng, was not detected. On the other hand, ginsenosides Rg1, Rg2 and Rg3 were detected in extruded ginseng at moisture contents of 15 and 22%. Total ginsenosides were highest at $90^{circ}C$ drying temperature and 22% moisture content for the extrusion process.