Side dishes

Side dishes Recipes

636 recipes. Page 24 of 27

Everyday Korean side dish recipes

Korean Lettuce Kimchi (Quick Leaf Gochugaru Dressed)

Lettuce wilts within minutes of meeting salt, which caps the salting at 10 minutes, and the kimchi is mixed right before the meal, while the leaf edges still hold a little crunch and a gentle bitterness. Leaves left wet after salting dilute the seasoning until it tastes flat, and patting them dry, never wringing, prevents that. Fermented sand lance sauce (kkanari aekjeot) adds savory depth to the mild leaves, vinegar brightens the finish, and sesame seeds give small toasty bites. The leaves slump and release liquid as it sits, so it goes to the table at once. A spoonful of ssamjang, a soybean dipping paste, stirred in makes it earthier.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes

Prep 20min 0 2 servings

Side dishes Medium

Samnamul Muchim

Samnamul, deer fern shoots with stems and leaves still attached, gets a one-minute blanch and is cut into 4 cm lengths. Soup soy sauce and perilla oil season it, and a scatter of salt after everything is mixed sets the final balance.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🏠 Everyday

Prep 10min Cook 5min 4 servings

Stir-fry Easy

Korean Pollock Roe Egg Butter Stir-fry

Little salty grains of pollock roe are scattered through soft, creamy curds of egg. That even spread comes from scraping the roe out of its sac instead of slicing it. Half the butter goes in with the onion, and the other half melts in after the pan comes off the heat.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🏠 Everyday

Prep 10min Cook 8min 2 servings

Steamed Easy

Korean Spicy Braised Tofu

Firm tofu is soaked briefly in salted water, then pan-fried until golden with firm edges that let the slices keep their corners through the spicy braise. Onion and green onion cook on top of the tofu and add sweetness to a sauce of soy sauce, gochugaru and a little sugar. The heat goes off while some sauce still pools at the bottom of the pan, enough to spoon over the tofu and a bowl of rice.

Prep 10min Cook 15min 2 servings

Kimchi Easy

Korean Seokbakji Radish Kimchi

Big chunks of radish and plenty of cool, tangy brine make seokbakji a natural partner for rich bone broth soups like seolleongtang. Salted shrimp does more than season the chili paste; it lays down a fermented, savory base. A day at room temperature followed by two days in the fridge turns the water drawn from the radish into a refreshing, lightly sour brine. The salted radish is drained but not rinsed, so the salt it holds seasons the kimchi from inside.

Prep 45min 0 4 servings

Side dishes Easy

Seven-Layer Dip

One chip dragged to the bottom of the dish should pick up refried beans, cream cheese, guacamole, salsa, cheddar, olives and scallions at once. Draining the salsa for 10 minutes keeps its juice from bleeding into the layers, and spreading each layer in small dollops avoids dragging up the one underneath.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 80min 0 8 servings

Stir-fry Easy

Korean Sweet Spicy Pollock Floss Stir-fry

Myeongyeopchae, pollock floss, is finer and softer than ordinary dried pollock strips, and once stir-fried it sits between the two familiar dried-fish sides: softer than seasoned dried pollock, milder than the shredded squid stir-fry. Its cottony clumps are teased apart along the grain by hand before cooking. A spoonful of mayonnaise in the sauce rounds off the gochujang.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🏠 Everyday

Prep 5min Cook 7min 4 servings

Steamed Easy

Korean Soy-Braised Whole Garlic

Simmered slowly in soy sauce, whole peeled garlic loses almost all of its raw bite and turns soft and fluffy inside, while corn syrup gives the outside a shiny glaze. High heat for too long only toughens the surface. After the first boil, the pot drops to medium-low and stays uncovered. Once tender, the cloves crush easily, which is why they are turned only once or twice.

Prep 10min Cook 25min 4 servings

Kimchi Easy

Korean Sigeumchi Kimchi (Spinach Kimchi)

A brief 12-minute salting wilts spinach leaves while the stems keep their snap, giving two textures in each bite. Sand lance fish sauce adds salty depth to the green, grassy flavor, and green plum syrup rounds off the salt. Thick stems are split in half so they season at the same pace as the leaves. Once it has chilled for at least six hours, it goes to the table cold with rice.

Prep 20min Cook 5min 4 servings

Side dishes Hard

Shime Saba (Vinegar-Cured Mackerel)

Salt first, vinegar second: the salt draws water out of the mackerel and firms it, and a short soak in rice vinegar with kombu turns the surface white while the center stays pink and rich. That pink center is how shime saba should look, which also means the fish is essentially raw. Vinegar and salt do not kill anisakis, so the recipe only works with fillets sold for raw eating with a parasite-control freezing history. Kept at 4°C or below from thawing to serving, it is eaten the day it is made, with perilla leaves and shredded ginger on the side.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 25min Cook 75min 2 servings

Stir-fry Easy

Korean Shepherd's Purse Tofu Stir-fry

The shepherd's purse comes off the heat the moment it starts to wilt, so its bitter spring scent is still there. Perilla oil is used twice: half to brown the tofu, the rest drizzled on with sesame salt after the heat is off.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 18min Cook 10min 2 servings

Steamed Medium

Korean Taro Stem Perilla Steam

Taro stems are long and fibrous, and in this dish they soak up a creamy perilla-seed broth between their strands, bending softly when you bite and releasing that nutty liquid. With only soup soy sauce for seasoning and onion and garlic softened in perilla oil for a gentle sweetness, the dish ends up mild rather than spicy or salty. The sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon and sits well over rice.

Prep 20min Cook 35min 4 servings

Kimchi Easy

Korean Pickled Radish Wraps

Radish sliced 2 mm thin and soaked in a sweet-sour brine becomes a soft, pliable wrapper for pork belly or fried chicken. Any thicker slice resists rolling and gets sliced again until the pieces match. The brine boils only 30 seconds past the first bubbles at the edge, because longer boiling drives off the vinegar's sharpness, and it is cooled to lukewarm before pouring, since hot brine partly cooks the radish and makes the slices tear when rolled. The wraps are ready after a day, though the sourness and sweetness reach the center by day three. A slice of lemon in the container adds a citrus note, and each bite of fatty meat gets a sharp, clean finish from the wrap.

At least 1 day 4 servings

Side dishes Easy

Sigeumchi Namul

All of the measured salt goes into the blanching water, leaving soy sauce as the only seasoning in the dressing itself. Keeping the pot at a hard boil after the spinach goes in lets the leaves wilt within moments, and the cold water bath that follows fixes their bright green. Cut to a length that is easy to pick up with chopsticks, the spinach is finished with sesame seeds crushed lightly between the palms.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🏠 Everyday

Prep 10min Cook 5min 4 servings

Stir-fry Easy

Korean Stir-Fried Fish Cake Strips

The seasoning is just a teaspoon each of chili flakes, soy sauce and sugar, and the fish cake's own savory saltiness comes through first. A quick dip in boiling water to rinse off surface oil helps that small amount of seasoning soak in rather than slide off.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🏠 Everyday

Prep 10min Cook 10min 2 servings

Steamed Medium

Korean Braised Chicken with Burdock

Fat and juices from boneless chicken thighs melt into the soy braising liquid, and the burdock root that soaks it up turns sweeter and saltier the longer you chew. A short soak in vinegared water takes the astringency out of the burdock, leaving a nutty root flavor instead of an earthy one. Thin diagonal slices of burdock cook through far faster than thick pieces. Some of the fatty chicken skin is trimmed away and the meat sits briefly in cooking wine and ginger juice, which keeps the sauce clean and free of any gamey smell. Tender thigh meat and chewy, slightly crisp burdock end up glazed together as an easy side for rice.

Prep 20min Cook 35min 4 servings

Kimchi Hard

Korean Bitter Herb Kimchi

Sseumbagwi, a sharply bitter spring herb, soaks in cold water for 20 minutes before it ever meets the seasoning. Some bitterness is meant to remain: after a first ferment at room temperature and a stretch of refrigeration, savory and sour notes build over it, and the balance is best around day three. Sand lance fish sauce is milder than the anchovy sauce used for cabbage kimchi, so it leaves the herb's character intact, while sweet rice paste helps the dressing cling to thin stems.

At least 1 day 5 hr 35 min 4 servings

Side dishes Medium

Siraegi Namul Muchim

Siraegi, dried radish greens soaked back to softness, still carry a tough outer skin on their thick stems, and peeling it off stem by stem is what makes them pleasant to chew. The greens are tossed with doenjang (Korean soybean paste) and perilla oil first, then braised in a splash of water so the paste works its way into the stems. Ground perilla seed added at the very end blends with the remaining liquid and leaves a creamy sheen on the surface.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 20min Cook 20min 4 servings

Stir-fry Easy

Korean Oi Dubu Bokkeum (Cucumber Tofu Stir-fry)

The cucumber here is cooked, but only until it is warm and glossy, never soft in the middle. Soup soy sauce and a little chili flakes are the only seasonings, giving a faint red tint with no real heat. The tofu is browned on its own and folded back in at the end.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🏠 Everyday

Prep 10min Cook 8min 2 servings

Steamed Easy

Korean Braised Burdock and Konjac

With no meat at all, this braise relies on texture: thin slices of burdock stay crisp and chewy while konjac, a firm jelly made from konjac yam, stays bouncy. The konjac is blanched and then dry-toasted in an unoiled pan for 1 minute, which takes away its distinctive smell. Burdock absorbs the seasoning faster the thinner it is sliced, and after its vinegar-water soak it is drained well so the braising liquid is not watered down. Holding back the syrup until the soy liquid has reduced by about half lets it add gloss at the end instead of scorching. Sesame oil and seeds stirred in off the heat finish it.

Prep 15min Cook 25min 2 servings

Kimchi Easy

Korean Crown Daisy Soy Pickle

Thin lemon slices layered with the crown daisy add a citrus lift to an otherwise plain soy brine. The leaves wilt and take on the soy color after 24 hours of chilling, which makes it a next-day option when a side dish is needed fast.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 15min Cook 10min 4 servings

Side dishes Hard

Korean Rainbow Trout Sashimi

Thick slices of rainbow trout sit on a mound of shredded cabbage and lettuce, with roasted soybean powder, sesame oil, minced garlic, and chojang alongside to mix in as you eat. Adding only as much as each bite needs keeps the nutty powder and tangy chili sauce from burying the fish. Only farmed fillets sold for raw eating, with parasite-control information from the seller, belong here; trout meant for cooking is not a stand-in.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 20min Cook 5min 2 servings

Stir-fry Easy

Korean Pineapple Chicken Stir-Fry

Chicken in a thin starch coat gets its gloss from a soy, vinegar and sugar sauce. The pineapple goes in just before the sauce and needs only a minute, until its edges look faintly translucent. Canned pineapple works too, drained lightly first.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 15min Cook 10min 2 servings

Steamed Easy

Korean Braised Burdock Root

Burdock root cut into thin, even matchsticks is cooked in soy sauce and sugar, then glazed with syrup until shiny, giving a chewy, slightly crunchy bite with a salty-sweet coating. Even cutting matters more than it looks: thinner strands go soft while thicker ones stay stiff. Cooked through, the strips bend rather than snap. It is a staple Korean banchan, close in spirit to Japanese kinpira gobo but sweeter and glossier.

🏠 Everyday

Prep 15min Cook 20min 4 servings