Kimchi Recipes

Prep 30min Cook 5min 4 servings

Korean Fermented Kale Kimchi

Kale's strong green smell mellows as it ferments while the leaves keep a firm bite, giving a kimchi that chews more than napa cabbage kimchi does. Julienned radish adds crunch, and soup soy sauce, rather than fish sauce, supplies the salty depth. Pear puree, or apple puree in its place, wraps the chili heat in fruit sweetness and balances the slightly bitter finish of the kale. It tastes best from the day after making, once the seasoning has settled into the leaves overnight.

Kimchi Hard

Traditional Kimjang Cabbage Kimchi

Built for kimjang, the big winter kimchi-making session, this recipe works through 10 kg of salted napa cabbage at once. The radish strips are tossed with the chili flakes first and turn red before the fish sauce, salted shrimp and garlic join them, which keeps the seasoning a clean, even color. Mustard greens and water dropwort cut into the seasoning give it a clean, slightly bitter aroma. Fresh oysters are optional and make the kimchi taste cooler and brighter, but because they also sour it faster, they go only into the containers that will be opened first. After one to two days at room temperature, the kimchi moves to the fridge and keeps its flavor for two to three weeks.

Prep 60min Cook 60min 4 servings

Korean Soy Pickled Perilla Leaves

Most soy pickles take their brine boiling hot, but in this recipe the boiled brine cools completely before it touches the perilla leaves, which would otherwise blacken and go limp. Sliced garlic and a cheongyang chile are tucked between the leaves raw rather than simmered in the brine, which keeps their bite sharp against the herbal perilla. From day three, a single leaf wrapped around a spoonful of rice is the usual way to eat it. It stays in the fridge, and this mix is not meant to be kept beyond a month.

Prep 25min Cook 5min 4 servings

Korean Perilla Leaf Kimchi

No fermentation is needed: the soy-based seasoning is brushed between the leaves and the kimchi is ready to eat the same day. Sesame oil softens the sharp, herbal edge of perilla, and the chili flakes stay light enough that the green of the leaves still shows. On day one the brightly seasoned top leaves are the ones to eat, while the wilted leaves underneath soak up more after half a day. Two to three refrigerated days let the seasoning reach into every leaf, ready to wrap warm rice or grilled meat.

Korean Cubed Radish Kimchi

Cut into 2 cm cubes, the radish stays crunchy beside seolleongtang or gomtang, the milky beef soups it usually accompanies, and turns sweeter as it ferments. After salting, only the released water is poured off and the cubes go unrinsed, keeping in the salt and sugar they absorbed.

Prep 30min 0 4 servings

Prep 25min Cook 5min 4 servings

Korean Restaurant-Style Kkakdugi

Cut into chunky 2 cm cubes, the radish stays crunchy right to the center even after salting and a day of fermentation. Anchovy fish sauce builds the savory base as the kimchi ripens, and ginger tames the raw radish smell for a cleaner finish. With sweeter winter radish, the sugar can come down. After 24 hours at room temperature a light fizzy sourness appears, and from there the fridge takes over. In summer, cut the room-temperature rest to half a day so it does not turn too sour. In Korean restaurants it sits beside grilled pork belly and hot rice soups, cutting through their richness.

Prep 1460min Cook 12min 4 servings

Korean Pickled Shishito Peppers

Tiny holes poked with a toothpick let the soy brine into each hollow shishito pepper, and the blanch stops as soon as the skins begin to slump, because fully limp peppers lose their bite. Once the hot brine is poured over, the peppers are split into shallow containers and head straight into the fridge, making this a chilled side dish rather than a pantry preserve.

Prep 4340min Cook 12min 4 servings

Korean Kohlrabi Soy Pickle

The kohlrabi is pickled raw, without blanching, in soy brine that has simmered 2 more minutes with garlic and dried chiles and then cooled. Every fibrous layer under the skin comes off during peeling, since those fibers stay tough in the pickle, and from the third day a few cubes are served alongside meat.

Kimchi Hard

Nasu no Koji-zuke (Eggplant Pickled with Rice Koji)

With six kilograms of small eggplants in one batch, the fermenting crock, pressing stone and a month of refrigerator space need to be sorted out before anything else. In a pickling bed of steamed rice, rice koji, salt, coarse sugar and shochu, the eggplants take on sweetness and koji aroma rather than plain saltiness, with bamboo leaves and dried red chili layered in. Once the brine rises over everything, the weight is reduced so the contents simply stay submerged. Mold, a rotten smell or abnormal slime means the whole crock is discarded untasted.

Prep 150min Cook 60min 60 servings

Korean Kohlrabi Kimchi (Cubed Gochugaru Fermented Crisp)

Denser and drier than Korean radish, kohlrabi cubes hold their crunch even as the kimchi ferments. Eaten right away it tastes light and fresh, almost like a salad; after three to four days in the fridge the fish sauce comes forward and it turns properly savory. It can take the place of kkakdugi, the cubed radish kimchi, or sit beside meat dishes. Twenty minutes of salting is enough once the surface tastes seasoned, with no need to wait for the cubes to bend.

Prep 30min 0 4 servings

Prep 35min Cook 5min 4 servings

Korean Soybean Leaf Kimchi

Soybean leaves start out earthy and grassy, and as they sit in soy sauce and anchovy fish sauce the raw green smell fades into a salty, fermented savoriness. Tender leaves picked before the first frost are laid over a spoonful of rice and eaten as a wrap, and a light toss with sesame oil softens any that taste too salty.

Soybean Leaf Water Kimchi

Raw soybean leaves go straight into the brine, neither salted nor blanched, and their green, beany aroma comes through intact. Pear, garlic and ginger are blended and strained through cloth so that only the juice is used. Without that step, pulp ends up floating in the liquid and stuck between the leaves.

Prep 15min Cook 10min 4 servings

Korean Soy-Marinated Soybean Leaves

Larger and thicker than perilla leaves, soybean leaves take longer to absorb the brine but reward you with a hearty chew, and a single leaf wraps a whole spoonful of rice. Give them at least two days in the fridge, until the soy color reaches the middle of each leaf; this is not a same-day banchan. Garlic, cheongyang chili, and onion steep in the brine alongside the leaves, giving the soy flavor a sharp, peppery lift. The usual way to eat it is draped over hot rice.

Prep 35min Cook 10min 10 servings

Madaka-zuke (Dried Daikon, Soybean, and Squid Pickle)

Crunchy dried daikon, chewy toasted squid and nutty roasted soybeans all soak in the same sweet soy and vinegar dressing. The pickle comes from Miyazaki, a major dried-daikon region where winter wind and strong southern sun turn fresh strips into a pantry staple. Its name is said to echo impatient calls asking whether it is ready yet. Toasting the squid and dry-roasting the beans before mixing gives the jar a roasted aroma that a raw-vegetable pickle lacks, while kombu and ginger add their own savor and bite. It is served chilled after resting overnight under refrigeration.

Korean Green Plum Pickles

Over 100 days buried in sugar, the hard sourness of unripe green plums softens into a sweet-tart pickle, and plums sinking into dissolved syrup with slowly shriveling flesh show it is on track. The liquid left once the plums come out is plum syrup in its own right, sealed and refrigerated separately.

Prep 25min 0 4 servings

Korean Pickled Garlic (Soy-Vinegar Aged Whole Cloves)

After three months or more in the brine, whole garlic cloves lose their raw bite and turn springy, salty, and sweet. Freshly packed cloves still taste sharp, because this long-keeping pickle, traditionally made with the new garlic of June, is meant to sit for months. The repeated cycle of draining, reboiling, and cooling the brine is what lets the jar keep that long, and the brine always goes in cold, since hot liquid partially cooks the cloves and dulls their texture. Eat them one at a time alongside fatty grilled pork belly or short ribs.

Korean Garlic Scape Soy Pickles

Garlic scapes start out sharp and garlicky, and the soy brine slowly rounds that bite off, though it returns with every chew. A piece of kelp simmered in the brine adds a soft sea savoriness, and the sliced cheongyang chiles go in only as the heat is turned off and leave just a little heat at the finish. Pressing out air bubbles with a spoon keeps every piece submerged, and only a clean utensil goes into the jar.

Prep 30min Cook 5min 4 servings

Korean Garlic Scape Kimchi

Fruit sweetness from ground pear and onion, the base of the chili paste, cushions the heat. The sharp, prickly garlic smell of the scapes survives fermentation and stays in the kimchi alongside their snap. Thirty minutes in coarse salt is just enough for the stalks to bend a little, which lets the thick paste wrap around them. A short two-hour start at room temperature comes before the fridge, and the flavor turns riper after about two days.

Prep 15min Cook 8min 4 servings

Korean Pickled Garlic Scapes

Unlike whole-garlic jangajji, which waits for a cooled brine, garlic scapes get the brine while it is still boiling. That heat lightly cooks the surface, so each 4 cm piece snaps cleanly when bitten. Whole peppercorns slowly release a warm, spicy aroma into the liquid as the jar ages. The scapes are edible the next day, though day three is when the seasoning reaches the center and the crunch is still intact.

Prep 60min Cook 5min 4 servings

Matsumae-zuke Dried Squid and Kombu Pickle

Fine strips of dried squid and kombu cure in soy sauce, sake and mirin until the kombu releases its sticky body, with salted herring roe mixed through. The dish is said to have begun in the Matsumae domain of southern Hokkaido. As roe grew expensive, squid and kombu took over a larger share, but it remains a winter and New Year staple.

Prep 80min Cook 15min 4 servings

Butterbur Stem Jangajji

Butterbur stems carry a sharp astringency that a long cold-water soak after blanching draws out, while the stalks keep their fibrous structure. The stringy outer layer has to be pulled off first; left on, it stays tough in the jar. Pouring the soy, vinegar and sugar brine, steeped with kelp, over the stems while it is still hot keeps them crisp for longer. Sliced garlic and cheongyang chili give the salty pickle a streak of heat.