282 recipes. Page 1 of 12
Gochujang is Korean red chili paste. For recipes that mix their own seasoning, choose the paste rather than a ready-made dipping sauce.
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Look for "Gochujang" or "Korean Chili Paste" on the label. A product called gochujang sauce may already contain vinegar or lemon: Sempio sells both a thick paste and a lemon dipping sauce.
When the recipe adds its own vinegar, sugar and water, start with the listed paste. Using a prepared sauce in the same amount changes that seasoning balance. Gochugaru is a dry pepper ingredient, so measure it separately when a recipe lists both.
Rolled thickly in powdered sugar, the dark chocolate dough cracks open as it bakes, leaving white crackled tops over deep brown seams. A small amount of gochujang (Korean fermented chili paste) adds gentle heat and a savory, fermented note after the sweetness without announcing itself. The texture lands between a brownie and a cookie: a thin crisp shell around a soft, fudgy middle.
Thick-walled and mild, asakigochu peppers need only 20 seconds in boiling water to lose their raw smell while keeping their crunch. The dressing is doenjang and gochujang with a little vinegar. Use cheongyang chilies in the same sauce and the dish turns much hotter.
Bacon started in a cold pan renders slowly, and that smoky fat replaces cooking oil for the whole fried rice. Well-fermented sour kimchi is fried until its edges brown, which rounds its sharp tang into something toastier. Pressing the rice against the pan builds a light crust on the bottom, the cue to turn off the heat. A runny-yolk fried egg goes on top and gets broken into the rice like a sauce.
Gochujang-marinated pork shoulder and Brussels sprouts share the pan. The sprouts are halved and left cut side down without much turning, since a golden, seared face is what takes away most of their bitterness. A teaspoon of vinegar and sliced red chili go in at the end.
Breast or thigh both work, but thigh, with more fat, is the one that stays juicy over direct heat. The gochujang, soy and honey glaze goes on thin, two or three times, building up a sticky shine, and the skewers keep turning over medium heat because honey scorches fast.
Gizzard shad are small enough to eat bones and all, and shallow scores along each fish do two jobs: they let the gochujang glaze reach the flesh and cut the fine pin bones so they are barely noticed. Syrup in the glaze caramelizes into a glossy amber coat, but it also burns quickly, which keeps the pan at medium the whole time.
Everything in this napa cabbage doenjang soup is easy to find, and half a spoonful of gochujang gives the broth a reddish tint and a mild heat. Doenjang brands differ a lot in saltiness. The paste goes in light at first, and the pot is adjusted with more doenjang or water at the end.
Gochujang toasts in rendered pork fat before any broth goes in, and that spicy red oil gives the stew more body than simply boiling everything together. Zucchini half-moons simmer for 6 minutes, enough to take on seasoning without collapsing into mush.
Agujjim began in the 1970s at the fish market in Masan's Odong-dong, where vendors cooked unsold monkfish over high heat with bean sprouts and chili sauce, closer to stir-frying than braising. No water is added; the sprouts release enough liquid to pool in the pan, and a little starch slurry, added bit by bit, sets the thickness. Once the fish is gone, rice often gets mixed into the leftover sauce.
With grated fresh apple handling part of the sweetness and apple cider vinegar bringing the tang, the gochujang sauce tastes lighter and fresher. It is not fruit-sweetened alone, though: oligosaccharide syrup goes in too. Thirty minutes in the fridge takes the raw edge off the gochujang and lets the apple's acidity settle into it. Half a boiled egg on top turns the thin somyeon noodles into an easy light meal.
Chicken thighs marinated in gochujang, chili flakes, and soy sauce are stir-fried with cabbage and onion like dakgalbi, Korea's spicy chicken stir-fry, then simmered in cream into a pink, gently spicy sauce. The cabbage and onion hit the pan before the chicken to draw out their sweetness. Thigh meat is used because it suits the cream sauce. Sauce fills the thick rigatoni tubes and gives each bite both heat and richness. Mozzarella melted in at the end stretches like the cheese on cheese dakgalbi. The final seasoning waits until the sauce is done because gochujang brands differ in saltiness.
A gochujang dressing sweetened with maple syrup gives bulgur, the cracked wheat of Middle Eastern tabbouleh, a Korean turn. Corn charred in a dry pan until spotted brown adds concentrated sweetness to soften the chili heat, while cucumber and cherry tomatoes keep it fresh. The grains keep absorbing the dressing as they sit, so leftovers taste even fuller the next day.
Paper-thin sheets of dried whitebait are dry-toasted until stiff, then coated thinly in gochujang, soy sauce and oligosaccharide syrup. Straight from the pan they look a little soft, but they crisp as they cool; there is no need to keep them on the heat longer.
Spinach, bean sprouts, carrot and zucchini are each cooked on their own rather than tossed together, which keeps their textures distinct even after everything is mixed. Blanched greens that are not squeezed dry leave the rice soggy.
Smoked duck goes into the pan first, and the fat it gives off is what the onion and oyster mushrooms cook in, and the vegetables pick up the smoke too. If there is more fat than needed, pour off all but a tablespoon. The gochujang and syrup sauce is sweet and hot, the kind of thing that goes with a drink.
Part of the gochujang sauce is set aside the moment it is mixed. The rest marinates the chicken thigh, while the reserved portion never touches raw meat and goes on as a final glaze near the end of grilling. Each skewer holds two or three pieces of chicken for every piece of green onion, and they cook until the edges just char.
Butterfish has such fine, soft flesh that it falls apart easily when turned. The fillets go skin-side down and are left alone for a good while, then flipped once with a wide spatula. The gochujang paste, loosened with plum syrup, is brushed on very thinly, and a little lemon is squeezed over once the fish is plated.
Whole loach are boiled, ground fine and pushed through a sieve to leave the bones and skin behind, and that broth simmers with siraegi (dried radish greens) until perilla seed powder thickens it. A pinch of sansho pepper at the table leaves a light tingle on the tongue.
Kimchi goes down first, then Spam, sausages, tofu and rice cakes are laid over it in neat rows by type, with the seasoning paste piled in the middle. The water is poured in around the edge rather than the center to keep those rows in place.
Dotted gizzard shad (baendaengi) has fine, soft bones that soften further in the braise, so the fish is eaten bones and all. It is layered with onion over a bed of radish and braised in a gochujang and soy sauce for close to half an hour.
With only gochujang, vinegar and sugar in the dressing, this bunsik-shop noodle dish lives on the texture of the noodles. A thorough cold rinse is what makes sweet potato glass noodles springy, because any warmth left after draining keeps them softening until they stick into a clump. The dressing keeps in the fridge, but the noodles should meet it only just before eating, or they soak it up and turn soft.
Gochujang, Korean red chili paste, is fried briefly first so its sweet, fermented heat sits underneath the tomato in this beef ragu. The flavor base comes from ground beef left untouched until it browns and sticks, then red wine scraped across the pan to dissolve those browned bits. Wide rigatoni tubes fill with the thick sauce and carry bits of meat inside each piece.
Cheongpomuk, a soft, translucent jelly made from mung bean starch, is cut into batons and tossed in chojang, Korean sweet-and-sour chili sauce. Crisp apple, cucumber, and red cabbage play against the jelly's smooth, bouncy texture, and the apple's sweetness rounds off the chili heat.
Roasting broccoli coated in doenjang and gochujang at 200°C browns the floret edges and deepens the savory paste. A one-minute blanch leaves the stems bright green and still firm going into the oven, where the high heat finishes them.