323 recipes. Page 1 of 14
Korean soup soy sauce is labeled "Guk-ganjang" or "Soy Sauce for Soup". Use the specific sauce named in the recipe when shopping.
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Search the bottle label for soup soy sauce, not just the word "soy". Sempio identifies this sauce for soups, stews and seasoning. A bottle described as a ready-made soup base is a different product category.
If a recipe lists both soy sauce and soup soy sauce, keep the two amounts separate. Do not combine them into one shopping amount or assume every soy sauce has the same salt level. Follow the selected recipe and check the product label.
Mallow usually ends up in doenjang soup in Korean kitchens; blanched and dressed instead, its soft leaves turn slippery and hold onto the fermented paste. Too long in the water and the mucilage loosens until the leaves clump into a slick mass, while too short leaves a grassy smell behind.
Toasting the rice in sesame oil first keeps its starch from rushing out all at once, and the porridge sticks to the pot less. The doenjang (Korean soybean paste) is pushed through a fine sieve into anchovy broth, and finely chopped napa cabbage and onion melt into the rice over 20-plus minutes at a low simmer.
Thin-sliced beef brisket goes into a dry pan first, and the fat it renders cooks the garlic, onion and zucchini. If the brisket gives off plenty, the cooking oil can be cut back. It is a side for rice, or spooned over a hot bowl of it as a quick rice bowl.
The zucchini is cut into thick half-moons, so it keeps its shape in the soup and releases a little sweetness when you bite into it. For more of a kick, slice in a cheongyang chili, a sharp Korean green pepper.
Fresh oysters and soaked miyeok seaweed share one batter, and a single bite brings a crisp outside, slippery seaweed, and an oyster full of briny juice. Plump winter oysters suit it best. Each oyster gets pressed down into the batter with a spoon, since any that pokes above the surface cooks less than the rest.
No doenjang or gochujang goes into this stew, and napa cabbage and anchovy stock do nearly all the work. That is why the anchovies lose their heads and dark guts first and steep for no more than 10 minutes before straining; any longer and they turn the broth bitter.
Gondre, a soft mountain thistle green, soaks up seasoning readily, and steamed with ground perilla seed and perilla oil it turns deeply nutty. It is kept a little moist and often spooned over rice and mixed in.
The bitter, herbal aroma of bangpungnamul (coastal hog fennel) cuts through the chili paste and makes this kimchi taste nothing like the napa cabbage kind. That aroma depends on a blanch of only 20 seconds, and any longer leaves the stems limp. Kneading would dull the scent too, and the greens are only lifted and turned through the paste. A spoonful of soup soy sauce adds depth without extra saltiness. After 2 hours at room temperature it goes into the fridge and is served cold from the next day.
With dried anchovies, kelp and somyeon noodles on hand, this bowl comes together even when the fridge is nearly empty. There is no chili and no fermented paste; the clear anchovy broth simmers for 15 minutes and is seasoned with soup soy sauce and salt. The thin wheat noodles cook in a separate pot and are rinsed, so their starch does not cloud the broth.
Chewy abalone, slippery sea mustard, and crisp cucumber with red cabbage give this cold salad three textures in every forkful. The whole dish hinges on a blanch of about 40 seconds followed by ice water, because abalone toughens quickly with heat. The dressing of lemon juice, plum syrup, and soup soy sauce stays light, supporting the shellfish's natural brininess instead of masking it. Serve it chilled as a summer starter or ahead of grilled dishes.
Perilla powder goes in last, after the boiled napa cabbage has been dressed with doenjang. It soaks up the water left on the leaves, so the seasoning clings to each strand instead of pooling in the bowl. One tablespoon is enough; more turns the dish pasty.
Made with vegetable broth, this porridge gets its sweetness from napa cabbage. The white stems go in with the rice and the leaves about 10 minutes later, since the two cook at different speeds. Soft tofu, roughly crumbled by hand, simmers only for the last 3 minutes.
Canned tuna is already cooked, so the zucchini goes in first and the tuna joins only for the last 2 minutes. Added at the start, the tuna breaks into crumbs while the zucchini sheds a lot of water. Soup soy sauce and gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) go in sparingly, enough to tint the zucchini red without making any liquid.
Altang uses fresh, unsalted pollock roe. Make it with cured myeongran and the broth turns salty on the same amount of soy sauce, so check the label for unsalted when you shop.
Shepherd's purse, an early-spring wild green, is added roots and all, bringing a faint bitterness that the salted, softened napa cabbage balances with sweetness. The greens need only a thin coat of batter, and heavy mixing crushes the tender leaves before they reach the pan.
White kimchi, fermented without chili flakes, gives this stew a clear, pale broth with a gentle lactic tang instead of the red heat of regular kimchi stew. Skipping the usual frying in oil keeps it far lighter, and soft tofu and enoki fill out the pot.
Unlike the spicy, raw-dressed dried radish salad, this version braises rehydrated radish strips with thin slices of lean beef eye of round in a soy broth until chewy and lightly sweet. Drying concentrates the radish's sugar, and the strips drink up the braising liquid as they simmer. Soaking them in cold water for at least 20 minutes, until they spring back, sets up the right final texture.
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.
Packaged wheat noodles, cooked separately and laid in a clear broth of brisket and beef bones, make this a home version rather than a re-creation of traditional geonjin guksu, whose noodles are kneaded with soybean flour. The broth is not meant to turn milky and gelatinous like a long-boiled bone stock; about 70 minutes of gentle simmering, or longer if the brisket is still tough, is enough. Soaking, blanching, and boiling the noodles add time on top of that. Each bowl is topped with shredded brisket, zucchini, and separate strips of yolk and white omelet.
Eaten raw, chamnamul (a Korean mountain herb) gives off a fresh aroma somewhere between parsley and celery. Pan-fried cubes of firm tofu, golden and crisp outside, give it something to chew on, julienned Asian pear adds cool sweetness, and halved cherry tomatoes bring a little acidity. Whether the tofu forms a firm crust depends on moisture: pressed poorly, it sticks to the pan and never firms up. The cubes are folded in last, after the greens are dressed, once they have cooled completely and can hold their shape. The pear is cut right before assembly to limit browning, and the dressing is just perilla oil, lemon juice, and soup soy sauce, kept simple so the nutty perilla oil leads.
Amaranth greens, their tough stem ends snapped off one by one with the fingers, are blanched for under a minute, squeezed hard and dressed with doenjang, soup soy sauce and perilla oil.
The silken tofu here stays in big, soft spoonfuls instead of dissolving into the rice. It goes in only once the porridge is done and is barely stirred after that. The rice and shiitake are first toasted in perilla oil, then simmered in kelp stock.
Ground perilla seeds thicken the small amount of cooking liquid into a light, nutty sauce, so the cabbage ends up sitting in a shallow gravy rather than dry or watery. Stems and leaves are cut together, yet a short covered cook leaves the stems with some crunch while the leaves turn soft.
Midwinter napa cabbage grows sweeter the more cold it weathers, and simmered from cold water with radish it sweetens the broth with no separate stock. The oysters go in last for a minute or two, and since they bring plenty of salt, the soy sauce stays light.