Homemade Korean Kimchi Recipe

Name: Homemade Korean Kimchi
Prep time: 45 min
Total time: 525 min
Yield: About 2 quarts
Cuisine: Korean
Ingredients: 1 large napa cabbage, cored and cut into 1-inch pieces; 1/4 cup sea salt; Cool water, enough to cover the cabbage; 2 cups Korean daikon radishes, cut into matchstick strips (optional, or use carrots); 1 bunch scallions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces; 1 Tbsp fresh ginger, sliced (2 to 3 disks, peels are ok); 6 cloves garlic, whole; 1 red onion, quartered; 2 to 6 Tbsp Korean-style red pepper flakes, not powder (I use gochugaru); 2 Tbsp fish sauce, more to taste; 2 tsp sugar

A jar of homemade Korean kimchi made with napa cabbage, radish, and gochugaru

Let me tell you about the kimchi that lives in my refrigerator.

There is almost always a jar of it in there. Sometimes three. It started as a souvenir from traveling in Asia and turned into something we make at home, in a two quart jar on the counter, out of one head of napa cabbage and a handful of pantry ingredients.

If you have never had kimchi, the smell alone might have you turning up your nose. Our modern kitchens are not used to the smell of fermented food anymore. Stay with me on this one. It is worth it.

Where I First Tasted Real Kimchi

Everything about traveling in Asia felt a little mysterious to me at first. The language stumped my ears and my eyes, and the food brought brand new tastes to my tongue.

I was honestly intimidated by the open markets. I could not recognize half of the produce I was looking at, and the signs were written in a language I could not read. So I did what you do. I pointed, I smiled, and I tasted things.

My daughter and I still laugh about how narrow our own food culture can look from the outside. Plastic cheese, burgers, fried chicken. Meanwhile every Korean meal we sat down to came with a spread of little side dishes . . . bean sprouts, pickled cucumbers and radishes, roasted sweet potatoes, and the ever present kimchi.

Given the choice, my family picks Korean food almost every time.

An assortment of Korean side dishes including kimchi, bean sprouts, and pickled vegetables

A Short History Of Kimchi

Kimchi goes back a long way. History puts it around 37 BC, in a time when there was no refrigeration and fermenting was simply how you kept a harvest from going to waste.

It became the dish that showed up at every meal, or on its own as a snack. Koreans today eat an average of 48 pounds of kimchi a year.

That is a food that earned its place.

How Kimchi Is Made

Kimchi starts with napa cabbage. The cabbage soaks in salt water first, and the salt is doing two jobs at once. It pulls water out of the leaves so they keep longer, and it creates conditions where the bacteria you want can get to work while most others cannot.

The ones you want are lactobacillus, the same family of bacteria found in yogurt and in a healthy gut. They turn the natural sugars and carbohydrates in the vegetables into lactic acid. That acid is what preserves the vegetables and gives kimchi its signature tang.

In Korea, whole neighborhoods still gather and make it in enormous batches. It is inexpensive, it is simple, and most of the work is done by time rather than by you. You mix, you pack, you wait.

Here is a batch of mine partway through.

A two quart jar of kimchi fermenting on the counter with a water filled bag holding the cabbage under the brine

What Is Actually In A Jar Of Kimchi

Kimchi is a vegetable dish, so most of what you get out of it is what you put into it. Napa cabbage, radish, scallions, garlic, ginger, and red pepper, plus the salt and the time that turn them into something entirely new.

Fermented vegetables have been a traditional source of live cultures in home kitchens for thousands of years, long before anyone thought to sell them in a capsule. Those live cultures may support a healthy balance in your gut microbiome.

That is the honest version. Kimchi is not medicine and it is not a treatment for anything. It is a vegetable side dish that happens to be alive, and it tastes like nothing else on your plate.

Getting Used To The Taste

If kimchi is new to you, you may not love it on the first bite. That is completely normal, and it is not a sign you did anything wrong.

Start small. A forkful next to your eggs. A spoonful stirred into rice. A little chopped into a grain bowl. Most people find that after a couple of weeks they start reaching for it on purpose.

You can buy good kimchi at Asian grocery stores and in the produce section of a lot of supermarkets. Making it yourself is more fun, it costs very little, and you get to decide exactly how hot it is.

How We Eat It

Kimchi is a side dish and a topping, which means it belongs with far more than Korean food.

We eat it straight from the jar with rice and a fried egg. We pile it next to grilled meat. We chop it into fried rice in the last minute of cooking. It is very good on a burger, which feels like a small joke on my daughter and me.

A Few Things To Know Before You Start

Wear gloves when you work the paste into the cabbage. Red pepper on bare hands will remind you about it for hours. If you do not have gloves, tongs will do the job, but keep the paste off your skin either way.

Use a plastic lid for storage instead of a metal one. Metal lids tend to rust in that brine.

Buy Korean style red pepper flakes, not powder. The brand I use is gochugaru. It is what gives kimchi its color and its particular kind of heat, and there is really no substitute for it.

And if you want to make a lot at once, the way I usually do, brine the cabbage in a clean camping cooler and then fill three two quart jars.

From Dr. Michelle's Kitchen

Homemade Korean Kimchi

By Dr. Michelle Jorgensen

A traditional napa cabbage kimchi. The cabbage brines in salt water, gets massaged with a garlic, ginger, and gochugaru paste, then ferments on the counter before finishing in the refrigerator.

ServingsAbout 2 quarts

Prep Time45 min

Total Time8 hr 45 min

CuisineKorean

CategorySide Dish

Ingredients

Cabbage and Brine

1 large napa cabbage, cored and cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 cup sea salt
Cool water, enough to cover the cabbage

Vegetables

2 cups Korean daikon radishes, cut into matchstick strips (optional, or use carrots)
1 bunch scallions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

Kimchi Paste

1 Tbsp fresh ginger, sliced (2 to 3 disks, peels are ok)
6 cloves garlic, whole
1 red onion, quartered
2 to 6 Tbsp Korean-style red pepper flakes, not powder (I use gochugaru)
2 Tbsp fish sauce, more to taste
2 tsp sugar

Directions

Prepare the Cabbage

Place the 1-inch pieces of napa cabbage in a large bowl (see notes). Add the salt and toss until the salt is evenly distributed. Add enough cool water to cover the cabbage and stir until the salt is dissolved. Be sure the cabbage stays submerged in the brine by placing a weighted plate over it (see notes).
Allow the cabbage to soak in the brine at room temperature for 6 to 8 hours or overnight.
Once the cabbage has finished soaking, drain it and rinse it lightly. Drain again, squeeze out any excess water, and place it back in the bowl. Mix in the Korean daikon radish and the scallions and stir until combined.

Make the Paste

Place the ginger, garlic, red onion, red pepper flakes, fish sauce, and sugar in your food processor. Process, pulsing, until well combined and it becomes a thick paste. Taste the paste and add more Korean-style red pepper flakes until you reach your desired spice level.

Massage the Paste Into the Cabbage

Put on gloves first (see notes). Scoop the paste onto the cabbage and, using gloves, mix and massage the vegetables and paste together really well until all the vegetables are well coated.

Prepare for Fermentation

Pack the cabbage mixture into a large two-quart jar, continually pushing the cabbage down until the jar is filled to about 2 inches below the rim. Keep packing until about 1 to 2 inches of brine and paste mixture pools on top of the cabbage.
To be sure the cabbage stays submerged in the brine and paste mixture, cover it with a quart-sized Ziploc freezer bag filled 1/3 of the way with cool water. Be sure the water-filled bag fully covers the kimchi and the inside of the jar so that no air can get to it. Anything that touches air may mold.

Ferment

Place the jar in a container to collect any juices that may escape while fermenting. Leave the jar in a cool place or on the counter for 3 days. Press down on the kimchi mixture daily with the back of a wooden spoon to keep it submerged, and be sure the plastic bag continues to fill the whole top of the jar.
Between the third and fifth day of the jar sitting out, check for signs of fermentation or bubbles. Tap the jar and see if tiny bubbles rise to the top, and watch to see if any of the juices have started overflowing. Once you see bubbles, it is ready to store in the refrigerator, where it will continue to ferment and develop more flavor. If after a few days you still are not seeing signs of fermentation, be patient, it may just need more time.
For a stronger, tangier flavor you can ferment on the counter longer before placing it into the refrigerator.

Refrigerate

Once you have seen evidence of fermentation, remove the plastic bag from the jar and cap it with a plastic lid (see notes). Place it in the refrigerator and allow it to ferment there for two weeks in order to achieve its full flavor and complexity. The longer you ferment, the more complex and sour the taste will become.
After two weeks in the refrigerator, it is ready to eat. You can also store it in the refrigerator for months on end, as long as it remains submerged in the brine, and it will continue to ferment very slowly and get more and more flavorful. After each use, press the kimchi back down under the brine.
Enjoy your homemade Korean kimchi.

Notes

Adapted from Sylvia Fountaine at feastingathome.com.

Timing: about 45 minutes of hands-on work, then 6 to 8 hours of brining, 3 days fermenting on the counter, and 2 weeks in the refrigerator before it is at its best.

I often make huge batches of kimchi, so I use a clean camping cooler to soak the cabbage and three 2-quart jars for storing.

To make sure the cabbage stays fully submerged during the brine soak, place a plate on top of the cabbage, then place a bowl filled with water on top of the plate.

If you do not have gloves, you can use tongs to combine the paste with the vegetables, but I highly recommend using gloves. Whatever you choose to do, be sure that your skin does not come in contact with the paste.

Use a plastic lid to cover the kimchi. Metal lids tend to rust.

The hardest part of this recipe is the waiting, and even that is not very hard. You do about forty five minutes of chopping and mixing, and then time does the rest of the work for you.

Make it once and you will have a jar in your refrigerator for months, getting better the whole time.

Let Time Do The Work

Fermenting at home sounds like an advanced kitchen skill. It is not. It is one of the oldest and simplest things you can do with vegetables, and kimchi is a forgiving place to start.

Keep the vegetables under the brine. Keep air off the top. Be patient. Bubbles mean it is working.

And if you want more real food that does not take all evening, grab my free 30 Minute Meal Formula.