Making kimchi, at least the way I do it, is super fun and easy. We eat it most days at our house. It’s great on egg and pasta dishes, and our casual party favorite mac and kimchis. We eat it in alone, in small quantities, and it is fantastic as a filling (mixed with some kind of protein such as beans) on top of a sourdough crepe. I also use it in ways that other people probably find disgusting, such as mixed with cottage cheese or on a veggie dog. But, I digress.
The great thing about kimchi is that it’s flexible and you can sub what you’ve got. I’ve used regular cabbage instead of napa, french breakfast radishes instead of daikon, and I’ve used leeks and/or red peppers and tons of other stuff I’ve pulled out of my garden or the off the stands at the farmer’s market. All-radish kimchi is traditional and so good! I’ve made it so spicy my spice-loving husband teared up and so unspicy my bland-loving friends and relatives raved. YOU CAN USE ANYTHING. Anything! Except tomatoes, cukes and squash which would mush. It’s going to taste delicious regardless of your vegetable choices so play around.
A note: During long fermentation, any metal in your container could corrode due to the lactic acid that is being produced. Better to use glass or ceramic. Plastic is also commonly used but I have some concerns about using plastic, even food grade plastic, in a sustained acidic environment so I don’t use it. Up to you, though!
Here’s my basic recipe to get you started, but remember, it’s up to you to make it taste how you like it to taste!
Basic, Flexible Kimchi (Adapted from Sandor Katz’ Wild Fermentation and the Art of Fermentation, The Kimchi Chronicles Cookbook by Marja Vongerichten and myriad YouTube videos over the years)
Ingredients
Makes one quart
1 – 2lb head napa cabbage, skanky outer leaves removed and reserved
1 large daikon
1-2 bunches of scallions (or Korean chives if you can find them)
3 large carrots, julienned (optional)
1 leek, thoroughly soaked to remove debris and sliced (optional)
1 red or yellow bell pepper, sliced or chopped into 1/2 inch squares (optional)
4 T salt (possibly more)
1/8 c rice flour (or a chunk of fruit, equaling about 1/3 c. Stone and tropical fruits work great!)
3 inches ginger, unpeeled, or to taste (I use more)
4 cloves garlic, or to taste (I use more)
1/2 an onion
2 T red pepper flakes
1/4- c gochugaru (Korean red chili powder) (omit this if making a white kimchi)
The Process
- Thoroughly rinse cabbage, daikon, carrots, leek and bell pepper. Chop cabbage, discarding core. Put it in a big bowl full of room temperature water. This is to remove any excess dirt and debris. Rinse after 10-15 minutes of soaking.
- Chop carrots, daikon, leek and bell pepper according to preference. Most traditional is larger pieces of cabbage and matchsticks of other veggies. Put chopped veggies in a large bowl. Add rinsed cabbage.
- Mix salt into 8 cups of water (or more if needed) until dissolved. Pour over chopped veggies.
- Submerge veggies under brine using whatever you have that fits. I use a plate. Cover container with a large cloth and secure with a rubber band. Let sit overnight or up to 24 hours.
- After vegetables have brined, mix rice flour with 1 c cold water until dispersed. Put in a small pot over low heat. Stir constantly, 3-4 minutes, until mixture has thickened. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.*
- While the rice mixture is cooling, start prepping the other paste ingredients. Coarsely chop ginger. Cut out any questionable parts, but do not peel.
- Coarsely chop onions, scallions and garlic.
- Place ginger, alliums and red pepper flakes into food processor and blend into a paste.** (If using fruit instead of rice paste, blend that up, too)
- Once rice is room temp, mix together your allium/ginger paste, your rice gruel and your red pepper powder.
- Strain brined veggies.
- Mix together veggies and ginger/allium paste until veggies are well-coated.
- Press them tightly into a jar (or other container that you could compress them into) and make sure they stay submerged. (We’ll discuss a couple methods for this).
- Put them in a place out of direct sunlight, away from other ferments and that has a consistent room temperature (above 68, below 80).
- Let them sit for 3-7 days, but for your first solo batch, feel free to start tasting at 3 days to see when it hits your flavor preference. When it’s done, stick it in the fridge. That will slow, but not stop, fermentation, so your kimchi will be more sour if you pull it out of the fridge in a month than it was when you put it in.
*If using fruit for your paste, skip this step
**If using fish sauce and/or shrimp paste, you would add it here. 1/8 c or to taste fish sauce. One T shrimp paste or a few tiny salted guys, added at the hand-mixing stage.
In the US, kimchi usually means one particular kimchi recipe that contains cabbages, radishes, ginger and spice. There are many other traditional kimchis and even more recipes made in individual homes.
**You can let this ferment as long as you’d like. Start tasting at 3 days, but if you like it a bit more acidic, keep it going. According to “The Art of Fermentation” by Sandor Katz a study conducted in Korea found the ideal fermenting time for kimchi is 3 days, due to changes in the type of bacteria that thrive during early and late fermentation. I usually try to leave mine a few days more but we are generally too hungry for kimchi to leave it much longer.
Jim says
Is there a step 6? if so its missing from the recipe.
Amanda says
Good point, Jim. Looks like the picture erased step 6. I fixed it!
Happy Fermenting!
Amanda says
The funny thing is I find if people don’t hear the words “fermented cabbage” kimchi is much less of an acquired taste. 🙂 So odd how that works. Hope yours turns out great!
Marybeth says
Hi,
Instead of using rice flour, could potato starch be substituted in the kimchi recipe? Why is rice flour used?
Thanks.
Marybeth
Amanda says
Hi Marybeth,
Rice flour is traditionally made to make the paste the serves as a kind of binder and sugar source in kimchi. The purpose of the flour is to both thicken the mass and to feed the microbes the sugars they need to thrive. I’ve made kimchi with nothing to serve that role, with various kinds of fruit, with wheat flour, etc. I’ve never tried potato starch, but you could give it a try with a small batch. It wouldn’t be my first choice, because I’m not sure how it’s processed, so depending on your fermentation time, it might be a bit rough on your digestive system, and could add that slimier potato starch texture.
You could definitely sub any kind of wheat flour, or just skip the rice flour step and combine your veggies with the pureed garlic/onion/ginger/hot pepper mixture.
I hope that helps!
Laura says
So my kimchi came out way, way too spicy. I didn’t have the right kind of chili powders and improvised. In an attempt to make it less spicy, I added some sugar. I had to go away and it’s been in the fridge about a month. It’s still ridiculously spicy, I can feel my insides burning as I write this. But, now it’s gooey/goopy (instead of liquidy) in between the pieces of cabbage and carrots, is this normal? Should I throw it away? Also, when I opened it, it popped like there was a seal on the jar, is this just because it kept fermenting in the fridge? Really hope I didn’t just food poison myself by eating it. Thanks for the help
Amanda says
Hi Laura,
First things first: you didn’t food poison yourself, so no worries!
As for the issues, gochugaru (the traditional pepper powder) is not very spicy at all, so even substituting hot pepper that normally isn’t super hot to you could cause “overheating” if you use it in the same proportion as the gochugaru that is called for.
About greatly increasing the sugar, it will not counteract heat, and it will give you the wrong kind of fermentation. I don’t mean an unsafe kind, I mean that it will favor yeast over bacteria, causing extra fizz, the production of alcohol and mush much before you should have it. That explains your “goo” and the extra pop on the jar (although my containers often pop, just from vigorous fermentation that doesn’t completely stop in the fridge so that in itself is not of concern).
So for next time a few things that might help: omit or greatly reduce the sugar. Find a source for gochugaru, or reduce the amount of spice powder you use if using another kind. Also, remember that heat/spice is definitely subjective. I’ve eaten things that didn’t even register as spicy only to watch someone else have a coughing fit from the same level of spice. If you don’t love spice, try with a lower level with a new recipe. You can always add more later!
For this batch, you could try making some jigae (kimchi stew, google for recipes) or adding some fresh cabbage and other veggies to dissipate the heat a bit.
I hope that helps!
Sara says
I know it has been a while so it wouldn’t help you but for the others, if your kimchi is too spicy for you, you can add some onion to make it less spicy and wait a day or two. I would put one or two. It gets little sweeter like when the onion is cooked, and makes more water so it makes less spicy. This is what my mom used to do when her kimchi got little spicy. I hope this helps.
bfg67 says
Sounds great. A couple of questions – can you make rice flour by blitzing rice in the food processor? Also a number of other recipes (eg http://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/recipes/recipe-search/chefs-recipes/2010/5/momofuku's-napa-cabbage-kimchi/) use fish sauce and dried salted shrimp… is your recipe more traditional, or is that personal choice if you are vegetarian?
Thanks for a great website and recipe
Amanda says
I think it would be quite tricky to get the consistency of rice flour you need by blending rice. In my opinion you’d be better off skipping the rice flour altogether and using a bit of fruit instead, as detailed above.
As for the fish sauce and shrimp, included in the instructions, there is an option to include them. Although baechu kimchi is frequently made with those ingredients, it’s definitely not required. I do think fish sauce kimchi is more delicious than fish sauce-less kimchi, but there is a huge downside: it REEKS while fermenting. Like it smells a hundred times worse than anything else I ferment (and that’s a lot of things). I usually do a large batch once a year with fish sauce and the rest of the time, omit that step for my day-to-day kimchis! The choice is yours, though. There are hundreds of ways to make kimchi and fish sauce is certainly not required in all of them.
Amanda
e.c. says
you can blitz and mix the cooked rice in the blender along with the other blending items. but ya skipping is fine as well. :).
A. T. says
Great recipe! Just a note on your comment to Mary Beth. Rice flour is typically used to make gochujang but gochujang is not the mixture of chili powder etc. that is applied to veggies for kimchi. Gochujang is thick, sweet chili paste that is traditionally made by fermenting gochugaru, rice/barley malt, soybeans and salt, usually for months, in earthenware jars. The finished product is used for things like bibimbap, ddeokbokki, and some soups and banchan, but not for making kimchi.
Amanda says
Of course you’re right. My brain must have deflated momentarily when I typed gochujang instead of gochugaru. I re-edited the comment so as to not confuse future readers. Thanks!
Colleen says
I don’t know why it took me so long to find you. Your website is wonderful. So is this recipe. Our house of 2 has been eating a qt a week since I made it. Last night I made Kimchi fried rice with bacon and egg, holy smokes it was amazing. Thank you for all of your sharing! Kraut is in the works and I can’t wait to make more
Amanda says
Thanks so much, Colleen! So nice of you to take the time. Best of luck with your future ferments!
Amanda
Young Park says
Hi
Can I use both rice flour and fruits for the paste or has to be one or the other?
Warm wishes,
Amanda says
Hi Young,
No reason you can’t use both. Just cut down on the quantity, or use the extra paste for another purpose.
Enjoy!
Janice says
Hi, Amanda! I love your blog. Just made your kimchi recipe (minus the bell peppers as they don’t agree with me) and am anxious to taste it. CURIOUS as to why the veggies get soaked in brine overnight and then drained before adding the paste the next day? Wouldn’t this lead to a loss of some of the veggie “goodness” in the discarded brine? Any particular reason that the salt wasn’t just added to the veggies to create brine from the veggies themselves? I used two cabbage leaves to cover the veggies and added some of the “drained” brine as the cabbage leaves weren’t submerged with just the veggie/paste mixture.
I’m just getting started with fermenting veggies; I’ve made small batches of kimchi (a different recipe), beets, your beets, your garlic cloves, your asparagus (which molded because I didn’t weight them down enough) and your sugar snap peas. Everything has been delicious!
Janice says
Oh! And I didn’t use rice flour in the batch I made but used a small (organic) black plum instead.
leah says
Yet another beautiful day! My name is Leah.
I am making Kimchi. I have a lot of the soaking brine left over. Since I am going to make more next week, I am wondering if it is safe to store the brine in the refrigerator and use it again then. I am hoping you will be able to answer my question. Until then, and always, all the best to you and all you love,
Leah
Jordan says
Hello! Love the blog! I have a similar question to Janice’s. Most of the kimchi recipes I’ve seen call for making a brine. However, when I make kraut or curtido, I just add salt to the cabbage, and the liquid it gives off becomes the brine. Is there a reason the process is different for kimchi?
Amanda says
I’m not totally sure your question is referring to my recipe, but I’ll explain my process and hope that clarifies if the post didn’t!
The brining stage here is to salt the vegetables, but they aren’t fermented in the brine. The rice paste/mixture ends up being the submersion “liquid” for the kimchi. I often direct salt the vegetables and then thoroughly drain them and/or leave the rice flour paste out of the recipe and blend without it (a variation for that is offered in this recipe, but you can also just omit it).
All of these methods yield slightly different results (and I would speculate that they result in a different microbiome for the the kimchi, too!. If you read up on kimchi, you’ll find that there are different traditional ways to do. At least a few sources I’ve read consider the brining and draining of the vegetables as the salting method to be the oldest/most traditional. I’ve tried it many, many ways and I regularly switch between these two (direct salting is faster, brining has more interesting flavor, maybe, etc).
I hope that helps to clarify!
GG says
I’d like to make large batches of kimchi in a crock at once, how large of batch can be made at once? One quart just isn’t enough for this household. I have a 3 gallon crock and I usually end up with half of that when I make sauerkraut after it’s fermented. It doesn’t last, my family goes through it quickly. It also makes great gifts packed in pint jars.
Amanda says
You can make as large of a batch as you want. This isn’t canning. It will all acidify equally in fermentation (the pH drop is the safety mechanism). There are commercial producers that make literal tons at a time. I regularly make 5 gallon batches. You’re good to go!
Cary says
Hi there!
How important is it to leave away from other ferments?
Amanda says
Not very. My opinion on this has changed over the years. I used to be more paranoid about it, but now, I focus on making sure my jars and implements are all very clean in between uses. I’ve never had an issue either way. I hope that helps!