How to Make Kimchi - Easy Recipe You Can Make At Home (2024)

Rich in flavor, perfectly spiced and easy kimchi recipe that you can make at home!

If you’ve never tried kimchi before, now is the time to have a taste of it. Your favorite Asian store or Korean restaurant always have them. This tasty kimchi is serve as a side with almost every dish. Once you try it, I’m pretty sure you’ll want to make your own at home.

Be sure to try making my Kimchi Stew (Kimchi Jjigae) as well once you've done making this kimchi.

Making kimchi at home is fun. After all, this is seasoned and fermented cabbage, so expect a new and exciting cooking experience — even professional chefs find the process utterly intriguing. With a simple recipe for kimchi like the one you’ll find below, making the tangy Korean specialty is easy too! So, here’s all you need to know about making kimchi.

How to Make Kimchi at Home?

Making kimchi is all about tossing chopped cabbage with kimchi paste and letting it ferment for a few days. Of course, here’s where things get interesting, we’ll use some of the most fragrant and delicious ingredients for our homemade kimchi paste. For our easy kimchi recipe, we’re also adding chopped veggies along with the traditional cabbage for texture. The result is as good as kimchi gets — an authentic rendition of the famous Korean fermented food.

Although some people have their own kimchi recipe spices, I like making kimchi traditionally, where we let the fermented veggies do the talking. You need not use a lot of salt, fish sauce and chili flakes in a classic kimchi recipe. All the flavor comes from the onion, garlic, ginger, leek, carrots, radish and, of course, the starchy rice flour porridge that brings it all together.

What You Need to Make Kimchi

To make a large batch of kimchi, have all the ingredients listed below, but you’ll also need a few pots and pans, bowls and spoons. Make sure you have the following before getting started.

For starters, you’ll need plenty of counter space to work in an organized manner. The first step is chopping and slicing all the ingredients, so have a large cutting board and a sharp Chef’s knife in hand. You‘ll also need containers or small bowls for all the ingredients. Be organized and neat, and you’ll find making kimchi efforless.

You’ll also need a large non-reactive mixing bowl. We’ll use it to salt-cure the cabbage, and once again to combine the homemade kimchi paste with the chopped veggies. Bring out your food processor as well; it will help you combine the aromatics with the porridge to make the kimchi paste. Work in batches if necessary.

Have a large pot in hand to dissolve the sweet rice flour and sugar in water — this is the porridge, an all-natural thickener that will give body to the kimchi paste. Other than that, have a large, sterile jar or an air-tight container to store your kimchi!

How Long Does it Take for Kimchi to Ferment?

Once the kimchi is ready, you have a few choices. Freshly made kimchi is delicious already — spicy, crunchy and incredibly flavorful; this colorful condiment is ready to complement any meal. Still, kimchi is traditionally preserved by fermentation, which gives it a long shelf life.

You don’t need to do anything to ferment kimchi, as the microorganisms responsible for the fermentation are already in your ingredients. However, fermentation is best kept in check by storing the fermenting kimchi in the fridge. If left on the counter, things can get funky fast. So, how long for kimchi to ferment?

You should see bubbles forming in the kimchi by day two, as the malo-lactic fermentation kicks in. It will only get more noticeable in the following days, and after a week, things will settle. There’s no right or wrong answer here. We all like our kimchi differently. I recommend tasting your kimchi every few days to find your sweet spot.

Sour kimchi is best suited for some recipes, and that goes for fresh kimchi as well, so enjoy your homemade kimchi as it evolves. Don’t worry — as long as you keep the kimchi in the fridge, it will last for up to six months. Of course, many variables determine kimchi’s shelf life. When in doubt, make a new batch!

Kimchi FAQ

What to make with kimchi?

Kimchi is incredibly versatile. If you’re wondering what to make with kimchi and how to incorporate the Korean condiment into your cooking, here are some ideas. Serve it as a side dish when grilling meat as Korean people do when making barbecue. You can also top burgers and hot dogs with kimchi, and it’s a vital ingredient in Kimchi stew (kimchi jjigae) and kimchi fried rice. Delicious!

Why not buy kimchi instead of making it?

Store-bought kimchi is not nearly as vibrant as homemade. Besides, by making your own, you can choose its spice level along with many other customizations. Once you feel comfortable making the kimchi recipe below, tweak it to your liking.

Is kimchi vegan?

In essence, kimchi is both vegetarian and vegan. Still, some regional versions include salty squid or raw oysters, for example. You can totally make vegan kimchi with the recipe below.

Is kimchi healthy?

Kimchi is incredibly good for you. All fermented foods are rich in probiotics, which promote good digestive health. There are lots of vitamins and minerals in kimchi as well, and even hot peppers promote a faster metabolism.

What are gochugaru pepper flakes?

Gochugaru is dried ground chili peppers, crushed and sold without seeds. The best kind is labeled as taeyangcho, which means that the peppers were sun-dried, therefore of higher quality. Also, maewoon gochugaru is the spiciest kind, and deolmaewoon gochugaru is the mildest. Choose your favorite!

Is kimchi the same thing as sauerkraut?

Kimchi and sauerkraut are relatively similar, as they’re both fermented foods, more often than not cabbage. Still, there are a few key differences. Sauerkraut is much simpler, and it’s never as seasoned as kimchi. Kimchi can even be spicy, and you don’t get that from the German condiment.

Does kimchi go bad?

Like all foods, kimchi eventually goes bad, but it might take several months, provided you store it in a dark, cold place like the fridge in an airtight container and avoid contaminating it with dirty utensils. By salting the cabbage, you’re promoting the growth of healthy microorganisms that protect the food from food-spoiling bacteria.

Easy Kimchi Recipe

Here’s a simple recipe for kimchi, including all you need to make kimchi at home. I’m sure you’ll find great pleasure in crafting this tasty side dish traditionally. There’s just nothing like kimchi, especially when homemade!

This recipe makes a large batch of kimchi, which should last a long time in the fridge. To make the recipe, you’ll need to chop the ingredients, salt-cure the cabbage, prepare the rice porridge, make the kimchi paste, and combine all the elements. There is more than one way of making kimchi, but this is without a doubt the easiest way of making traditional kimchi at home. Recipe adapted from Maangchi.

Ingredients:

• 10 pounds napa cabbage (baechu)
• 1 cup kosher salt
• ½ cup sweet rice flour
• ¼ cup sugar
• Water as needed
• 10 garlic cloves
• 2 2-inch pieces of ginger
• 2 onions
• 1 cup fish sauce
• 2½ cups Gochugaru hot pepper flakes
• 1 leek
• 10 green onions
• 1 large carrot
• 1 large Korean radish

Directions:

1. Trim and clean the cabbage, crush the garlic, peel and mince the ginger and mince the onion, chop the leek, cut the green onions diagonally, julienne the carrot and the radish. Set all the ingredients aside separately.
2. Cut the cabbage lengthwise into quarters and use a knife to remove the core in each quarter, leaving only the leaves. Chop each quarter into bite-sized bits and place in a large mixing bowl.
3. Soak the chopped cabbage in cold water and mix with the salt. Let the cabbage rest in the saltwater for one and a half hours, stirring every thirty minutes to ensure all the cabbage is appropriately salted.
4. Rinse the cabbage in cold running water. Repeat 1-2 times to ensure the cabbage is salt-free. Drain and set aside.
5. To make the porridge, pour three cups of water and the sweet rice flour into a large pot. Mix to combine and boil over a medium flame (5-8 minutes). Stir occasionally.
6. Add the sugar into the pot and stir until dissolved and the mixture is translucent. Turn off the stove and allow the mixture to cool down to room temperature.
7. Make the kimchi paste by placing the cold porridge into a food processor and adding the fish sauce, hot pepper flakes, garlic, ginger and onion. Blitz between additions until all the ingredients are combined into a runny paste.
8. Transfer the kimchi paste into a bowl and incorporate the green onions, leek, carrot and Korean radish. Mix with your hand use hand gloves.
9. Add the drained cabbage into the kimchi paste, mix well and transfer into a sterile jar or airtight container.
10. Enjoy the fresh kimchi as is or allow it to ferment in the fridge for a few days for a tangier taste. You should see bubbles from the fermentation after 2 days in the refrigerator.

Tips:

• Store the kimchi in the fridge. Make sure to put them in an airtight container.
• Kimchi tastes best if the ingredients are mixed using your hands, so make sure to use hand gloves.
• Mix the paste and the cabbage in batches if you don't have extra large bowls.