I’ve always bought my kimchi and assumed it’s too complicated to make. I’m Korean American but married to a Korean so we run through kimchi in our household. We usually have to drive 45 mins to get to the closest Korean grocery and anything closer is usually some weird kimchi/kraut/pickle thing. With kimchi prices so high I’m boycotting big kimchi and will be making it only from scratch from now on.

My first ever kimchi is a sweet radish kimchi (kkakdugi) trying to recreate the taste of gomtang or sullungtang jib kimchi.

Happy with the results, but will know for sure in the next day or two. The wife was surprised it tasted Korean haha. Im letting it sit at room temperature overnight. Gonna try making some cucumber oi kimchi next!

Sullungtang kkakdugi recipe

Brine and discard water
4 tb course salt
1 tb new sugar

Blend
1 onion
1/2 cup leftover cooked rice
1 cup Kelp water(I just pour hot water over dried kelp)
12 garlic
Nib of ginger

Mix
2 tb plum sauce
4 tb anchovy sauce
2 tb saeujeot
Gochugaru to taste

Finallyyyy

Every once and a while I go all out for a meal from a different part of the world. I am American and love to cook. Yesterday I did my best attempt at a Korean meal with banchan. Of course there had to be kimchi. Really happy with how it turned out. Mostly followed Maangchi’s Tongbaechu-kimchi recipe. It really made the meal.

I got this from H Mart and it had this weird meat with a sac like piece hanging … not sure if I can still eat the kimchi?

UPDATE: thank you to everyone who answered! I thought I was unlucky when I got the batch but turns out I’m very lucky and should buy a lottery. appreciate everyone who went out of their way to answer. enjoyed the delicious kimchi!

Hi!

I just did my first badge of kimchi about 48hrs ago. After I tasted it now, it tastes amazing but there is no sour taste whatsoever, no fizzing, no visible bubbles and also no smell of fermentation.

Did I do something wrong? Or does it take more time?

Ingredients:

Red cabbage, beetroot, red onion

I submitted the red cabbage for 2hrs in heavily salted hot water to soften it up, then rinsed it properly.

Sauce: water + rice flour, mixed in: sweet pears, 1TBs brown sugar, fresh ginger, fresh garlic, chili, spices.

Salt: per 1.5kg badge: fishsauce 60g, soy sauce 60g, tablesalt 10g > should be 2,3% salt in total.

I'm throwing a KBBQ night for my birthday so I would love recommendations for packaged kimchi brands that are not sweet. I love tangy and sour kimchi, so it's been hard to find a good sugar-free version I can get on the go.

Thanks in advance!

First I appreciate and wholly support everyone who makes great kimchi here (or even bad kimchi! It’s awesome to try). BUT ALSO please do not leave out your kimchi at room temperature for a week!!

Kimchi is not a pickle. Kimchi is not a science experiment that is supposed to explode. Kimchi is also not an “aged like wine” type food (this is true in specific controlled fermentation, but never at room temperature). That sort of advice being so common here is possibly why I see so many pictures or rotten or moldy kimchi, many of them in conditions that I’ve literally never seen in my 30+ years of life eating kimchi.

Kimchi and the tradition of gimjang is also something that Koreans take a lot of pride in. When Koreans are screaming in the comments saying 5+ days at room temperature is excessive and literally no one in Korea does that, please believe us. Please leave out a batch for a day (or MAX two in the winter—I personally just leave out overnight and no more) and slow ferment in the fridge. If you like mushy brown rotten kimchi personally then I can’t stop you, but please don’t advise others to do the same or suggest that that’s an equally valid, authentic process of making kimchi.

EDIT: I did not expect this to blow up like this and I debated deleting this, but I’m keeping it for now (might delete later). Any criticisms I’m trying to understand as people being invested in their kimchi making process and feeling proud, and then feeling attacked when that method is discredited. This isn’t something I’d necessarily be unhappy about. As someone who loves Korean food and has had a few lunchbox moments myself growing up, I’m appreciative of subs like this and people’s interest/passion in kimchi. Here are a few sources that recommend 1-2 day room temperature fermentation and advise against something longer (~week). (I know people love maangchi here, as I do, and her recipe is also 1-2 days). Ultimately it’s everyone’s individual choices and I’m not saying anything beyond a few days always leads to kimchi going bad. But these are useful guidelines that are faithful to how people locally enjoy kimchi.

https://www.wikim.re.kr/gallery.es?act=view&bid=0013&list_no=2423&mid=a50201010000 (a Korean institution dedicated to kimchi, says deterioration-related surface yeast found to develop in about 6 days at ~70f, not toxic but at this point the yeast has to be removed and the kimchi is not recommended to be eaten fresh)

https://m.kin.naver.com/qna/dirs/8020112/docs/486262557 (a commercial manufacturer of kimchi, says beyond 3-4 days the kimchi tastes off and beyond 7 days it grows moldy)

https://news.kbs.co.kr/news/mobile/view/view.do?ncd=8566851 (school lunch vendors held criminally liable for keeping kimchi at room temperature)

https://kimchi.pusan.ac.kr/kimchi/43688/subview.do (a Korean university’s research—refrigerate after a day for best results)

https://m.kin.naver.com/qna/dirs/50502/docs/467192386 (another commercial kimchi producer, advising against prolonged room temp (recommends a day), “can rot and lead to unsafe microbes”)

Made some Kimchi again yesterday.

This time with Wang Dried Kelp (Dashima). But forgot the Nashi pear or even an apple.

And now the hardest part - waiting 🙄 ​

Another batch of kimchi I make again, I really like the baby Miu Choy with radish.

Container 1 is mostly Miu Choy, radish, onion, some left over napa cabbage.

Container 2 is mostly dandelion, radish, onion, some napa cabbage.

I find that at my place, it usually do begin to fermented after 1.5 days slowly, then 3 day will have some sour so I will put it in fridge.

I don't eat much spicy so substitute most of it for paprika but I just found out that when paprika is old, they lost color and become brown 😂, I bought another bottle and mixed it so it doesn't go to waste. I will push them down so it releases more juice later, my other end result is always more juice and bottle will shrink like 1/2 of this size.

If anyone have other mixed vegetables, feel free to tell me if it will go good with my current mix.

So my local Costco (Northern Ontario) sold this amazing Kimchi and cucumber noodle salad once a couple years ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. Does anyone know the recipe? I tried a different one that's close but not perfect.

Hello, my mom gave me some yeolmu and it was so good I decided to whip up a batch before I ran out. When I finish what she gave me can I put those juices with my batch or is that not a good idea?

It’s fartin’ real good 🤯

Made a breakfast plate to share. Broccolini up top. I feel like pics don’t do it justice. Sloppy little leggy bois. Tasty tho. I want to make mustard greens too. I need to make another batch of radish. My regular kimchi in the bottom left. Eggs I fried in the cast iron and avocado. I wish I had some tofu bites made but I was out. Omg I should have defrosted some smoked salmon.

I wanted my first batch to be a "base" batch. The quintessential, no frills, simplest ingredients for what could be considered Kimchi before experimenting. I used AI to help craft that recipe aligned with some other dietary restrictions.

Half a cabbage head to start out. Cut up into 2 inch chunks and threw about 701g of cabbage into a bowl with 17g of salt. Broke it all down real nice. Gave it some flips every 30 minutes. About two and a half hours later it was very flexible.

I went to prepare the paste and here's where AI stung me. You'll notice I used like 70 grams of Gochugaru. Apparently like 3x too much. I have no clue how it landed on this number. I distinctly remember thinking "this looks like waaaaay too much" while pouring more and more and more into the bowl sitting on the scale. Then I thew the other ingredients in all mixed up. It wouldn't turn into a paste , so I gave the bowl a little salt water top up. I wasn't sure I added enough salt at this point anyway. After washing the settled cabbage a couple times I threw the "paste" into the bowl, mixed it all around, and let it sit for a few minutes.

Bottled it. Thew some backslop from a favorite local brand on top. Two days later and its bubbling like a witches brew. I tasted some. I don't know how to describe it. It's soooooo saucey it almost has the consistency of spaghetti sauce. It was like eating Kimchi Spaghetti. It actually tastes really good but doesn't have that bitterness yet? I'm curious to see how that changes over the coming days.

Photo is day two almost 48 hours in. Pre-squish for the day. I pressed in those gaps after the photo. The top looks fresh and saucey without anything poking though. I see bubbles popping when I jiggle it.

There's no mold or other oddities that I can see. It still looks safe? Can this even be called Kimchi, or did I make an abomination?

Other then the usual cabbage and scallions, what veggies are you mixing into kimchi and or turning into kimchi on their own?

And when you use other veggies, how do you prep them? Salting or no salting? Mix them with cabbage or make them alone?

For me, I mix thin cut daikon radishes and carrots into cabbage kimchi and don’t salt them. I also do cubed daikon radish kimchi on its own and so salt those for a few hours.

First time making my own after consuming countless jars of the store bought stuff. I followed Maangchi's vegetarian kimchi and I ended up using something called watermelon radish because I could not find daikon or Korean radish at my store which looked quite lovely when cut up.

Pretty excited. I left it on the counter overnight and it's in the fridge for the next two weeks.

Edit 3: Also just looking back at how the photos turned out, it looks a lot worse than it does in real life, which isn't very helpful.

Edit 2: Follow up question for anyone that sees this post. Why might the kimchi have ended up like this? I used this recipe from Maangchi for vegetarian kimchi. https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/chaesik-kimchi

Edit 1: thanks everyone! I was shocked to get such quick responses 🙏 I'll chuck all of it away ☹️ I ate from another container of the same batch 3-4 times and didn't have issues, idk how.

Hi! So, I made kimchi back in April. It didn't ferment I'm pretty sure, and now one of the portions has an area on the surface that is grey/discoloured.

Do you think the kimchi is ok to eat? It doesn't look like mould? It just looks like a layer of grey. And it smells ok... it just smells like kimchi.

I have been eating kimchi from another portion of the same batch (different container), and it's been fine, haven't gotten sick and the taste is fine.

Appreciate any input as this was my first time making kimchi, and I don't know much.

I got this radish at Kim mart,, it had a green and white colour and yet it's not slightly sweet or good tasting, it just tastes like pure pepper and a bit bitter,. I mixed only a little of it with my kimchi and put the rest on its own but is this going to be good and will it ruin my kimchi

How do you tell is you have a good radish for kimchi??

After picking up some wombok cabbages for $1 each, I was keen to keep iterating on previous attempts. This is my third time making kimchi, and I'm slightly reducing the garlic, chilli and time out of the fridge because the last batch, while yummy, was a little bit too tart, so 35 hours should do it this time. Well, hopefully....

Hey all, this'll be my third time making Kimchi, the first two were successful (albeit, not quite perfect heat wise/salt wise etc but i was working on that). This third batch (photos attached) was made in the same mechanical way, but i added carrots and spring onions to the mix as well, so it's a pretty basic (albeit vegan) kimchi recipe of:

Sweetheart Cabbage (cant find Nappa here)
Carrot
Spring Onion
Ginger
Garlic
Gochugaru turned into a paste
Tiny bit of sugar
Salt
Miso Paste

And did the standard brine/drain/wash of the cabbage itself.

Forgive the massive jar for the relatively small amount of kimchi, i'm trying to nail the recipe before i make any big batches.

I really squished it down into the jar before adding the ceramic weights. It has a self release valve at the top of the Kilner jar.

It was left for 5 days at room temperature in my cupboard.

Obviously, and with great sadness, i threw the batch away as soon as i saw the mould. I'm aware i must've messed something up but just want to know what! From my limited knowledge was the mistakes one of the below?:

The jar and weights were thoroughly cleaned (but not boiled/sterilised as such).
The liquid is 'submerging' the cabbage itself (but perhaps not submerged enough?)
I left it out too long (pretty sure this isn't the case as i know some people ferment kimchi for ages).

Would very much appreciate any advice, i love kimchi and enjoy making it, and i'd love to get it 'perfect' enough to give to friends/family.

I made it 36 hours ago. The vegetables had floated to the top. I pushed them all down below the liquid, cleaned the top of the jar and put the airlock back on. No signs of spoilage. Will it be okay?