Kimchi originates from Korea, and roughly means “salted vegetable.” There are hundreds of ways to make it, offering an unlimited canvas on which to paint different flavors. Use any crunchy fresh vegetable. Tweak the flavors in the paste by varying the amount of ginger, garlic, fish sauce, and red peppers (or by adding any other ingredients) to customize the taste exactly to your liking.

Soak, Rinse, Slather, Pack

This technique where we cut the cabbage into bite size pieces prior to salting and fermentation is considered mak which translates to “carelessly”. (More formal/traditional method of fermenting kimchi is to leave the cabbage whole, or in quarters, and then cut it right before serving it.)

Soak the cabbage and radish (if using) in a 5% (salt to water ratio by weight) brine, from 30 minutes to 4 hours. Drain (but do not rinse) the cabbage and other veggie pieces.

Next, make a paste using soy and fish sauce, aromatics like scallions, ginger, and garlic, and red pepper powder. Slather up the soaked veggies in the paste in order to prepare the mixture for its short fermentation journey to kimchi.

Finally, pack well-mixed contents into a jar or crock. Weigh it down and cover with a cloth, or use a small-batch fermentation device to minimize air and let gas escape.

Fermentation Time

The length of kimchi fermentation can vary widely according to the season and your location. Some prefer to do a short (2-3 days) ferment at room temperature, and then transfer to a refrigerator for further flavor development. In the southern California coastal climate (USDA hardiness zone 10a) where I live, I find that 9 days fermentation time is perfect for this recipe most times of the year. Once moved to the refrigerator, fermentation activity is dramatically reduced, but the flavor slowly continues to develop and improve as it sits several weeks in the fridge.

In fact, many Korean households have special kimchi refrigerators for that purpose. These special high-tech fridges maintain slightly warmer temps than typical refrigerators (55F versus 40F), use “direct cooling” and can be set to “fermentation mode” to closely simulate the traditional earth temperature conditions when burying an onggi (crock) halfway in the ground. Hmm, we wonder if you could repurpose a wine refrigerator, with similar temp range and technology, as a dedicated kimchi refrigerator?

Experiment with different times and keep track of what works best in your climate.

Red Pepper Powder (Gochugaru)

Most traditional kimchi recipes are spicy and use red pepper powder, known as kochugaru or gochugaru (gochu means pepper in Korean). It’s available at most Asian markets. Kimchi can also be made with fresh peppers, too. And any style of kimchi made without chile peppers is considered white kimchi.

When buying gochugaru, look for a coarsely or medium sized grind. And make sure that red pepper is the ONLY ingredient. Some brands include salt or even preservatives. We want to control our own salt level, so only buy the pure stuff!

Most brands are made from peppers grown China. Prices for most Chinese grown pepper powders range from $5 to $8 per lb (450g). Korean pepper powder is less intensely red than the stuff from China.

Labels can be tricky! Even the brands which are “Product of Korea” may only have been packed there. It is difficult to know the murky origin of the actual peppers inside the package.

We finally found truly Korean-grown gochugaru. It cost about $25-$30/lb./500g. This brand is seasonally available (we found this in late September) at HMart, an Asian grocery chain in the U.S. You can also order it online here. More info about this product (in Korean) here.

Grow your own Korean Chiles

If you have a green thumb, you can also grow your own hot peppers in the summer and then dehydrate them to make your own gochugaru. That way, you can use any kinds of pepper variety you like. When shopping for seeds, the variety is often simply called “Korean hot pepper”.

SIDEBAR: How Hot are Korean Chiles?

Korean peppers don’t appear on common Scoville scales (the scale that’s used to rate hot peppers relative to each other). Based on our research, it seems like they may be around 10,000 Scoville units, somewhere hotter than a jalapeno but not as hot as a cayenne or habanero. Sources [1], [2] and [3].