Three Important Korean Seasonings

Gan jang: Gan jang is the term for one of the most important (and easy to find) Korean food ingredients: Korean soy sauce. Soy sauce is widely used for salt and flavor throughout Korean cuisine.

Gochujang: If you like your Korean food spicy, that means you love Gochujang. A kind of heavy hot sauce, gochujang is generally made from red chili powder, glutinous rice powder, powdered fermented soybeans, and salt. It’s used as an ingredient in many dishes, as well as a condiment. One of this Korean food ingredient’s most famous uses is as a condiment for bibimbap.

Doenjang (or Dwen jang): This is a fermented soybean paste, and is considered essential to Korean cuisine. It is used in a huge variety of dishes, including on its own as a condiment, mixed to create another condiment (called ssamjang) or to flavor stews, broths, and other dishes.

The Main Korean Food Ingredients

Ssal: Ssal is simply rice… but there’s really nothing simple about it. Unlike in many cultures, Koreans don’t prefer soft and fluffy rice. In Korean cooking, a short-grained, sticky rice is used, instead.

Baechu: Baechu, or Napa cabbage, is one of the most important Korean food ingredients you can find. It is often used in soups, or eaten raw as a wrap. Most importantly, though, baechu is used in baechu kimchi, the most popular type of Korean kimchi (see below).

Kimchi (or Gimchi): Kimchi is a vegetable dish eaten in Korea with just about every meal. Though it can be made differently each time, it is generally made with various vegetables and is fermented and highly spiced. It is both used as a side dish (called a banchan), as well as an ingredient in other Korean dishes.

Biji (or Kongbiji): When soybeans are blended in order to create soy milk, a fibouous pulp is left behind. This is biji, and is used throughout Korea and the rest of Asia as an ingredient in stews and soups, as well as bread products.

Other Korean Seasonings and Sauces

Ggaet nip: Ggaet nip, called sesame leaf, is a member of the mint family, and is used both as a spice for stews and other dishes, and a wrap for meats and seafood.

Ssamjang: When the Korean food ingredients gochujang and doenjang are combined with sesame oil, onion, garlic, and scallions as a condiment, the result is ssamjang. Ssamjang is a spicy sauce used as an addition to grilled dishes such as samgyeopsal.

Red bean paste: Red bean paste is used throughout Asian cooking. In Korea, it is used in snacks and desserts, such as bungeoppang and hotteok. It’s also traditional in Korea to eat red bean paste at the winter solstice in order to warm the body and keep you healthy through the winter.

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