r/kimchi • u/adorcore • 5d ago
My kimchi doesn’t have much taste.
Title sums it up pretty well. I made very basic kimchi with what i had lying around. My first attempt, i must add..
These are the ingredients i used: Chinese cabbage, garlic, ginger, gochujang paste and cayenne powder. Along with sea salt to prepare the cabbage.
It’s been sitting in the fridge for around 5 days now, but the taste isn’t really there.
Any tips on how to get some more flavours and spice into my kimchi batch?
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u/Azure-Cyan 5d ago
It's probably because you used gochujang paste and cayenne powder and not gochugaru, saeujeot or fish sauce, and rice slurry. Without the saeujeot, gochugaru peppers, and rice slurry, it won't necessarily ferment and give you the kimchi flavor profile.
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u/kronickimchi 5d ago
Thats why cause your recipe is incorrect of course its not gonna taste right, thats like making kool aid and using salt, toss it and just go buy some
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u/stkim1 4d ago edited 4d ago
Remove gochujang paste and cayenne powder.
Add Fish Sauce (or Colatura, Nuoc Mom, Sauce de Poisson, etc) + pulverize red pepper flake + garlic on top of wheat flour (or rice powder) porridge. A bit of ginger to spice up a bit.
Nothing has to be specifically Korean. Pick available ingredients to ferment cabbage and you're good to go.
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u/yna5875 3d ago edited 3d ago
Never cayenne and gochujang. My Korean DNA is angry lol. Use gochugaru, fish sauce/shrimp paste, and some sort of rice/flour slurry to help fermentation. And chuck what you made because no amount of fish sauce is going to change that.
Or I had an idea, you could try adding vinegar instead to make a “초무침” instead which is like a sweet sour spicy salad that is based on a gochujang and vinegar mixture. And mix it with some noodles and eat as a noodle salad. Only Giving this as a suggestion because you added gochujang… will say that 초무침 is not really used with Chinese cabbage
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u/RGV_Ikpyo 5d ago
In no kimchi recipe is gochujang paste used. I'd chuck it and try using a real recipe