Make homemade vegan kimchi easily with this recipe. You’ll love the garlicky and spicy, tangy and salty flavour of this fermented vegetable condiment. Kimchi is eaten as a side dish in Korean meals but can also be the main star in recipes like kimchi jigae (kimchi stew). While kimchi often traditionally contains fish or shrimp, I’ve been able to recreate the flavour without the animal products. Click here for the printable recipe.
Kimchi is similar to sauerkraut as it’s a fermented vegetable food, but at the same time, it tastes completely different. There are hundreds of ways to make kimchi. This particular vegan recipe uses napa cabbage as its main ingredient.
Video Tutorial for Homemade Vegan Kimchi
Why Make Vegan Kimchi
Kimchi makes a wonderful way to get fermented vegetables in your diet. Because it’s easy to make a big batch and because it stores well in the fridge for months, this vegan kimchi will quickly become your go-to convenient condiment to add flavour and spice to dishes like fried rice, plain rice, stews, sandwiches and more!
As mentioned before, there are many types of kimchi but the most common store-bought kimchi usually contains fish/shrimp ingredients. Luckily, it’s really easy to veganize.
My Inspiration for this Vegan Kimchi
In 2015, I started getting requests for kimchi recipes. I kept those requests in mind but kimchi is as foreign to my taste as sauerkraut. As a Chinese Canadian growing up eating mostly Cantonese cuisine, I didn’t have much of either. I only started eating Korean food (outside of the rare Korean BBQ) in high school when my friends and I started frequenting a Korean restaurant for lunches one summer. The menu was printed in Korean and and the wait staff didn’t really speak English so we took chances by pointing at photographs on the menu.
Every meal was served with banchan, a set of small dishes that included marinated bean sprouts, various pickles, including a few types of kimchi. I never did identify everything but it was tasty.
But recently, Korean food has become really popular, especially on YouTube, and I’ve been getting even more requests for kimchi recipes and other Korean foods. So I figured I’d better start learning about it.
After watching a couple documentaries, countless videos (especially from MommyTang and Maangchi), I made my first batch of napa cabbage kimchi. I took ideas from other recipes and wrote up my version using what I liked (less ginger, more crunchy vegetables), and what I could get easily from my local stores. Of course, I also made some changes to replace the traditional use of fish sauce and/or fermented sea animals to make this recipe vegan. Then it was time to put what I learned into practice. I crossed myfingers hoping that I wouldn’t poison myself with botulism.
The process of making homemade vegan kimchi
It’s simple to make homemade vegan kimchi! Salt and rinse the cabbage, cut up vegetables, make a spicy slurry with rice, and mix it all together. The bright red mixture is placed into jars, packed down to eliminate air pockets and left to ferment. Kimchi relies on anaerobic fermentation, meaning the fermentation takes place in the absence of oxygen. The lactobacillus bacteria that is basically on everything on Earth ever breaks down the sugars in the vegetables and produces lactic acid (as well as some acetic acid). This turns the cabbage sour and develops the savory flavour.
Daikon, also known as Chinese White Radish, adds a savory flavour, sweetness and crunch to kimchi.
Above: The start of vegan ‘fish’ sauce: shiitake, wakame and water.
I made this batch over a few particularly chilly days so fermentation took longer than mysecondbatch: 4 days. The first couple days, nothing seemed to happen. On the third day, liquid had visibly leeched out of the vegetables. On the forth day, bubbles appeared in the liquid and even more appeared when the kimchi was pressed down. Finally! It shouldn’t take this longon comfortablywarm days.
Since then, I’ve been eating kimchi almost everyday. They say that fermented vegetables are great for your gut as they contain probiotics. I can’t say I’ve noticed any difference, but then my digestion has been pretty smooth since I went vegan almost five years ago.
The recipe that I’m sharing in this post is only from the second batch of kimchi that I’ve ever made so this is no expert recipe. However, it’s so easy that I’m sure anyone can make it too. I’m sure I’ll tweak my own kimchi recipe(s) as time goes by. But since a single batch of kimchi lasts me about a month, it will probably be a while before I share another one. I hope you give homemade kimchi a try if you haven’t already and let me know what you think!
Printable recipe for Homemade Vegan Kimchi
Yield: 2 quarts (almost 2L)
Homemade Vegan Kimchi
This vegan kimchi recipe is my take on the traditional napa cabbage kimchi. It's no expert recipe but it's really easy; I think anyone can make kimchi this way! It's adapted mainly from Maangchi's recipe but tailored to what I could easily find in stores and made vegan with my fish sauce substitute.
This recipe uses US measurements;click here for metric amounts.
Prep Time (mostly inactive)2 hours
Cook Time5 minutes
Fermentation1 day
Total Time1 day 2 hours 5 minutes
Ingredients
First stage
- 2lbs napa cabbage (loose/discolored leaves removed) (900g)
- 1/2 cup rock salt (you can also use kosher salt)
For vegan 'fish' sauce slurry
- 3/4 cup hot water (180ml)
- 1 dried shiitake mushroom
- pinch wakame
- 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 teaspoons glutinous rice flour
Other kimchi ingredients
- 10oz daikon (about 6" length) (300g)
- 7oz carrot (one large carrot) (200g)
- 3.5oz scallions (about 8) (100g)
- 1.4oz garlic (8 cloves) (40g)
- 2oz onion (about 1/2 small onion) (60g)
- 1/4" slice ginger (6g)
- 1/2 cup gochugaru (Korean red pepper flakes/powder)*
Instructions
Salting the napa cabbage
- After trimming the end(s) of your cabbage, cut crosswise into the bottom 2 - 3 inches. Pull apart from the cut to create two halves of cabbage. Make a cut on the bottom of each half and pull apart to create quarters. Remove any discoloured parts and rinse each section.
- Layer the salt between each of the leaves. Pack the salted sections into a container and let sit for 2 hours. During this time, the leaves will leech water and create a brine. Turn the sections every 30 minutes so that all the leaves become saturated with the brine.
Starting vegan 'fish' sauce
- While the cabbage is sitting, combine the hot water, shiitake mushroom and wakame and set aside to rehydrate.
Prepare the vegetables
- Peel and chop the daikon and carrot into matchsticks. You can chop the scallions into lengths as short or long as you like. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside.
- Combine the garlic, onion, and ginger in a blender or food processor and process to a puree. Set aside.
Creating 'fish' sauce slurry
- Strain the wakame and shiitake and save the water. It will have a strong 'sea' smell. Discard the wakame but mince the shiitake finely and add to the bowl of matchstick vegetables.
- To make 'fish' sauce, add soy sauce and salt to the 'sea' water.
- To make the slurry, add rice flour to the 'fish' sauce and whisk until no lumps remain. Microwave for 3 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds. Alternatively, bring to a boil on the stove and let cool. The result should be thick and gravy-like.
Assembling the kimchi
- Using gloves to protect your hands, add the garlic puree, 'fish' sauce slurry, and gochugaru to the matchstick vegetables and shiitake and mix very well. Everything will turn bright red. You can taste now to gauge the spicy heat, remember that you will be adding in the cabbage later so it will be spicier now than in the finished product.
- After sitting for two hours, the cabbage should be shrunken and flexible. Rinse the sections thoroughly to remove excess salt. Squeeze excess water from the cabbage and set on a plate.
- For smaller sections of finished kimchi, cut into the stem of each large section and pull apart to create thinner sections. Alternatively, you may choose to leave them intact, cut away the bottom to separate the leaves, or cut across the sections to create bite sized pieces.
- Using gloves again, apply the red mixture to each leaf and massage thoroughly. As you do this, stuff the vegetables in between the leaves of each section. Once stuffed, roll up each section and place in a clean container (I prefer glass jars). If you are making bite sized pieces, simply mix in thoroughly and stuff into jars. Press down on each section/handful as you place it in the jar(s) to reduce any air pockets.
- Cover the jar(s) and let ferment at room temperature in a dark place. As fermentation occurs, gases will develop so make sure the lid is loose enough to let this escape. Over time, more water will leech from the vegetables making the kimchi look liquidy. Check the kimchi after 24 - 36 hours. When the kimchi is ready there will be lots of liquid in the jars that bubble up when the kimchi is disturbed. The taste will be tangy and savory; if it still tastes fresh it's not ready. You can let the kimchi sit at room temperature a bit longer to develop a more acidic kimchi.
- When your kimchi is ready, you can use it right away or store in the fridge. It should keep for a month or more. The cold will slow the fermentation process but not halt it. Over time, the kimchi will get more and more sour (acidic). Since fermentation is still going on in the fridge, open the jars to release gas every week to prevent too much pressure build up.
Notes
- *Vary the amount ofgochugaruto control the spicy heat of the kimchi. 1/2 cup results in mild-medium heat.
- The prep stage of this recipe takes a bit over 2 hours since the cabbage needs to sit in salt for that amount of time. You can chop the veggies and prepare the vegan fish sauce during this time.
- The fermentation stage of this recipe can take anywhere from one to four days, depending on the room temperature.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
63Serving Size:
1
Amount Per Serving:Calories: 13Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 987mgCarbohydrates: 3gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 1g
Nutritional Information automatically calculated by a plugin and may not be correct.
Did you make this recipe?
Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram
