Name: Stop buying KIMCHI, make this instead (+ save money!)
Uploaded: 2026-02-27T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 5 min 34 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Kimchi is the MVP of fermented foods, and it's a staple in Korean cuisine.

And so today, we're going to be making a very simple version with easy-to-find ingredients.

This is store-bought kimchi, and this is my homemade kimchi.

So, it's a lot more goodness for a fraction of the price.

Once you have a jar of this in the fridge, you're going to want to have it with everything.

You can add it to fried rice, stir it into noodles, add it to salads,

roll it in gimbap, pile it on hot dogs, or tuck it into sandwiches.

It's so versatile; and because it's fermented, it's good for your gut too.

But it's usually made with fish sauce, shrimp paste, or other seafood-based ingredients.

So today, we're going to be making a fish-free, fully vegan version at home with very easy-to-find ingredients.

All right, first up, I've got a kilogram of napa cabbage—quite possibly my favorite cabbage.

Now, you could slice this in half lengthwise with a knife,

but what I actually like to do instead is cut it at the base and then tear it open the rest of the way.

And then you're going to see that it's going to retain this nice crinkly texture in the leaves.

Now, once it's quartered, I then chop it up into roughly 1-inch chunks.

Now we can add this all to a large bowl and sprinkle over about 25 grams of iodine-free salt.

And don't worry, we're going to wash it off later.

And I like to use coarse sea salt, but fine sea salt and kosher salt work too.

Once the salt is in there, just give it a toss and a very gentle massage just for a couple of minutes.

And this is going to help to soften the cabbage and draw out the moisture.

Then we're going to let it sit for a couple of hours.

While the cabbage rests, we're going to make the kimchi paste.

So, just grab a food processor and chuck in half of a small onion, five cloves of garlic, and half of a sweet red apple.

The sugar in this is necessary to kick-start fermentation without adding any additional sugars.

Then toss in a chunk of fresh ginger, some vegetable broth, soy sauce, and miso paste.

These last three ingredients are what gives this the kind of salty umami taste you would normally get from fish sauce.

And then the star ingredient is all that's left.

Gochugaru is a Korean red pepper flake which is fundamental to making kimchi.

It's the only one you're potentially going to need to source, and you can usually just find it at an Asian supermarket or get it online.

Once the Gochugaru is added in, pop the lid onto the food processor and blend it up until it's smooth.

I'm keeping it super simple with just two ingredients:

A carrot which I'm going to julienne—so just cutting it up into matchstick-like pieces—

and then a few stalks of green onion which I'll chop up into 2-inch chunks.

I also like to actually cut it lengthwise just so the onion flavor isn't so overpowering.

You'd also add Korean radish or daikon radish,

but this is meant to be a simple recipe, so I'm leaving it out.

All that's left now is to bring it all together.

If you look closely, you'll see it's actually released a lot of liquid and it's reduced significantly in volume.

So now we're going to drain this in the sink and then run it under cold water just to help wash away that excess salt.

And you can pick up little handfuls at a time,

give it a good gentle squeeze to drain off any excess liquid,

and then transfer this back to the large bowl.

Then you can toss in the carrot, the green onion, and the kimchi paste.

And now we're just going to mix everything together.

But if you've got cuts on your hands like I do, you might want to consider putting on some gloves.

Now we're just going to pack this kimchi into a clean jar.

Just press it down firmly, though, so it's submerged in its own juices.

And just make sure to leave about an inch of space at the top, because fermentation is a living thing.

It's breathing; it needs that room to breathe.

So, don't pack it all the way to the top.

Now you can just close the lid and leave it on the counter overnight, away from direct sunlight.

From here on out, you're just fermenting!

All right, so the next day you are going to open the lid to "burp" this and release any built-up gas.

For a mild kimchi, this is already ready after a day or two, especially if it's warm where you are.

But if you like a tangier kimchi like I do, it needs a little bit longer,

so you might want to leave it on the counter for another day or two.

Just be sure to burp it in that time, and then from that point on, it's ready.

At this point, you do want to move it to the fridge just to slow down fermentation,

but now you've always got a jar of kimchi in your fridge.

It's good for months, and you can add it to just about everything.

It's gut-friendly, tangy, a bit spicy, and super wholesome.

This recipe is linked for you in the description box below.

we actually have a more traditional kimchi recipe on our website that uses more authentic ingredients and methods.

But this was just meant to be a beginner-friendly version.

In any case, both are on the website for you.

The links are in the description box below.

Thanks so much for hanging with me today, friends.

Pick Up Limes signing off, and I'll see you in the next video.