Kimchi-jjigae is straight up fire and y’all need to try it.

I’ve been on a Korean enrichment—nay, obsessive—deep dive for the past couple months, and it’s been an absolute blast. I literally cannot get enough of BTS (#ProudArmy), Kdramas, and kimchi. Sometimes my heart hurts thinking about BTS and the possibility of not seeing them in concert before they have to enlist in the Korean military, so I wash that depression away with episodes of Hospital Playlist on Netflix, and the cycle repeats.

Korean food has always been one of my top three favorite cuisines, but I’ve only recently started cooking it myself at home, high key because I was intimidated by the ingredients. So I was very surprised at how easy kimchi-jjigae (kimchi stew) was to make. I adopted this recipe from The Woks of Life with some minor adjustments. Probably not as good as how a true Korean halmeoni makes it, but we Stan #relatablecooking and thrive on simple recipes for millennial reproducibility. This recipe for kimchi-jjiggae is now part of my everyday cooking repertoire, and I’m amazed at how gorgeous and complex it looks and tastes!

Ingredients

5-6 large slices of pork belly, cut into bite-sized pieces (I just pick up pre-marinated pork belly from HMart and use the rest for at-home Korean BBQ)
1 onion, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed then sliced
1 pack of green onion kimchi (500 g), cut to smaller pieces
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp monkfruit sugar substitute, optional: to taste!
1 tbsp gochujang
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (because I didn’t have gochugaru)
3 cups of chicken stock
1/2 package of firm tofu (8 oz), cut into large cubes
A glug of sesame oil

Instructions

1. Cook pork belly, onions, and garlic over medium heat on a dutch oven or soup pan.
2. Once onions are translucent and pork belly is slightly browned, add the green onion kimchi. Make sure the green onions are cut into smaller pieces (about 2-3 inches). I used scissors to cut these and totally felt like I was at a KBBQ restaurant lol.
3. Once incorporated, now add chicken stock, gochujang, salt, and cayenne pepper. THEN TASTE IT! See if the gochuchang already provides a sweet balance to the tartness of the kimchi. If you think it’s still too tart, add some of the monkfruit sugar to taste. Also taste if the level of spice is to your liking, and add more cayenne if needed.
4. Let simmer with lid on for about 10 minutes, then add the tofu to the soup. Place the lid back on and let simmer for another 10 minutes.
5. Take off the heat. Stir in a bit of sesame oil and enjoy!