Gochujang - any must try suggestions

Alright, so I’m new to Korean ingredients and cooking (have eaten out but never cooked myself).

I recently “discovered” gochujang. Wow do I love it. I know it is fairly ubiquitous in Korean cooking but I’m searching for ways to use it. Of course I can do a google search but am curious if anyone here has any “go-to” uses - from simple to more complicated.

Thanks!

Edit - for anyone who isn’t familiar with it (and obviously I’m no expert) - it is a fermented red pepper paste. Here was a blog post that I found an interesting read about it and it had a taste test of different brands which I found a helpful place to start. Maybe people with more experience have different opinions but you have to start somewhere.

I add it to a lot of things, but most often just mix a spoonful with mayo as a simple dip for french fries. I’ve also found it’s a good addition to pizza sauce.

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I’ll have to try it with mayo as a dipping sauce. I knew people add it to ketchup, didn’t think about mayo (not sure why since I add Sriracha to mayo . . . .). Thanks for the suggestions.

it’s great on almost any kind of eggs, imo–learned this via the fried egg on bibimbap. it’s also good on scrambled, regular omelettes, tamagoyaki, etc

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I like it in boxed mac and cheese (w/ frozen peas added a few minutes before draining the pasta).

The combination of spiciness, umami, and sugar ( more likely corn syrup) make it great on plain rice or anything where ketchup might be used. I agree that, for texture, you need to add mayo or something if you wanted as a dip and I’m really curious to try it in tomato sauce! The highest on my to-try list is a grilled corn recipe.

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So it is fairly thick and paste like. Do you mix it into the eggs? Or add a little to the skillet at the end for the fried egg? It is too thick to “drizzle with a spoon” so just curious.

Spread it on fish or other protein before searing but not too hot as it will burn at high temps

Do you eat pork? Make a sauce with Gochujang and brush it on the ribs after they been cooked in the oven on low heat for a couple of hours. Repeat the brushing a couple of times.

I used to have an ebook for Gochujang but deleted by accident.

BBQ sauce
Combined with rum and brown sugar on grilled pineapple
In the braising liquid for pulled pork
Korean meatballs
Deviled eggs

i generally just smear some gojuchang on my plate that I can drag the cooked eggs through while I’m eating…

It is very addicting. Make sure you keep it refrigerated or it will mold

You can make ssamjang with gochujang as well if you also have some doenjang: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/ssamjang
A good sauce for dabbing on meat before wrapping in lettuce with maybe a little rice.

Alternatively, you can also just buy pre-made ssamjang.

Use it anywhere you would use ketchup or Siracha. (Hamburgers, hotdogs, over cooked steak, ramen packets, eggs, Panda Express fried rice.) :wink:

Echoing some other sentiments here - it’s a good substitute for sriracha, a little more depth and a little less heat. IMO the best natural pairing is with pork. Something really great happens when gochujang and pork come together.

In terms of strictly Korean dishes:

One of my favorite Korean jigaes is the humble gochujang jigae. It’s a “stoup” with a gochujang base, with some kind of meat and potatoes and squash/zucchhini. The secret to making this taste really great is to add a little denjang to it as well. Really comforting.

One of my favorite stews is the dak dori tang. Spicy chicken stew. This is as tasty as it is easy - just boil some chicken parts along with gochujang, soy sauce, potatoes, and whatever else strikes your fancy and you get a quick and delicious stew that is perfect with a warm bowl of rice.

A Korean home favorite that no one outside Korea really talks about is a beef and gochujang banchan/condiment. Fry up a bunch of ground/minced beef and gochujang together. You can add some other ingredients like garlic, wine, sesame oil/seeds, soy, etc. It’s like a spicy meat sauce or chili that is so concentrated it becomes a condiment. In a pinch, a scoop of this over a bowl of rice is a meal for many Koreans.

Of course, my all time favorite dish of all time, dduk bokki - spicy rice cakes deserves a mention. Rice cakes in a sweet and spicy sauce…you can’t go wrong with that.

It’s also a really great in a bulgogi type application. Typically it will be used with pork to make a sweet and spicy marinade. It’s almost impossible not to love this stuff.

And that gives us a segway into marinades - it’s pretty fantastic on almost any marinade. I tend to only use marinades on chicken and pork (I like to let my beef stand alone usually). Add it to your BBQ sauce for chicken or pork, for example. Or make a gochujang mayo and put it on a burger. Or whatever you want.

It also plays well with Mexican ingredients. There’s no reason you can’t add some to your fajitas, or enchilada sauce, or taco meat. Why not throw some in posole or menudo. Or chili.

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Yes! This is what we do.

It’s very hard to find gochujang with simple ingredients, but I am fortunate to have many Korean grocers nearby and was able to find one. If you care about this sort of thing, it’s a glass jar with a gold label that reads “Hot Pepper Paste” under the Korean characters for Gochujang. Imported by T.UP. Trading Inc. (The lid also reads T.UP. Trading Inc.) Ingredients are: Red Pepper, Sweet Rice, Water, Salt.

My phone is acting up, but I can post a picture if anyone is interested.

Thanks for all the suggestions - I’m loving using it.

I think I saw that glass jar at H-mart (big Asian grocery) in the refrigerator section. The one I bought isn’t as pure as that one and was on the shelves. But it was also significantly less expensive. Now that I know I love it I may give the glass jar a try.

I’d be interested in seeing what this looks like for my next trip to H-mart.

This one?

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Yes! That’s the one. Which supermarket did you find these in?

oh, I know that stuff. thanks for the pic!