Fresh Napa Cabbage Kimchi Salad (Baechu Geotjeori) (2024)

Fresh and lightened Kimchi – Napa Cabbage Kimchi Salad!

I’ve been buying 2kg of Kimchi from a Korean grocery store. That usually lasts us for about one month. Now that I’m back to food blogging again, I thought I “ought to” make Kimchi myself instead of buying it.

With homemade Kimchi, you get to taste it when it’s most fresh, which is a great deal for my husband as he loves eating fresh Kimchi (1-2 days old). I reckon he can eat 1 cup worth of fresh Kimchi on the spot. So I decided to make fresh napa cabbage Kimchi salad (Baechu Geotjeori 배추 겉절이) to fill up my empty Kimchi jar.

Though Baechu Geotjeori is normally made with an intention to consume within a day or two in a typical Korean household, if you can’t finish it all like that, just put the remainder into an air tight glass container and eat it as your normal fermented Kimchi.

Fresh Kimchi salad is a particularly popular companion food to Bossam (Korean steamed pork) and Kalguksu (Knife cut noodles with soup). Shall we start making some fresh Kimchi salad then?

Ingredients for Kimchi Salad (10+ servings)

(Prep time:1 hour 10 mins incl. soaking time, Cooking time: Less than 5 mins)

Main

• 820g/1.8 pounds napa cabbage (Chinese cabbage)
• 240g/8.5 ouncesKorean radish (daikon radish)
• 50g/1.8 ounces brown onion
• 40g/1.4 ounces green onion
• 2/3 cup rock salt(or Korean coarse sea salt)
• 1 cup water

Kimchi Sauce (mix these in a small bowl)

• ¼ cup Korean chili flakes (gochugaru)
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• ½ tsp minced ginger
• ½ Tbsp soy sauce
• ½ Tbsp Korean fish sauce
• 1½ Tbsp sugar (I used raw sugar)
• 1 Tbsp roasted sesame seeds

* 1 Tbsp = 15 ml, 1 Cup = 250 ml

** If you want to learn more about Korean cooking ingredients, check my essential Korean cooking ingredients list!

How to Make Kimchi Salad

1. Prepare the main ingredients.

• Rinse the outer layer of the Napa cabbage in running water. Cut the stem off. Tear the leaves into long shapes (using hands and/or knife). Alternatively, you could cut the leaves into 4-5 vertical sections.
• Rinse the radish, peel the skin and thinly slice it (Julienned).
• Peel the onion skin, rinse then thinly slice it.
• Rinse the spring onion and cut each stalk into 3-5 sections.

2. Put the torn/cut Napa cabbage in a big bowl. Add the salt and the water into the bowl and mix well with the cabbage. Put something heavy on top of the cabbage to assist saltiness getting into the cabbage. (Osmosis process) – I used a big sauce pan and water to put pressure on the cabbage. Leave the cabbage like this for about 1 hour. During this time, mix the cabbage every 20 mins so that salt water gets into the leaves evenly.

3. After 1 hour, drain the water off. Rinse the cabbage in running water several times and shake off the salt (if any). Tightly squeeze the cabbage to remove the water.

4. Put the cabbage and other prepared vegetables into a big clean bowl. Add the sauce and mix them well together.

5. Serve with rice or other Korean dishes.

Note

• Koreans typically use only the softer leaves of napa cabbage (leaves with yellow edges) for Baechu Geotjeori.
• As I explained earlier, any leftover Geotjeori Kimchi can be stored in an air tight container and consumed like fermented Kimchi. (My Geotjeori Kimchi is now one week old and it still tastes fresh!)

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