The BEST Vegan Kimchi Recipe & Video - Seonkyoung Longest (2024)

Ingredients

Scale

For Salting Cabbage

• 5 lb napa cabbage (approximately 1 large or 2 medium size)
• 3/4 cup Korean kimchi sea salt or flake sea salt(If you’re using a fine sea salt, reduce it to 1/2 cup)

For Vegan Kimchi Paste

• 1 1/2 cup water
• 4 dried shiitake mushrooms
• 1 sheet of 5”x5” dried seaweed (Konbu/Dahsima)
• 2 tbspsweet rice flour
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 oz ginger root
• 1 to 2 fresh red chili (optional)
• 6 to 8 oz well ripped persimmon (approximately 2 medium size), peeled
• 1 tbsp Korean kimchi sea salt or flake sea salt (If you’re using a fine sea salt, reduce it to 2 tsp)
• 3/4 cup gochugaru, Korean red pepper flakes (reduce amount to 1/3 to 1/2 cup if you like mild spicy)

For Vegetables

• 8 to 10 oz Korean radish or daikon, peeled and thinly julienne
• 4 green onions, halves in lengthwise then cut into 1-inch long pieces
• 4 oz Korean mustard, thinly julienne carrot or garlic chive
• 2 tbspsesame seeds, optional

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

1. Cut napa cabbage into quarters lengthwise, and remove the stem. Then cut into bite-size pieces.
   
2. Place the cut cabbage in a large strainer and splash water to wet the cabbage. On the bottom of a large mixing bowl, add 1/4 of the wet cabbage and sprinkle a handful of salt. Repeat until all the cabbage and salt are all in the bowl, about 4 to 5 layers. Salt down the cabbage for 3 hours. Rotate and mix from the bottom to the top. Do this once or twice to evenly salt all the cabbage.
   
3. After 3 hours, the water from the cabbage may be actually covering the cabbage. Check to see if the cabbage has salted enough by bending the thick stem part. If it snaps, it’s not ready and needs to soak more. If it bends nicely then without snapping, it’s ready to rinse. Rinse thoroughly under running cold water at least 3 to 5 times and place in a large strainer to drain completely, about 1 hour.
   
4. Meanwhile, let’s make kimchi paste. In a small saucepan, add water, dried shiitake, and seaweed. Bring it to a boil. When it starts boiling, remove the seaweed, then reduce the heat to medium and keep simmering for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and remove shiitake mushrooms. Add sweet rice flour and whisk. Turn the heat back to medium and bring it to a soft boil and keep whisking for 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and cool completely in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes.
   
5. In a blender, add the garlic, ginger, fresh chili, persimmon, salt and rice flour porridge. Blend until it is combined well and smooth.
   
6. In a large mixing bowl, pour kimchi paste, gochugaru, and add vegetables. If you have a plastic glove, mix it with your hand. If not, use a spoon.
   
7. Add the drained cabbage and mix well with your hand. (again, I recommend you to wear a plastic glove, if you don’t have one, just use a spoon)
   

8. Add sesame seeds and give a final light toss. Transfer to an airtight container and make sure to leave 1″ at the top, so kimchi has room to ferment. Close tightly and place on your kitchen counter for 24 to 48 hours. Then place it in the refrigerator. Enjoy your homemade vegan kimchi!

   

SeonkyoungJanuary 14, 2017 at 8:55 am

This kimchi is definitely gluten free! 😀

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SeonkyoungJanuary 14, 2017 at 8:54 am

Apple or pear! But persimmon’s sweetness is so much more stronger than apple or pear, so please add a bit of agave for extra sweetness!

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SamiMarch 13, 2017 at 5:05 am

I could not find persimmon’s at my local grocery store or Asian markets and substituted it for half a really ripe mango and gala apple. The kimchi turned out really good!!! I also used leeks instead of green onions. Thank you for sharing this recipe!! By far the BEST VEGAN KIMCHI out there!!!

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SeonkyoungJanuary 14, 2017 at 8:53 am

Hi Nolana! Sorry for my late reply!! So glad I shared this recipe, seems like it’s helpful for many people! That’s the beauty of now day’s technology, you can travel all over the world without leaving your home town! Can’t wait Jacob to be home so you all can watch us enjoying food together! We are planing on extend Life in Korea series, so please tune in!! 😀 Xoxo

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SeonkyoungFebruary 7, 2017 at 3:10 am

When you adding radish, green onions, salted cabbage and all other veggies to the sauce! 🙂

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SeonkyoungFebruary 28, 2017 at 5:46 pm

Yes those are the where umami flavor coming from, so please use at least one of them!

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SeonkyoungFebruary 28, 2017 at 5:42 pm

신맛이 많이 나지 않는 과일로 대체해주시면 되요~ 배도 좋고, 잘 익은 망고도 좋아요. 🙂

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SamiMarch 13, 2017 at 2:37 pm

Luz, I cannot find persimmon also and used mango and gala apple and it turned out great!!!

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SeonkyoungDecember 24, 2017 at 7:21 pm

You can omit the dried shiitake and add more seaweed!

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SeonkyoungJanuary 9, 2018 at 7:46 pm

Hello Ryan! Even you place kimchi into the fridge, it will slowly keep fermenting. So doesn’t need to let it out and ferment too much at first, unless you love super sour kimchi! Of course you can taste test before you decide to put it away to the fridge! Opening the jar is find during the time, but when you place into the fridge, there is no coming back out to the room temp- that will ruin the kimchi!

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SeonkyoungJanuary 14, 2018 at 12:40 am

YAY!! So happy for your Ryan!! lol Keep the kimchi for yourself, you deserve it!!!

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SeonkyoungMay 28, 2018 at 5:15 am

You can use normal rice flour! sweet rice is glutinous rice, has more sweet undertone! We don’t put vinegar in kimchi at all, fermentation happens by the natural sugar in the ingredients. 🙂

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SeonkyoungAugust 7, 2018 at 2:12 am

Hi Vicky! You can use well ripped mango, pineapple, lychee, apple or pear!

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SeonkyoungOctober 17, 2018 at 8:52 pm

You can use any mustard greens or use more green onions! 😀

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SeonkyoungApril 1, 2019 at 5:29 pm

You could use regular western radish, but usually they are too spicy so maybe mix with the western radish and carrot will do.

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I made this and it was AMAZING!!! Thank you so much for fantastic vegetarian kim chi recipe.

I left out the sesame seeds and I fermented in crock for 5 days at room temp and then 1 day in fridge and now in jars in fridge. Tastes really great. Highly recommend this recipe!

Also I tripled the recipe to make more and added a bit extra chilli 🙂

Best kim chi i ever had!

SeonkyoungJune 24, 2020 at 12:00 pm

Kimchi will be good to eat till there is none left if you keep it in the fridge and take portions out as you eat it. Hope this helped (:

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Hi Seonkyoung!
This looks like a fantastic recipe 🙂

I’m not vegan, but was looking for a way to make the recipe without dried fish and fermented shrimp. However, I do have a lot of fish sauce that I’d like to use up. Is there any way to incorporate fish sauce in this recipe? And if so, when and how would you do it? 🙂

SeonkyoungAugust 15, 2022 at 10:02 pm

You can discard them or slice them thinly and add them to the kimchi. It’s up to you!

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SeonkyoungAugust 15, 2022 at 10:01 pm

You can slice them and add toppings on top of the ramen! Delicious!

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Delicious! Here are my subs: one apple and three tablespoons sugar for the persimmon, 1 tablespoon fish sauce for the seaweed, dried baby bellas for the sh*taakes, jasmine rice flour for the sweet rice flour, pink radishes for the daikon, carrot for the mustard greens.

★★★★★