Healthy Korean Recipes

This cucumber kimchi recipe gets its flavor from garlic, fish sauce and a hint of Korean chile powder. Make this side dish ahead of time to let the flavors absorb into the cucumbers.

Get Korean street-food flavor with this quick and healthy homemade stir-fry sauce. Use it for stir-fries, as a marinade for chicken, beef or pork or for tossing with Asian noodles.

The sticky sauce on these ribs, made with tamari (or soy sauce), gochujang, grated pear and honey, is inspired by bulgogi, a staple of Korean barbecue. Don't skip the step of running them under the broiler before serving—it gives the ribs the crisp edges you'd get from grilling. Serve with stir-fried baby bok choy and brown rice to sop up the delicious sauce.

Oily fish, such as mackerel, are strong-flavored and pair well with boldly seasoned glazes made from gochujang chile paste. The red, rich paste is so common in Korea that it is sold in virtually every supermarket in plastic containers ranging in size from about 2 cups to about 2 quarts. Normally the main ingredients are fermented soybeans ground with red chiles and powdered rice, plus a little salt and sweetener.

If you are looking to start fermenting your own vegetables, the Korean dish kimchi is a great place to start. It's easy to make, and fermentation takes just a few days. Once you have kimchi on hand, serve this healthy dish along with any meal, as an ingredient in stir-fries, stews, savory pancakes and more, or as a condiment to liven up grain bowls, tacos, sandwiches—and the list goes on!

If you're a tempeh skeptic, you've probably never had the firm soy-based slabs slathered with a sweet-and-spicy barbecue sauce. We give this easy BBQ tempeh combo a punch of umami with tamari and add a little heat courtesy of gochujang. It's easy to put your own spin on this recipe; see Variations (below) for some riffs.

Brown sugar makes this slow-cooker beef stew a tad sweet, which beautifully complements the spicy kimchi. You can make this soup ahead and refrigerate it until ready to eat. If you opt to make it ahead, wait until you reheat the soup to add the cabbage.

Try this salty-sweet hard-boiled egg recipe as a swap for deviled eggs at your next party or as a midday snack. Or serve on top of your next ramen noodle bowl.

This healthy beef and broccoli stir-fry recipe has a Korean-inspired gochujang sauce. Because stir-fries cook up quickly, have all the ingredients prepped and next to the stove before you turn on the heat. Serve over brown rice or rice noodles.

This fragrant, super savory seaweed soup is made with vitamin-rich wakame seaweed, the same kind often used for soups popular in Japanese and Korean cuisines.

Korean chile paste (also known as gochujang) blended into the ground turkey makes this turkey burger recipe incredibly moist and flavorful. Top these healthy turkey burgers with kimchi--a fermented mixture of cabbage and other vegetables--which can be found near other refrigerated Asian ingredients or near sauerkraut or pickles in well-stocked supermarkets or natural-foods stores.

Make your own cup of instant soup at home with this Korean noodle recipe. Pack several jars at once to take to work for easy lunches throughout the week.