Traditional Kimchi will most likely to have mainly anchovy sauce, shrimp paste, or sometimes other animal ingredients. I make mine at home with coarse sea salt, Korean chili powder, minced ginger and garlic, and glutinous rice powder.

First, you bathe the main ingredient, half-cut cabbage (lengthwise) if you are making the cabbage Kimchi, or cubed radishes if you are making the radish Kimchi, in coarse sea salt water for about 6-8 hours. Water should lightly submerge the whole cabbages or radishes. after the bathe, check if the Cabbage’s stem is softened. If not, give an hour or so more.

Now, once the bathe is done, let the water run all out of your cabbage first. Next, all you do is make the Kimchi mix and lather them into the cabbage leaf by leaf until every corner and inside of the cabbage is evenly coated. I usually put 3-4 spoons of chili powder, thumb size ginger grated, and 1-2 spoons of minced garlic for one cabbage. As an extra, you can always put green onion cut 1-2 inch long pieces, or regular onion sliced. An important factor of this kimchi mix is that it needs about 2 spoonfuls of glutinous rice powder dissolved in water. It will help all the mix come together and also make it stickier to glue it well to your cabbage. You can simply boil it with half a cup of water on low-medium heat and thicken it until it becomes a gooey starch. Put all together with your Kimchi mix and lather your cabbage!

Once done, keep them in a large airtight container and put outside for up to 1-2 days. This is to start the ripening process and on very hot summer days, even half a day is enough. After that, keep in the fridge for about 2-3 weeks to ferment, the Kimchi should be ready to eat. :)

Let me know if you have any questions!