Apple Kimchi, You Can Make Kimchi Out of Anything

Apple Kimchi is a naturally sweet and crisp alternative to the usual kimchi that makes use of Fall's favorite harvest! With only a few ingredients and no need for long fermentation, Apple Kimchi super easy to make, and tastes so perfectly deliciously customized to your preferences, you'll never be able to stop eating it. Shall we?

Explore More

• What Ingredients You Need for Apple Kimchi
• What's the Best Way to Cut Apples for Kimchi?
• How to Make Apple Kimchi
• Apple Kimchi Recipe
• Pro Tips, Tricks, and Techniques
• Best Kimchi Recipes

What Ingredients You Need for Apple Kimchi

Apple Kimchi fresh/refrigerator ingredients:

• Apples, 1 pound (2-3 depending on size)
• Onion, ¼ sliced lengthwise
• Green onion, 1 stalk, cut into 2-inch pieces
• Garlic, 1 clove, finely minced
• Ginger, ½ teaspoon fresh grated

Apple Kimchi dry/pantry ingredients:

• Sea salt, 2 teaspoons
• Gochugaru, 2 tablespoons
• Fish sauce, 2 teaspoons

What's the Best Way to Cut Apples for Kimchi?

There are a few different ways to cut apples to make kimchi. This version uses thin slices that look like moons.

Use a Mandoline-Easiest Way (for Me)

The easiest way I've found to slice apples is using a mandoline. Cut off one apple "cheek" approximately ¾-inch away from the core. Then holding the cheek on its side, slice on the mandoline. Hold what's remaining of the apple and slice, avoiding the core.

Because the slices are thin, there's no need to peel the apples.

Use a Very Sharp Chef's Knife

You can also use a very sharp chef's knife by cutting off two apple "cheeks" approximately ¾-inch on either side of the core. Then place a half cut side down on cutting board and carefully slice.

Additional Ingredients Notes and Resources

This recipe for Apple Kimchi is easily vegan/vegetarian-adaptable by substituting in vegan fish sauce (usually made with mushrooms) for the regular fish sauce.

Gochugaru: Gochugaru is a bright red Korean chili pepper powder made from a specific variety of Korean chili pepper. Its heat level ranges, but gochugaru is generally considered a medium spicy chili powder. Look for gochugaru that is made from Korean peppers that are sun-dried, and for this recipe specifically, a coarse grind, or flakes, not a fine powder. You can find gochugaru in Korean grocery stores like H-Mart and other Asian grocery stores. I have also seen some independent, new-ish spice companies like this and this at Whole Foods. This organic brand and the one in the photo above, purchased at HMart, are currently what I have in my pantry.

Fish sauce: This brand has been my favorite for years available at Whole Foods if you can't get to an Asian market, and this one I've tried recently and like, too!

Onions, garlic, and all other fresh herbs and produce from either theSanta Monica Farmers' Marketon Wednesday, or Whole Foods Market.

How to Make Apple Kimchi

Pro Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

Wash the Apples. Make sure to thoroughly wash the apples since you will be eating the skins.

Smaller Apples will make slices that are more manageable to eat in one bite, but you can also use larger apples and cut the slices in half!

Wear gloves. Your hands are the best way to mix the kimchi seasoning in between the slices of apple, which have a tendency to stick together, but because the red pepper powder can stain, gloves will protect your hands!

Wear dark clothes or an apron. The gochugaru in the kimchi seasoning can stain, so wear dark clothes or an apron!

Is Apple Kimchi Healthy?

Yes! Apple Kimchi is super healthy! Depending on your health needs and dietary considerations, of course. To be honest, I can't really think of a case in which Apple Kimchi would not be healthy, unless maybe spice or acid from the light fermentation causes heartburn or other gastric issue for you.

Dietary Considerations of Apple Kimchi

As published, this recipe for Apple Kimchi is:

• pescatarian (uses fish sauce)
• dairy-free
• gluten-free/wheat-free
• grain-free
• sugar-free

Tools and Equipment

There isn't any special tool or piece of equipment that is absolutely required for this Apple Kimchi. You can make it using a sharp chef's knife on a sturdy cutting board to prep the cabbage and vegetables! However, that isn't to say there are a few tools that might make it slightly easier to get from napa cabbage on your counter to jar in the fridge!

• Chef's knife, my personal workhorse
• Mandoline
• Wooden cutting board, oversized for all those carrots
• Glass mixing bowls
• Mini ¼-cup liquid measuring cup
• Glass storage containerwith airtight lids, perfect size for storing Spicy Carrots you make it in advance
• Glass mason jars, wide mouth because they're easier to use and wash
• Mason jar lids that are better than those horrible 2-piece metal lids

Best Kimchi Recipes

• Easy Homemade Kimchi
• Green Cabbage Kimchi
• Radish Kimchi, Kkak-du-gi
• Watermelon Rind Kimchi

Best Spicy Banchan and Korean-ish Side Dishes

• Oi Muchim, Korean Spicy Cucumbers
• Spicy Korean Radish Salad, Mu-saeng-chae
• Radish Kimchi, Kkak-du-gi
• Korean Carrot Salad, a carrot banchan

Korean Vegetable Side Dishes

• Sesame Broccoli Banchan
• Spicy Cucumber and Avocado Salad
• Garlicky Spinach, Shigeumchi Namul
• Soy Sauce Pickles

Food for Afterthoughts

It wasn't enough to have just one baby shower with all the giggling girlfriends, so we threw a shower for my sister and her husband that included family at the future grandparents' house in Orange County. On Mom and Dad's patio, overlooking the golf course, we had a barbecue, or, as I like to call it, a Baby Q.

This party was one that I had almost no hand in planning. The preparation and menu were all up to my Mom, though she did ask me to help with dessert - not because she wasn't organized enough to get a cake or pie or ice cream together herself, and not because she didn't want to muster all the Korean females, pass around a veritable panoply of paring knives and sit around the kitchen table peeling fresh fruit and strategically placing sliced apples, oranges, pears and persimmons on serving platters as if onto some secret Axis and Allies maneuvering map.

No, Mom just knew I'd probably keel over with if I didn't spend at least 20 minutes in the kitchen cooking or baking as my contribution to the party. At the special request of my then 8 months pregnant sister with an insatiable hormonally-induced craving, I baked a cheesecake ("a normal one this time, okay, Sarah?"), and since the shower was back in October, it was pumpkin. By the way, no matter how much a pregnant ball of raging, cranky hormones tries to perpetrate normalcy and denies it, everything you have ever heard about hormonally-induced anything as related to pregnant women is 100% absolutely true.

Mom went all out, and when I say "all out," I mean that by the time I had arrived (early, presumably, "to help"), she had already completely covered the kitchen table with hors d'oeuvre and appetizers and snacks in a display that could have been Station 1 on a mini Vegas buffet. There wasn't even enough room for a tablescape, which says a lot, since my Mom takes quite a bit of pride in her flower garden and usually takes every opportunity to display her fresh-cut glory. Our family is Korean, my brother in law's family is Chinese, and all of the friends fill in the blanks, so I think my Mom was trying to make sure that there was something for everyone. Either that, or she just lost her mind at the grocery store. There were typical Korean ahn-joo type snacks (dried seaweed, fruits, nuts, and squid), Japanese crackers, edamame, ?? (mahn-doo - fried won tons), shrimp cocktail, vegetable crudité, an impressive cheese plate (in honor of our representative from the Midwest ;) ), potato chips, other chips, tortilla chips and salsa. Guacamole! Where's the guacamole?! Mom pitched some avocadoes to me and I knew exactly what to do. Please. Guacamole.

If the kitchen table was the Epcot Center of appetizers, then the kitchen's breakfast bar was Koreatown. Christina, one of my sisters' friends, made her famous potato salad, which may sound like an all-American Fourth of July, but trust me, if you ever go to a Korean barbecue restaurant and scan the bahn-chan, you'll understand how very Korean potato salad is. Potato salad is Korean, just the way Spam and American cheese metled on top of ramen are Korean, too. :)

Mom had prepared everything else: ?? (jahp-chae: transparent noodles made from sweet potato starch, sautéed with vegetables), bin-dae-dduk (pancakes made from mung bean flour, filled with vegetables), ho-bahk jun (zucchini fritters), ?? (saeng-sun jun: fish fritters), and even a clay crock pot of ???? (doo-boo jji-gae: spicy tofu hot pot), bubbling away on the stove top. There was also the typical bahn chan of shi-geum-chee namul (marinated spinach), ??? (kong namul: marinated bean sprouts), and several types of?? (kimchee). It was a feast fit for the little princess on her way.

The best thing on the breakfast bar was a foil-covered plate of mook, receiving many a surreptitious lift of the foil, a quick flash of chopsticks, then re-shuffling of what was left on the plate. Mook is gelatin prepared from flour or powder derived from acorns, buckwheat, peas, or mung beans, the color ranging form translucent white to gr
ayish brown, depending on the base. The plain jelly is cut, often decoratively, but not always, then served with a slightly spicy soy sauce and vinegar seasoning sauce. I couldn't help sneaking a few pieces. Mook is not something we just keep lying around the refrigerator, and if it hadn't been for Mom's watchful eye and a laughing "Sarah-ya!" I would have finished at least half of it before the other guests arrived.

Though I would have been perfectly content to sidle up to the breakfast bar, plop myself down on a barstool with a pair of chopsticks, and pick pick pick away at the buffet of Korean foods (hell, I wouldn't have even needed to sit down), Mom had marinated galbee (short ribs) from the equivalent of a herd of cattle. When I arrived at the house, Dad was outside on the patio cleaning the grill, and as more and more guests arrived, the usual segregation of the sexes began. The women stayed inside to gossip about weddings and babies and shoes and how La Prairie works wonders, and the guys huddled in a primordial half-circle around the grill. There was nothing on it yet, though, so I have no idea what prompted the occasional grunt.

The galbee went on the grill, and just when I thought that was the beef, my Mom busted out with an enormous soup pot filled with dae-jee galbee (pork ribs) that she had par-boiled. Or blanched. Or something like that. She glazed each one with a sauce similar to the galbee marinade, but slightly spicier and thicker with goh-choo-jahng, and more syrupy with sugar. Those received a brief charring on the grill, and when the entire potful was done, we were all ready to eat. Again. The appetizer section had already been grazed over heavily. Would anyone actually be hungry for the main event?

Of course. With so many guests, we lined up church-picnic style, wielding a plate with a scoop of steamed white rice in one hand and chopsticks in the other. Each person passed through, piling a little bit of everything, a little more of any favorites, into a pile that totally reflected his or her taste and sense of style. I wish I had taken pictures of each plate. My parents and the rest of the first generation filtered into the formal dining room and sat down at the dining room table. I raised my eyes heavenward and thanked someone for giving me the night off from the Rule of 72 and Everything Comes from China. Everyone else, the second generation, and the soon-to-arrive first member of our Delicious third generation, wandered out onto the patio with their overflowing plates. Just as we had done when we all arrived, we separated like Quakers, guys to one table to talk about sports and girls to the table under the heat lamps to talk about make-up. Stereotyping? Absolutely.

I don't have to go into the individual tastes of each item my Mom had prepared. Everything was pretty much awesome, and I wouldn't have expected any less from her. Though the girls remained lady-like and "saved room for dessert," the guys weren't shy about going back for seconds, some even for thirds. And fourths (I see you, Jeffrey P!). And even still, there was enough food leftover to feed everyone there again for lunch the next day. Trust me. I had Korean leftover Baby Q in my fridge for several days (except the mook), and I most certainly am not complaining.

It had been a long time since I'd seen Mom get so excited about having a party at her house, and even longer since I'd seen her put out that much variety of that much food. Was she like me, excited at any opportunity to entertain? Was it simply that it had been long time since she'd had the chance? Was she crazy?

A yes to all, but most importantly, I think she was celebrating her soon-to-be grandmother-dom.