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Vegetables from Seoul and the royal court

Jangkimchi (soy-sauce water kimchi)장김치

Jangkimchi is a water kimchi in which radish and cabbage are salted with soy sauce, not salt, and covered with a broth seasoned with soy sauce and honey or sugar. It uses no jeot and usually no chilli powder, and is dressed with costly garnishes such as chestnut, jujube, pine nuts and stone-ear mushroom. It is eaten young, often with rice cakes.

Fully documentedVegetables24 h – 3 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceHousehold and court recipes with no fixed amounts. The only measured amount is the 2.5 % sucrose of one test batch.
Radish and cabbage, cut to bite sizeSalted in soy sauce instead of salt[ekc-jang][nfm-jang]
Minari, mustard leaf, green onion, stone-ear and shiitake mushrooms, garlic and gingerCut into fine strips[ekc-jang]
Chestnut and pearChestnut thinly sliced; pear cut like the radish[ekc-jang]
Jujube and pine nutsCostly garnishes typical of the court style[ekc-jang]
Broth of soy sauce with honey or sugar[ekc-jang][nfm-jang]
Sugar (one test batch)2.5 % sucroseAdded to one of two test recipes; it raised acidity and viscosity[kim2008]

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h – 3 days

Start
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What changes: Radish and cabbage are cut into small, flat pieces

Step 1 of 5
Cut the radish and cabbage
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Leuconostoc
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Jangkimchi is a water kimchi in which radish and cabbage are salted with soy sauce, not salt, and covered with a broth seasoned with soy sauce and honey or sugar. It uses no jeot and usually no chilli powder, and is dressed with costly garnishes such as chestnut, jujube, pine nuts and stone-ear mushroom. It is eaten young, often with rice cakes. Made in 5 steps over 24 h – 3 days. The longest step, ripen briefly, takes 24 h – 3 days (Kim Eun-Jung and Hahn Young-Sook 2008) and runs at 1–20 °C (Kim Eun-Jung and Hahn Young-Sook 2008). Leuconostoc mesenteroides, which the study thought made the dextran that thickened the sugared batch does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step24 h – 3 daysMeasured[kim2008]Ripen briefly
Temperature1–20 °CReported[kim2008]Ripen briefly

What makes this one different

Jangkimchi is salted and seasoned with soy sauce alone, so it ferments soy and vegetables together rather than salt and vegetables. It skips jeot and, in most court versions, chilli powder, and its costly garnishes made it a dish of the court and of wealthy households.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Jang-jjanji (Gyuhap chongseo)Summer form with young cucumber, radish and cabbage salted in soy sauce, layered with abalone, cheonggak seaweed and chilli.
  • Siuijeonseo jangkimchi (1890s)Radish, cabbage and pear salted in soy sauce with garlic, ginger, mustard leaf and mushrooms; no chilli.
  • Papyeong Yun family jangkimchi (Nonsan)Like nabak kimchi, with chilli powder and red chilli; seasoned with the family's seed soy sauce and not ripened.

Safety

Jangkimchi is eaten young. A 2021 study of white (no-chilli) kimchi says Korean school outbreaks of E. coli linked to kimchi were attributed to short ripening, which left the kimchi less acidic, and gives the pH of commercial kimchi as 3.8–4.2 (Kim, Bae and Lee 2021, quoting earlier reports).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Yi Gyu-bo's Goryeo poem says radish kept in jang lasts the three summer months. The Dongguk sesigi lists jangkimchi under the 11th month, Siuijeonseo calls it jangkimchi and the Jinchan uigwe jangchimchae. After 1900, versions made with sweeter Japanese-style soy sauce also appeared.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [ekc-jang] Encyclopedia of Korean Culture (한국민족문화대백과사전), 장김치, written by Seo Hye-gyeong 1995, revised 2023; public work under KOGLbook
  2. [nfm-jang] National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, Korean Food, Clothing and Housing (한국의식주생활사전), 장김치; KOGL type 2, facts only; read 2026-10book
  3. [nfm-jang-sesi] National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Seasonal Customs (한국세시풍속사전), 장김치 (11th month seasonal food); KOGL type 2, facts only; read 2026-10book
  4. [kim2008] Kim Eun-Jung and Hahn Young-Sook 2008, Studies on the manufacturing and fermentation characteristics of soy-sauce-kimchi, Korean Journal of Food and Cookery Science 24(4), 517–524 (abstract)paper
  5. [kim2021] Kim J.-Y., Bae Y.-M. and Lee S.-Y. 2021, Combined effect of various salt concentrations and lactic acid bacteria fermentation on the survival of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes in white kimchi at different temperatures, Food Science and Biotechnology 30(12), 1593–1600paper
  6. [s1] Korean Wikipedia, 김치 (장김치 entry)wiki