Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Vegetables from Gyeongsang, Korea

Kongnip kimchi (soybean-leaf kimchi)콩잎김치

Kongnip kimchi is made from soybean leaves picked in autumn after frost, when they have turned yellow. Bundles of leaves are soaked in salt water or plain water for about a month until the tough leaves soften, then brushed four or five at a time with anchovy sauce, soy sauce and chilli powder and packed in a jar. Salted hard at kimjang, it keeps until the next summer.

Fully documentedVegetables2 months

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceHousehold recipe with no fixed amounts. The salt level comes from a lab trial on young green leaves.
Soybean leavesPicked after frost when they turn yellow; young summer leaves thinned from the plants are also used[nfm-kongnip]
Salt water or plain waterFor the month-long soak; plain water keeps the leaf colour brighter[nfm-kongnip]
Anchovy fish sauce and soup soy sauce[nfm-kongnip]
Chilli powder, sugar, minced garlic, ginger, sesame seeds and thread chilliVaries from house to house[nfm-kongnip]
Salt level for the lab kimchi3.0–4.5 % saltScored best of the levels tested; 1.5 % soured fastest[lee2003a]

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Starting material: soybean leaves picked after frost, when they have turned yellow

Step 1 of 5
Pick the yellowed leaves after frost
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria

Output: yellow soybean leaves.

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

Kongnip kimchi is made from soybean leaves picked in autumn after frost, when they have turned yellow. Bundles of leaves are soaked in salt water or plain water for about a month until the tough leaves soften, then brushed four or five at a time with anchovy sauce, soy sauce and chilli powder and packed in a jar. Salted hard at kimjang, it keeps until the next summer. Made in 5 steps over 2 months. The longest step, ripen cold, takes 31 days (Lee Suk-hee 2003) and runs at 5 °C (Lee Suk-hee 2003). Salt is 1.5–4.5 % (Lee Suk-hee 2003). Lactic acid bacteria, which rose fast in the first 4 days and then slowly does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step31 daysReported[lee2003a]Ripen cold
Temperature5 °CReported[lee2003a]Ripen cold
Salt1.5–4.5 %Reported[lee2003a]Ripen cold

What makes this one different

Kongnip kimchi uses the by-product leaves of the soybean crop, soaked for a month before seasoning, so the ferment has two stages. It is a leaf-stack kimchi like kkaennip kimchi, but made from soybean leaves.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Young-leaf kongnip kimchiTender green leaves thinned from the plants in summer, before flowering.
  • Kongnip jangajjiSoybean leaves pickled as jangajji instead of made into kimchi; the thinned young leaves are used for it too.

Safety

Gyeongsang's warm climate makes kimchi sour and go soft quickly, so this kimchi is salted hard and made with plenty of jeot. Salted hard at kimjang and well stored, it keeps until the next summer (Folk Encyclopedia).

History and sources

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

Soybean leaves were a common by-product wherever soybeans were grown, but kongnip kimchi is now thought of as a Gyeongsang dish, where hot weather calls for salty, jeot-heavy kimchi.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [nfm-kongnip] National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, Korean Food, Clothing and Housing (한국의식주생활사전), 콩잎김치; KOGL type 2, facts only; read 2026-10book
  2. [lee2003a] Lee Suk-hee, Choi Dong-jin and Kim Jong-guk 2003, Effect of salt concentration on soybean leaf kimchi fermentation, Food Science and Preservation 10(4), 512–516 (abstract)paper
  3. [lee2003b] Lee Suk-hee, Choi Dong-jin and Kim Jong-guk 2003, The effect of chitosan addition on soybean leaf kimchi fermentation, Food Science and Preservation 10(4), 517–521 (abstract)paper
  4. [s1] Korean Wikipedia, 김치 (Gyeongsang regional list)wiki