Vegan Bibimbap - A Recipe and Mini History Lesson
The finished product
I never planned on sharing any recipes on my blog, but COVID-19 has forced us all to change our plans, amirite?
Anyways, I gotta say that I was super proud of how pretty (and yummy) this bibimbap turned out to be, so I thought I’d share how I made this with all of you. I’m no chef (I literally only started cooking out of absolute necessity during quarantine so that I wouldn’t starve to death), and I don’t really know how to share recipes “the proper way” with fancy checklists and step by step instructions, so this post will be more like a stream of consciousness.
Before we get into the whole thing, I just want to put out a disclaimer that I am very “flexible” when it comes to cooking in that I don’t typically follow precise measurements. I have two reasons for this: One, I hate washing dishes, and dirty measuring spoons / cups are a pain to clean. Two, I grew up in a very traditional Chinese household where measuring instruments weren’t even part of the kitchen vocabulary (if you know, you know). Therefore, I typically just “cook to taste” and adjust the recipe as I go. That’s why, for the most part, you won’t see me giving out precise measurements for anything. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I literally don’t even know what the “right” measurement for any of the ingredients actually is, haha.
History of Bibimbap
***Disclaimer: I am not a historian, so please forgive me and let me know if I’m butchering any aspects of the history behind this dish.
Alright, let’s talk about bibimbap. I LOVE bibimbap for a variety of reasons: it’s warm, it’s nourishing, it contains so many different vegetables, and it can easily be made vegetarian or vegan! As I was researching the origins of bibimbap, I came across a few articles that explain the humble origins of the dish; apparently, bibimbap originated in rural Korea and was invented as a convenient way for working class mothers and wives to quickly whip up a nutritious, tasty meal when there wasn’t enough time or space for a traditional meal complete with banchan (small Korean side dishes that are served with almost every meal) while doubling as a way to utilize leftovers and kitchen scraps. One of the papers that I read suggests that bibimbap was also popular with the rich and among high ranking government officials.
TLDR; anyone can eat it, and it’s just so damn delicious. If you want to learn more about the history and origins of bibimbap, I’ve linked a few informative papers and posts that I found helpful during my research in the notes section at the bottom of this post.
The Recipe
This particular bibimbap that I made (the one pictured) is 100% vegan and 200% yummy. The one I made separately for Patrick has a fried egg on top for extra protein, but the yuba noodles in my bowl were enough protein for me.
This dish might look hard to make, but it’s actually incredibly easy! In fact, I’m typically able to make it in under an hour (which is good for me, since I’m clumsy and slow AF in the kitchen). It’s so filling and nourishing — the perfect, guilt-free way to replenish your body after a long, hard day of work. It’s also pretty to look at, which definitely doesn’t hurt.
Instead of laying out the recipe step by step (since there’s really no “order” that you need to follow), I’m just going to go over each component of the bowl in order of appearance. Keep in mind that, depending on how long it takes you to cook every item, some of the things you cooked and set aside in the beginning might get cold, and you might have to reheat your bowl before you eat it. Maybe I’m just super slow at cooking, but I always have to pop the bowl into the microwave for a minute or two before serving. If you’re able to find a good workaround for this, let me know!
A wild bibimbap in its natural habitat
Clockwise, starting from the top:
Carrots - I just grated some raw carrots and set them aside. Super simple, nothing fancy here. Some people like to cook their carrots, but I prefer the crunch from raw carrots, and they’re more nutritious this way anyways!
Rice - I cooked some medium-grain white Japanese rice in the rice cooker and sprinkled on some black sesame seeds (Patrick scooped it into a cute little ball for me hehehe).
Seaweed - I took some dried wakame seaweed that I got my the local Japanese market downstairs, cooked it in boiling water for about 3 minutes, strained it and dressed it with a mix of sesame oil, soy sauce, mirin and monk fruit sweetener (you can use any sweetener of choice). I topped the resulting seaweed salad with white sesame seeds for funsies (sort of a yin / yang situation going on with the black and white sesame seeds, haha).
Zucchini - I chopped the zucchini into thin strips and cooked it lightly with sesame oil and a tiny bit of salt. You can add some crushed garlic if you’d like, but I skipped it this time around because I didn’t want to have to wash the garlic crusher, lol.
Mushrooms - I like using shiitake mushrooms because they give off an amazing umami flavor, though you can use almost any kind of mushroom you’d like (enoki and oyster mushroom would work great as well). I just chopped them up and cooked them in a little bit of sesame oil, soy sauce and hoisin sauce. I added a touch of salt towards the end to bring out the umami flavor a bit more, but you can totally skip this step if you’re watching your sodium intake.
Kimchi - From Whole Foods. I had originally been using the big jar of kimchi that you can get at Costco, but I later realized that the Costco one isn’t 100% vegan because it contains anchovies, so I’ve since switched to a vegan brand. I’m currently using one by Mama O’s, which you can find at Whole Foods, but there are a ton of vegan kimchi brands out there; just make sure to read the label and make sure that there are no fish products on the ingredients list!
Spinach - Blanched and drained (I don’t usually put any seasoning on this, since the gochujang will flavor everything in the bowl and you don’t want your bowl to become too salty)
Center:
Yuba Noodles - Packaged and precooked by Hodo Foods (available at Whole Foods). I just heated them up a bit in the pan before serving. I got the spicy flavor, but they have a sesame flavor as well that I want to try.
Dumpling - Leftover veggie dumpling pan fried with the little bit of residual sesame oil from cooking all of the veggies earlier
Microgreens - Got these at Whole Foods as well (seeing a trend?)
Gochujang - Vegan gochujang by Mother-in-Law’s (available at Whole Foods)
Some tips:
For the raw veggies and anything that can be served cold, make sure to prepare them ahead of time so that your hot items don’t get cold
Cook the veggies one by one if you want to be able to plate them / make them look pretty, but it’s totally fine to just cook everything together if you’re short on time and don’t care about taking pictures for the gram
To make the pretty lines with the gochujang, I spooned some into a plastic baggie, cut off one of the corners, and used it as a makeshift squeezy tube
Sesame oil burns at high temperatures, so make sure to cook everything using medium / low heat
The gochujang will flavor everything in the bowl, so don’t worry if some of your veggies don’t taste salty enough on their own
Notes:
Here’s a well-written research paper all about the history, origins and different types of bibimbap
Here’s a more casual fun post that’s easy and fun to read