Sigeumchi-namul is a Korean side dish (banchan) made of blanched spinach seasoned with soy sauce, garlic, and toasted sesame oil. The spinach is only slightly cooked, leaving it a little crispy, but still soft and tasty. Because it’s so easy to make and so delicious, it’s a very popular and common side dish among Koreans. For many Koreans an easy, simple everyday meal consists of rice, kimchi, a stew (often doenjang-jjigae), kongnamul-muchim (a bean sprout side dish), and sigeumchi-namul.
It’s on our everyday table and also served at special occasions, family gatherings, BBQ parties—basically anywhere Koreans are gathering with food, sigeumchi-namul is there and among the most popular dishes, often paired with kongnamul-muchim, another favorite.
In this recipe you can replace spinach with bok choy or arugula or experiment with something new if you want. I had a potluck party with my readers a few years ago, and one of them brought his own sigeumchi-namul made with an ingredient I couldn’t recognize. I asked him and he told me it was tender kale! Blanched and prepared like sigeumchi-namul, it was so delicious!
I hope you enjoy this recipe and the remade HD video. Let me know if you make it. If you try your own experiments, let me know in the comments!
Ingredients
- 8 ounces spinach, cleaned and washed
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 green onion, chopped
- 1½ teaspoon soy sauce
- 1½ teaspoon toasted sesame oil
- 2 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
- silgochu (Korean dried shredded red pepper), optional
Directions
- Boil 8 to 10 cups of water in a large pot.
- Blanch the spinach for 30 seconds to 1 minute with lid off, stirring with a wooden spoon.
- Strain the spinach and rinse in cold water a couple of times to remove any residual dirt.
- Squeeze out excess water and cut a few times into bite size pieces.
- Mix the spinach with garlic, green onion, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and sesame seeds in a mixing bowl by hand.
- Transfer to a bowl or plate and garnish with silgochu, if used.
- Serve with rice.
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Thanks Maangchi. First time do it :) . Super nice and easy :) . Love it . Lucky to have you to teach us to cook Korean food . Best wishes to you and your family
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It looks wonderful! Congratulations! Actually your photo inspired me to make sigeumchi namul last night! : )
Hello! Spinach is expensive here in the Philippines. May I use water spinach (kangkong) instead?
I tried with kangkong…nice also. I did it when I got so much kangkong. Can’t remember whether I used the kangkong stalks too.
Hi Manngchi,
I love your Korea cooking and had tried many of your dishes like:
Bibimbap, Japchae, Easy Kimchi, Dakgangjeong etc.
Would like to ask those side dish like Oi-muchim, Sigeumchi-namul, Buchu-kimchi etc can keep in fridge for how long?
Greatly Appreciated for your prompt reply.
Janies
I loved it,Maangchi, you would be proud of me!!
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Wonderful!
Really love it. Im turkish and my parents loved it too ♡
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It looks delicious! I see you added a generous amount of sesame oil. I can almost smell it! It looks wonderful.
Hello Maangchi! I love your recipes. I’m making this banchan now. I have a quick question… how long will this stay in the fridge before it goes bad?
Hi Maangchi !
Thanks for the recipe !
I translated it in french on my blog :)
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It looks so delicious!
I normally Blanche for 30 seconds. It keeps it from being mushy. This is a perfect side dish!
Hi Maangchi,
Can I use baby spinach for this recipe, just the leaves? I just bought a big bag of spinach. :D
I’ve made it with baby spinach and with regular spinach. You can do both but the adult spinach is better, in my opinion. The baby spinach is soft and you just end up with slimy wads in each bite, whereas the adult is firmer and has the stems, which create a very nice texture for this recipe. But if you only have baby spinach on hand, I wouldn’t let that deter you from making this, especially if you are planning on adding it to kimbap or something like that.
Hi tomdolan, thank you for your advice. I had a huge 5 pound that I recently bought so I was hoping to use what I had so it would not go to waste. I will try to make it with the adult spinach next time and compare the difference. Thank you so much!
I tried this with beet greens, and they were really good.
Next, I might try using sweet potato leaves, since my sweet potato plants are not giving me tubers.
OK, I cut sweet potato leaves in the morning, and processed them like spinach. Sweet potatoes are related to morning glory plants, and the vines have a fair amount of latex in them, but the leaves don’t have as much.
The resulting dish looks similar to the sigeumchi-namul with spinach, but the texture is a bit . . . mushy. There is a kind of slimy component to the leaves. I cannot recommend it.
Wow, thank you for that useful info, that’s definitely one of the vegetables I would have tried as I cannot always find “adult” spinach in my local shops (and my family grows sweet potatoes every summer). I will try with beet greens instead! And perhaps with chard!
I just made these using beet greens, and they worked out well.
I made this for the first time tonight and it’s absolutely delicious. I can definitely see why it’s so popular. Of course, I doubled up on the sesame seeds because I think TOASTED sesame seeds are the best thing since sliced bred. :-)
I love this! Thank you Maangchi! Very simple to make and yet bursting with flavors.
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Yes, bursting with flavors, that’s right! : )
Thank you Maangchi, this is one of my favourite banchan. I have low iron so this dish is very important to me!
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Delicious!
Hello Mangchi, would this side dish go well with pork belly?
Yes, I think so.
Can I use watercress instead of spinach? Would any of the seasoning need tobbe changed?
Yes, watercress can be good substitute for spinach in this recipe.
Hi, Maangchi!
I got a question for u. I always make different namul during the week. Sometimes when i only got bits of leftover meat dish and my various namul, i just throw them all in a big bowl of rice, mixed them all up+gyeran jang jorim and some sesame oil (since most of my meat dishes usually eaten by my son got gochujang in it) and sometimes i also add dried doljaban i bought from the store. Is this ok?
Whenever my mom saw me eat my bibimbap of leftovers, she always shake her head and ask how is it that I’m not as fat as a pig ready for slaughter. I feel bad if i have to throw away those bits of food. Most of my leftover meat are 2-3 days old and my namul i are just a 12hrs old max. It’s just sometimes when my son finished all the rice for the day, i ended up being too lazy to cook more rice for dinner and most of the time ended up munching on those namul without rice. So the following day when i cook fresh rice, i cook enough for my bibimbap that i usually eat for my lunch. I work at home.
Please enlighten the ignorant me. Thanks,
Ima
Ima, you are not alone, this is exactly what I do, make bibimbap with my leftovers! I’m actually very happy to hear that you figured this out by yourself, like a real Korean!
Hi
I am a student. now i m doing assignment on simple yet healthy recipe. Can i use this recipe? Don’t worry. It is not open to public.
yes, you can use my recipe either in public or private but be sure to link to the recipe on my website so that your audience will learn the recipe.
Hi Maangchi,
What is the best type of spinach to use for this recipe? I noticed the prepared side dishes that we get from the Korean Market or restaurants in Sunnyvale (nearby “Korea town”) the spinach seems to be a unique variety. It looks like it has small unopened flowers, and is attached to a stalk (and the stalk itself is pretty tender). In fact the market labels it “seasoned edible” so I am not even sure if it is actually spinach. I tried making this dish with organic baby spinach but it definitely was not the same.
This is one of our favorite banchan and its so easy to make, I would like to try growing the veggie in our backyard garden this winter. It seems like it has such a mild flavor that it would probably be good in smoothies too.
Thank you!
Rich
Hi Rich,
Your question reminded me of some red root spinach that I used 1 year ago. I found it on my Facebook page. Check it out. My answer about spinach is there. https://www.maangchi.com/photo/heirloom-spinach And “It looks like it has small unopened flowers” I’m not sure what it is.
I know this is an old comment, but this sounds like a Chinese vegetable that I see in the Korean market near me. It is sold as “Yu Choy” and it has tender leaves, fat succulent stems, and tiny flowerbuds. Sometimes one or two buds has opened to show a yellow flower with 4 petals, like a rocket or cress flower. So I think it is more related to broccoli than to spinach, but its leaves cook up like spinach, so it is probably perfect for this dish.
This recipe worked perfectly with Swiss chard. I removed the stems and blanched them for 30 seconds more than the leaves, and I blanched the leaves for almost 1 minute.
Hi Maangchi ! I like your recipes, have tried out a few, about this dish. Can it be serve hot?
I’ve eaten it hot by sticking it into the microwave for a few seconds. Hope that helps.
Hi, Maangchi
It’s yummy…Can I keep this in the fridge to eat through a week? Thank you.
I think a few days in the fridge is ok but 1 week is too long.
Hi Maangchi
This dish is fantastically delicious and healthy!
I just made it and love it so much. it is very suitable for diet.
Awesome!
Hi Maangchi,
This is lovely! I am thinking of cooking this dish at night, keep in the fridge overnight. Then the next morning, bring out of the fridge and put it in a thermo flask and bring to work to eat for lunch. Will the dish turn bad? Do u advise I warm it up in the microwave before putting it in the thermo flask as I have rice at a serparate lower level in the thermo flask, my worry is that the heat from the rice might spoil the cold spinach although the rice and spinach is put in separate container. P.S. my thermo flask have 3 containers for rice/ vege / meat/ soup and to be stack neatly into the thermo flask. How bout the other side dish, can it be kept overnight in the fridge? It will be great if most side dish can be kept overnight so I dont have to wake up that early to cook and rush out for work. sorry for the lengthy post ~
yes, it will be ok to keep it in the fridge overnight and eat it for lunch next day.
I can’t wait, to make this with delicious Ssukgat, I bought today :D
Thank you really much :)
That’s right! Ssukgat will work with this recipe, tool https://www.maangchi.com/ingredients/edible-chrysanthemum
unnie^^ tetanigamsahamnida..^^
i am a malaysian college student…
and i am looking for this recipe for long time ago since the 1st time i had this as my side dishes!!!
i made it today and it turns out quite well^^
thank you so much^^~!!
it is also good for my diet plan too^^ ~kkkkkk
Onni ~ I really love all your recipes! Yesterday I made sigeumchi namul and it turnt out very well! ^ ^ thank you
Thank you Maangchi. My husband love this dish so much, he said one bunch of spinach is not enough. He wanted me to make five bunches, next time. lol :)
You are so lovely and so are your recipes :)) ❤ ♨ ❀
haha, one bunch is not enough, yes, I agree! ❤
Thanks so much for this recipe! It turned out perfect!! We loved having it along with the bean sprout side dish and some barbecued chicken!! I love having another way to use fresh spinach. Yum!
awesome news!
I really like your version of shigeumchi namul its so flavor full! but i prefer to sautee thegarlic first so its not so garlicky.
Oh and love the song, amy winehouse is one of my favorites!!
Amy Winehouse is cool! : )
Hi, Maangchi-
I just tried this spinach side dish recipe, because I always enjoy eating it at Korean restaurants and I want to try to save money by making my own food at home. It turned out awesome! All the recipes I have tried from your website have turned out well and tasted delicious. Thanks!
awesome news! Thanks for your update!
i like this namul. but it has a different Recipe which i’ve bought. it’s added bean sprout and Carrot. and also it’s has red onion, and chili Powder what kind of namul that is maangachi??
haha, what kind of namul? Mixed namul I guess. : )
maangchi!!
i’m living in korea right now in a city called POHANG.
it has the most delicious spinach in korea in the winter time! :)
i don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it gets the ocean breeze and it freezes and thaws over and over again and it ends up very sweet and delicious!! the pink part on the bottom is very long, and that is my favorite part of the spinach, it is so sweet! :)
i made this recipe today with pohang’s winter spinach and it was PERFECT!
yum yum yum yum!
thanks for all that you do!!
xoxo jessica
jessica,
“the pink part on the bottom is very long, and that is my favorite part of the spinach,”
I love the part of spinach too! Cheers!
Thank you Maangchi for this side dish! I’ve made it a couple of times, sometimes using spinach and sometimes with mustard green.:)
mustard green sounds good. Next time if you make it again, add 1 ts soy bean paste. Mustard green with soy bean paste really go well.
I Love Mustard Greens .We have a mixed Green dish in Florida Made with Kale,Mustard Greens,Collard Greens, and Turnip Greens . It is chopped and boiled with Smoked Ham Hocks and Smoked Neckbone (from Pig) Cooked until most of the water evaporates. I always add Krystal Hot sauce after Greens are on my plate.
It sounds very delicious!
How many days will this sidedish last in the fridge?
Not long, I usually finish eating spinach side dish in a day even though I keep it in the fridge.