Chayote belongs to the gourd family and is a vegetable native to Mexico and Central America. It’s not a usual Korean cooking ingredient, but I found that it works very well as a substitute for Korean radish when making kkakdugi (Cubed radish kimchi)style kimchi. Koreans say there are almost two hundreds kinds of kimchi, but today I’m adding 1 more! So far nobody has ever posted a kimchi recipe made with chayote!
This chayote kimchi is crispy, spicy, and refreshing, and is a great side dish for rice and soups like my recent oxtail soup, or soybean sprouts soup. But you can serve it on the side with anything, and eat it as you would a pickle.
I love Korean kkakdugi, but this chayote kimchi is becoming my new favorite and I make it all the time. It’s just as crispy, crunchy, and tangy as kkakdugi, but the chayote is a little sweet like a firm melon, and as it ferments it never goes soggy and always crispy.
I’m not a nutritionist but I’ve since come to learn that chayote is a healthy food that contains many essential vitamins, minerals, and fiber, many antioxidants, is low in calories, fat, sodium, and carbs, and is good for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, poor blood flow, and even fighting cancer. It’s good for you, and when you make kimchi from it you also get all the probiotic benefits as well. Plus, it’s delicious!
Ingredients
- 3 pounds deseeded chayotes (4 large chayotes)
- 2 tablespoons kosher salt
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 teaspoon peeled ginger
- ⅓ cup worth onion
- ¼ cup fish sauce (or soy sauce)
- 4 green onions, sliced diagonally
- ½ cup gochugaru (Korean hot pepper flakes)
Directions
- Cut a chayote in half lengthwise and remove the inner seed. Slice each half into ½ inch thick pieces lengthwise and then cut each piece crosswise into roughly ½ inch cubes. Transfer the cubes to a large bowl. Repeat with the rest of chayotes.
- Add 2 tablespoons kosher salt and mix well. Let sit for 30 minutes, turning it over every 10 minutes to salt evenly.
- Pour out the excess brine to a blender. Add garlic, ginger, onion, and fish sauce (or soy sauce). Blend 1 minute until soft and creamy.
- Add the mixture to the chayote chunks. Add gochu-garu (Korean hot pepper flakes), green onion, and mix all together by hand. You can wear a disposable glove if desired. Transfer it to a jar or an airtight container. Press down the top of the kimchi and cover.
- You can serve it right away with rice. If you like to ferment your kimchi faster, you can keep it outside the fridge. Usually it will take a few days to ferment at room temperature, but if you live in a warm country it may only take 1 day because of the higher temperatures. When the kimchi is fermented, it tastes sour. Be sure to store it in the fridge and enjoy it until it runs out.
From the top, chayote kimchi, spinach side dish, fish skin chips (The recipe will come in the future), and Korean style curry rice.
Posted on Friday, January 17th, 2020 at 6:58 pm.
Last updated on March 25, 2020.
Tagged: chayote kimchi, cubed chayote kimchi, diced chayote kimchi, 깍두기, 차요테 김치, 차이오티 깍두기, 차이오티 김치, kimchi made with chayote, kkakdugi made with chayote
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Hi Maangchi, you have saved my family from starvation during this covid-19 quarantine. I have tried many of your recipes and it never fails! Now i am giving myslef more challenge to make my own kimchi. But i don’t currently have Gochugaru and kosher salt at the moment. Can i use an Indian red pepper powder and regular salt instead?
Hello Maangchi! We call chayote, chokos in Australia.
They were on sale, so I bought some to try making them kkakdugi-style. Very crisp!! I actually enjoyed them freshly made, than when they fermented. However, yummy, nonetheless. Very clever. Our chokos have much smaller seeds too. I like this better than traditional radish kkakdugi!
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See? Tiny seed in our Australian chayotes !
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Yes, they are! Thank you for showing me the photo!
Did you peel the chayote? It appears that the peel is still on it in the pictures. I am going to try this soon. I bought the chayotes yesterday.
Maangchi:
I’m addicted to Kimchi! Can I freeze it?
Tank you for the recipes!
Laurinda
Move over, there’s a new guy in town. Joining two old favorites, spicy bellflower root and tofu pickle, is chayote kimchee. Taking your reader’s advice, I fried out the seeds as an additional side dish. Joined with avocado and rice–it is a rainbow of colors and tastes.
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I will have to try that. Our market has them. Ive used turnips and kohlrabi before for kimchi also. They work very well.
The main thing i do differently when making “radish kimchi” is i use salt and sugar during the weeping. I usually dont save all the brine it makes. The bacteria will eat all of the sugar anyway so its optional. It wont taste sweet.
Enjoy your trip to Mexico!
I’m from El Paso, Texas, which is right on the border with Mexico (you can see Mexico and Juarez from the town), and there are a lot of Korean people there and even a few Korean restaurants there. Something I commonly see served there is a side dish made with jicama. Jicama (pronounced he-ka-ma) occurs really frequently alongside chayote in fruit salads in Mexico.
I’m not sure the jicama side dish is quite as strong as radish kimchi (I just made some from your older cookbook this weekend!), but it’s spicy and plays off of the jicama’s natural sweetness. Maybe you will have the chance to taste some jicama while you are in Mexico! There is a spicy Mexican fruit salad made with chamoy you should try too, if you get the chance! Stay safe down there!
I wondered about using jicama in kimchi. When I was buying chayote, I also got a jicama, but I ate it already partly with some tajin and partly with hummus (which sounds a bit strange but is really good.)
Made this and I love it.
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I love your chayote kimchi, too! : ) It looks so crispy and delicious!
Maangchi:
What a great idea! I live in Seattle and we have lots of chayote in the stores, so I will try this. Kkakdugi is my favorite banchan, so I will definitely try this. Thank you for the recipe and have fun in Mexico. You look great in those shorts!!!
Thanks,
Tom