All-Purpose Jangajji (Pickling) Sauce · Paik Jong-won

Name: All-Purpose Jangajji (Pickling) Sauce · Paik Jong-won
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 20
Cuisine: Korean
Ingredients: 360 g Jin-ganjang (dark soy sauce); 230 g Vinegar; 230 g Sugar; 360 g Water; as desired Cherry tomatoes — for version 1; 1 Lemon — for the cherry tomato version; as desired Spinach — for version 2; as desired Cucumber — for version 3

One boiled soy-vinegar-sugar brine, memorised in a 2 : 1⅓ : 1½ : 2 ratio, that pickles almost any vegetable overnight — with his three worked examples: cherry tomato, spinach and cucumber.

Source

Recette de 백종원 · 👨‍🍳 Chef · Paik Jong-won — chef & restaurateur, 백종원의 요리비책

Les noms des cuisiniers et créateurs figurent uniquement à titre de mention de source. More Recipes Please est indépendant et n'est ni affilié, ni approuvé, ni sponsorisé par eux.

Paik Jong-won (요리비책) — Published by Paik Jong-won on his own YouTube channel as '만능 장아찌 소스' — an all-purpose pickling sauce he says suits cherry tomatoes, spinach, cucumber and many other vegetables, demonstrating all three in the same video. The method hinges on one detail: the soy, sugar and water are boiled together but the vinegar is only stirred in after the heat is off, so its sharpness is not driven away.

Cuisinier: 백종원

Watch it being made

백종원

⏱ 20 min🍽 20 portions🔥 45 kcal🇰🇷 Corée du Sud

VéganeVégétarienSans produits laitiers

Étapes

Make the sauce first. Put the water, soy sauce and sugar into a pot — but NOT the vinegar — and bring to a boil.
💡 Remember the ratio rather than the grams: soy 2 : vinegar 1⅓ : sugar 1½ : water 2, all by cup. Scale it up or down for however much vegetable you have.
Stir now and then until the sugar has completely dissolved and the brine is clear rather than grainy at the bottom.
Once it boils, turn off the heat and let the steam die down. Then stir the vinegar in.
💡 Vinegar goes in off the heat, and this is the one rule that matters. Boil vinegar and its sharpness evaporates — you would be left with a sweet soy sauce, not a pickling brine.
Let the brine cool until it is no longer steaming at all before it touches any vegetable.
💡 Warm brine cooks the vegetable it lands on and you lose the snap. This is the most common way home jangajji goes soft.
CUCUMBER VERSION — the easiest. Scrub the cucumbers clean under running water.
Cut the cucumber into bite-size pieces, put them in an airtight container, and pour over enough sauce to submerge them. Leave at room temperature for 1 day, then move to the fridge.
SPINACH VERSION — wash the spinach thoroughly, then blanch it very briefly in boiling water and cool it straight away in cold water.
Squeeze the water out of the spinach, lay it neatly in an airtight container, and pour over enough sauce to submerge it. 1 day at room temperature, then refrigerate.
💡 Squeeze it properly. Water left in the leaves dilutes the brine and the whole batch goes slack and spoils sooner.
CHERRY TOMATO VERSION — wash the tomatoes and pull off the stems.
Drop them into boiling water for about 10 seconds, then cool them straight away in cold water.
💡 Ten seconds, no more. You are only splitting the skins so they peel — any longer and the flesh turns to mush.
Slip the skins off the tomatoes and rinse them lightly. Slice the lemon into 0.5 cm coins.
Pack the peeled tomatoes into an airtight container with the lemon slices, pour over enough sauce to submerge them, and ripen in the fridge for about 1 day.
Serve any of them cold, in small amounts, as banchan alongside rice.

💡 Astuces

Beginner's mistake: pouring the brine on while it is still warm because you are in a hurry. It half-cooks the vegetable and you get limp jangajji instead of a crisp one. Cool it completely — no steam, no exceptions.
Substitution: this brine is genuinely all-purpose — Paik shows cherry tomato, spinach and cucumber, but perilla leaves, garlic, onion, chili and mushrooms all take to the same treatment and the same overnight rest.
Keep the leftover brine in the fridge and reuse it for the next batch. It is soy, vinegar, sugar and water — it keeps well, and many Korean households never throw it away.
Weigh the vegetables down with a small plate if they bob above the brine. Anything sticking out of the liquid will not pickle evenly and is where spoilage starts.