Korean pantry essentials: what to buy and how to store it

The easiest way to build a Korean pantry is to shop for one dish you want to cook, then add to it. Tteokbokki needs gochujang, gochugaru, anchovy stock, rice cakes and fish cake. Sundubu-jjigae uses the same gochugaru and stock plus sesame oil, soft tofu and kimchi. Gimbap needs gim, rice, sesame oil, fish cake and pickled radish. Bibimbap needs little more than cooked rice, gochujang and sesame seeds, and the yangnyeom chicken glaze adds corn syrup to the gochujang.

After two or three recipes, the same bottles keep coming back: gochujang, gochugaru, soy sauce, sesame oil and stock. Our pantry starter kit puts eight of these staples on one list with their store links, and each recipe page lists its ingredients with store links too.

Korean cooking leans on jang, fermented sauces such as soybean paste, soy sauce and red chili paste. In 2024 UNESCO added Korea's jang-making to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, noting that jang goes with vegetables, fish and meat and that the know-how is passed down mainly within families.

Doenjang (soybean paste) and ganjang (soy sauce) come from the same batch. Soybeans are made into meju, fermented and dried soybean lumps, which go into brine with salt and water; later the meju is ground into doenjang and the remaining liquid becomes soy sauce. Gochujang, the spicy red pepper paste, goes into bibimbap, and on K for All it also flavors tteokbokki and the yangnyeom chicken glaze.

Korean brands sell more than one kind of soy sauce, and the label tells you which job each one is for. Sempio sells its Jin Gold S and Jin Gold F3 jin-ganjang for braised and stir-fried dishes, and that's the bottle in our picks.

Guk-ganjang, or soup soy sauce, is a separate bottle. Sempio describes its Soy Sauce for Soup as adding depth of flavor to soups and stews with a light, savory taste. If a recipe asks for soup soy sauce, buy the bottle labeled for soup instead of swapping in jin-ganjang.

Gochugaru comes in different grinds. Crazy Korean Cooking, for example, sells a fine grind for making sauces and a coarse grind for kimchi. The Taekyung bag in our picks is the coarse kind, and our Sundubu recipe uses 1–3 teaspoons of it per batch.

The Otoki sesame oil is a finishing oil: its listing says it isn't for high heat and is best added after cooking or to marinades, dressings and dipping sauces. Roasted sesame seeds do the same finishing job on bibimbap, and Ottogi's roasted sesame seeds are part of our pantry starter kit.

Anchovy broth is the base of our Sundubu and Tteokbokki recipes. Bouillon tablets are the shortcut, and the Sundubu recipe also gives a from-scratch broth of dried anchovies, kelp and radish if you want the longer route.

Gim, roasted seaweed, holds gimbap together. Sajo gimbap sheets come 10 full sheets to a 20 g pack, and the label says to store them in a cool place away from sunlight and moisture and to eat them soon after opening.

Tteokbokki rice cakes are perishable. The Surasang pack is made from rice, water, salt and ethanol and is marked keep refrigerated. The label explains that it's treated with ethanol for safety, so a faint alcohol smell when you open it doesn't mean it has spoiled. Once it's open, the label says to cook it right away or seal it in the fridge. The Tteokbokki recipe lists where to buy rice cakes.

Storage advice differs from product to product, so follow the label on the one you buy. Here is what the makers of the products above say.