Reap the Gut-Healthy Benefits of Kimchi at Home With This Delicious Recipe

Looking for a new quarantine cooking project? Here’s how to make yeolmu kimchi at home.

My brain is full of relatively useless facts, but sometimes between things like “a cloud weighs about a million pounds” and “there’s a fungus that turns ants into zombies” one that’s both interesting and helpful pops up. Like the fact that 90 percent of your serotonin is made in the gut, so a healthier gut can help improve your mood. One way to support the health of your gut is by eating fermented foods like kimchi. In this episode of Cook With Us, Mina Park, co-owner and chef of Baroo in Los Angeles, shows us how to make a yeolmu kimchi recipe, a young radish kimchi that’s a staple in Korean cuisine and is a probiotic-rich fermented food.

“This is a very refreshing dish that is actually traditionally made in the summertime, but these days you can find yeolmu throughout the year in Korea. And so in my family, we have yeolmu kimchi all year round,” Park says. Since kimchi is a fermented food, it’s extra important that the containers and utensils you use for this recipe are sanitized. Park uses boiling water to get rid of any lingering bacteria beforehand. Kimchi is rich in probiotics which help promote a healthy gut by increasing the number of good bacteria. A healthy gut also helps with digestion and bloating. Kimchi has been found to help lower cholesterol and boost the immune system.

Also, as previously mentioned, gut health has been linked to mental health (the gut has even been given the adorable nickname the “second brain”). IDK about you, but after the past year, I need some help in the serotonin department. Ready to start fermenting some young radish? Watch the video to get the full yeolmu kimchi recipe.

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