Korean Ramen Hot Chili Paste

We recently bought one of the “black bag” ramen packets by Samyang. It wasn’t the hottest I’ve ever had (IIRC, the “3x spicy” stuff might have been the hottest I’ve experienced), but the flavor of the sauce was really good. I wanted to be able to make it at home and didn’t figure it would be too hard. A quick search popped up a few reddit posts (or redirections) that were relatively consistent, so I gave a modified version a try.

Ingredients

• 1T gochujang
• 1T gochugaru (lacking proper gochugaru, I used Mama Star’s combo chili oil)
• 2t soy sauce
• 3-4 medium cloves garlic, minced/pressed/grated
• ~1/4t Hot Sauce (e.g., Cully’s Fire Water)
• 0.5t sesame oil (I just used some of the oil from the combo chili oil above)

Process

Mix it all together…

Modifications

This is wide open for modifications. Mixing quantities and types of chili peppers, hot sauce, and garlic are on the top of my list to tweak.

In particular, it was noted that my version was a little more vinegary than the packet. I think I’ll replace the Cully’s Fire Water with some Last Dab XX that I also happen to have on hand. Along with toning down the vinegar, it should amp up the spice a little. While the initial version had a good kick to it, I would like to push it up a little.

Also, I’d like to take this as an opportunity to make my own gochujang. It seems like a nice melding of two of my favorites: hot stuff and fermentation.