Umami-rich miso is good for way more than just soup—we love how the savory paste makes everything from tofu to apple cobbler taste a little more alive. And if you're a miso fan, too, we've got another pantry staple for you delve into: doenjang (pronounced DEN-jahng) the Korean fermented soybean paste that's like Japanese miso's pushy-in-a-good-way cousin. Korean home cooks have long depended on doenjang's sour-salty-rich flavor to enhance stews and soups and create ssam jang, the addictive condiment that's as essential to Korean barbecue as ketchup is to burgers. Here's what you need to know.
What Is Doenjang, and How Is It Different From Miso?
Doenjang is an assertively flavored, thick brown paste made from fermented soybeans and salt. It's one of the essential ingredients in a Korean home cook's pantry, along with other staples like soy sauce and gochujang, the sweet-spicy fermented red chile paste. It has the "funky" quality of a fermented food, and a pungent smell similar to that of a ripened blue cheese. But don't let that intimidate you. "People who like cheese understand doenjang right away. They know this smell," says Hooni Kim, the chef/owner of Manhattan modern Korean restaurants Hanjan and Danji. "They know it's not a good smell, but they know it tastes so, so good."
Unlike miso, doenjang is not fermented with rice or other grains. Doenjang is also coarser in texture, like a chunky peanut butter. The minimum fermentation length for doenjang is six weeks, although it can ferment for months or years, says Ben Reade, a fermentation expert and partner at Dr. Kitchiner, a café-meets-food-lab in Edinburgh. Reade also says some historic Korean families will pass down "heirloom" jars from generation to generation. A longer fermentation period will lend "more umami taste, as well as a small increase in both sweetness and bitterness," says Reade. Because the process of fermenting doenjang at home is labor-intensive—not to mention the smells can get rather overpowering—the vast majority of modern home cooks buy tubs of prepared doenjang, which you can find at any Korean grocery store and at well-stocked Asian markets.
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How to Cook With It
Doenjang finds its way into all kinds of Korean dishes, but among the most well-known is doenjang jjigae, a quick and comforting Korean soup of little more than water, doenjang, cubed tofu, and any mix of cubed squash, potato, onion, and other vegetables. Doenjang is also one of the main ingredients in ssam jang, a very popular condiment used in Korean barbecue-style lettuce wraps and as a dip for raw, crunchy vegetables like cucumber and carrot sticks. (Momof*cku's David Chang has begug selling a bottled version of the sauce.)
"I've seen ssam jang's popularity grow to the point where people are now starting to ask if they can take some home with them," says Kim, who offers homemade ssam jang with a vegetable crudité dish. "But not many people want to cook with doenjang because it's so salty."
