This Korean Lettuce Salad is a wonderfully delicious side dish to any grilled meats – especially unseasoned grilled meats. The salty, vinegary and slightly sweet chili flavors really help break up any greasy taste of meats while still highlighting the meaty flavor. Korean BBQ restaurants often serve some variation of this salad with BBQ meats using different greens so you probably have tasted some variation before. Whenever we have a Korean style BBQ at home, this side salad is our favorite especially if we grill pork or beef.
The funny thing about this Korean lettuce salad is that it’s so simple and easy to make that it often doesn’t even appear in most Korean cookbooks. It may be too simple and easy to some but for those of you who are not very familiar with Korean food or seasonings, I thought it is definitely worth a post in my Korean food blog. Besides grilled meats, the Korean lettuce salad also goes great with just plain rice as part of a very healthy low calorie meal.
The salad is usually called by two names: 상추 겉절이 (Sangchoo Geotjeori or Keotjeori) or 상추 무침 (Sangchoo Moochim). Sangchoo means lettuce. Geotjeori (겉절이) literally means to pickle (jeori) the outside (geot) which is different from pickling the vegetable all the way through (for 8 hrs or more) as you do with cabbages when making Cabbage Kimchi. Moochim comes from the verb ” moochida(무치다)” which means to toss and mix the ingredients with some type of seasoning or sauce.
Korean Lettuce Salad (Sangchoo Geotjoeri) Recipe
Servings: 3-4 Cooking Time: 10 min Difficulty: Very Easy
Adjustable Ingredients listed in Recipe Card below
Step-by-step Directions for Korean Lettuce Salad
- Wash and rinse the greens (lettuce, perilla, chrysanthemum leaves). Drain. You can either tear the lettuce and chrysanthemum leaves by hand into bite size pieces (as shown in top photo) or serve whole leaves (as shown below). Do not worry about drying the greens (i.e. no need to use salad spinners) because any extra water on the leaves will dilute the dressing to make it taste just right.
green lettuce, perilla leaves and crysanthemum leaves - Cut perilla leaves into 1/3 in wide strips unless serving whole lettuce pieces. Set aside.
- Make my Korean dressing aka Kitchen Sink Yangnyeom Jang (see Korean Sauces II post for recipe) by mixing soy sauce, vinegar and sugar until the sugar fully dissolves. Mix in the remaining ingredients (below).
korean soy salad dressing - Toss torn greens with Korean soy dressing and serve immediately or serve whole leaves and dressing on the side (see pic below). You can also allow your guest to dress their own salad or dip the lettuce in the sauce instead.
Korean Lettuce Salad
Korean Lettuce Salad
Ingredients
- 1 each red leaf lettuce (small)
- 6-8 each perilla leaves (optional)
- 3-4 each stalks of chrysanthemum leaves (쑥갓 sookat) (optional)
- 2-3 each green onions (optional)
Soy Dressing
- 4 tsp soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp Korean red chili powder (gochukaru)
- 2 Tbsp green onions (chopped)
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp sesame seeds
Instructions
- Wash and rinse the greens (lettuce, perilla, chrysanthemum leaves). Drain. You can either tear the lettuce and chrysanthemum leaves by hand into bite size pieces or serve whole leaves.
- Cut perilla leaves into 1/3 in wide strips unless serving whole lettuce pieces. Set aside.
- Make my Korean dressing aka Kitchen Sink Yangnyeom Jang (see Korean Sauces II post for recipe) by mixing soy sauce, vinegar and sugar until the sugar fully dissolves. Mix in the remaining ingredients (below).
- Toss torn greens with Korean soy dressing and serve immediately or serve whole leaves and dressing on the side (see pic below). You can also allow your guest to dress their own salad or dip the lettuce in the sauce instead.
Tips & Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Variations
- This Korean soy dressing (Kitchen sink yangnyeom jang) works great for all kinds of greens. Romaine lettuce is one of my favorite because it’s a bit sweet and crunchy which stands up well to the salty soy dressing. Greens that have a more grassy and bitter taste (as opposed to iceberg lettuce which has little flavor) all work well with this dressing.
- Make a lighter and smoother dressing by adding 1 T apple lemon soy sauce and 2 tsp soy sauce instead of 4 tsp. Also reduce sugar from 1 T to 1 tsp since the apple lemon soy sauce is already sweet.
- Substitute 1 tsp soy sauce with 1/3 tsp fermented fish or anchovy sauce (멸치액젓 myulchi aekjeot) for a more pungent sauce that taste more like Kimchi.
Storage
- As with any salad, once it is already tossed, the greens will lose its crispy crunchiness quite quickly. So, if you like your greens to taste fresh and crunchy, toss and serve immediately and hope that there’s no leftovers!
This is the easiest and tastiest dressing to make! Since my lettuce plant has been yielding so much lettuce, I have to give it away to not let it go to waste. I make the dressing and include it w/the lettuce and my family and friends love it! Thx JinJoo!
Oh you are just too sweet!! I should do that too next summer. Thank you so much for sharing you story with me. It makes me happy.
Amazing dressing! I really appreciate you sharing this recipe online!
Yay!! So happy to hear it! This is just something I came up with, glad you like it!
What a wonderful dressing! Perfect for a simple salad. Thank you!
Thank you so much!! Yes, it is a very simple salad but yummy.
I make this dressing all the time and in bigger batches so I can keep it in the fridge. I can’t count how many times I’ve linked your recipe to others because I’ve been asked for it so many times. Thank you for sharing such deliciousness!
I’m so glad to hear that!! Yes, I do the same – I make a batch and keep in the fridge and just drizzle on whatever greens I have. And I really appreciate you sharing my recipe to others – everytime someone clicks on my recipe that helps me out!! Thank you!!!