If your kimchi is too salty, the culprit is almost always the rinsing rather than the recipe: the cabbage was not rinsed thoroughly enough after brining, so it went into the paste carrying salt it should have left behind. If it is bland, the usual causes are the opposite, an under-brined cabbage or a shy hand with the dried red pepper and aromatics, or simply a ferment that has not had long enough to develop. Both are fixable, and both are much easier to get right on the second batch, which is handy, because our Kimchi Making Kit makes two.
Seasoning kimchi is not quite like seasoning a soup. You cannot simply taste and adjust at the end, because the salt goes in at the very beginning and does a job before the flavour stage ever arrives. Understanding what happens where is what puts you back in control.
Where does the saltiness actually come from?
From the brine, and specifically from what survives the rinse. The recipe uses 50g of salt for one Chinese leaf cabbage, and the cabbage soaks in that salted water for around an hour and a half, stirred every half hour. That is not seasoning, it is a process: the salt draws water out of the cabbage and softens the leaves so they will take the paste.
Then comes the step that decides how salty your finished kimchi tastes. You rinse the cabbage three times. Not once, not "until it looks clean", three times. Skip a rinse or hurry them and a surprising amount of brine stays behind, and it has nowhere to go once the paste is on.
Everything else contributes very little salt by comparison. So if a batch has come out too salty, look at the rinsing first, then at whether the cabbage was properly drained. Wet cabbage carries wet brine.
Can you rescue a batch that is already too salty?
Partly, and the honest answer is that it is easier to work with a salty batch than to unmake it.
The most effective approach is dilution: mix through more fresh vegetables so the same amount of salt is spread across a larger volume. Daikon radish and carrot are both classic additions to kimchi anyway, so you are not doing anything unorthodox, and extra shredded cabbage works too. Add them unsalted and unbrined, mix well with gloved hands, and pack the lot back down with the air squeezed out.
The second approach is to stop treating it as a side dish and start treating it as an ingredient. Salty kimchi is excellent cooked into rice, stirred into soups and stews, or folded through anything starchy that can carry it. A pancake or a bowl of plain rice absorbs a great deal of salt without complaint.
One caution worth stating plainly: salt is part of what keeps kimchi in good order, so a batch you have deliberately diluted will not keep as well as one that was seasoned correctly. Eat it sooner rather than pushing it to the back of the fridge, and follow the storage guidance in your recipe booklet.
Why does kimchi taste bland or flat?
Three usual reasons, and they are easy to tell apart.
- It has not fermented enough yet. This is by far the most common. Kimchi ferments in the fridge for five to seven days, and the flavour keeps developing across that whole window. If it tastes flat on day two, it is not bland, it is early. Lactobacillus bacteria are converting the natural sugars in the cabbage into lactic acid, and that acid is what gives kimchi its tang.
- The paste was under-seasoned. If you went carefully with the dried red pepper because you were worried about heat, the whole paste comes out muted rather than merely mild. Chilli carries a lot more than heat here.
- The aromatics were too coarse. The garlic, ginger and onion need mincing finely. The finer the mince, the better the paste, and a rough chop leaves flavour locked in pieces rather than distributed through every leaf. A mortar and pestle is the ideal tool, a spice grinder works, and a knife plus patience does the job.
The recipe calls for seven cloves of garlic, 5g of fresh ginger and a quarter of an onion, which sounds like a lot until you taste properly fermented kimchi and understand where that depth comes from.
What is the salt actually doing?
Two jobs, and they explain why you cannot simply cut it down and hope for the best.
The first is drawing water out of the cabbage and softening it. If your cabbage is not softening in the brine, give it longer, because the hour and a half is a guide rather than a rule and some cabbages take more. Keep stirring it every half hour and wait until it has properly softened before you rinse. Under-brined cabbage stays stiff, does not take the paste well, and gives you a watery, weakly flavoured result.
The second is creating the conditions the ferment wants. Salt favours the bacteria you are hoping for over the ones you are not, which is why kimchi keeps at all. The same goes for squeezing the air out of the fermentation bag: the good bacteria thrive without air, and less air means less chance of anything unwanted turning up.
How do you get the seasoning right next time?
Weigh the salt rather than eyeballing it, brine until the cabbage is genuinely softened, and then rinse three full times and drain properly. That covers the saltiness entirely.
For flavour, be generous with the paste. The kit brings the sweet rice flour for the porridge, the dried seaweed powder and the Korean dried red pepper, and the porridge itself matters more than people expect: it is the glue that binds the paste and helps it cling to every leaf. Cook it until it is thick, smooth and shiny, about the consistency of natural yoghurt, then cool it before the aromatics go in. Sitting the pan in a bowl of cold water is the quick way.
Then wait. Taste it every few days across the five to seven day ferment so you learn what your own batch does, and remember that finished kimchi carries on slowly souring for the two to three weeks it keeps in the fridge. Mild in week one, pleasingly punchy by week three. Sometimes the seasoning is fine and the calendar is the only thing that needs adjusting.
The kit is hand-packed in Britain, makes two big batches, and is vegan, gluten free and lactose free.
Kimchi seasoning FAQs
How many times should I rinse the cabbage after brining?
Three times. This is the step that decides how salty your finished kimchi tastes, so do not shorten it, and drain the cabbage well before the paste goes on.
Can I use less salt in the brine?
We would not recommend it. The salt softens the cabbage and helps create the right conditions for fermenting, so reducing it affects far more than the flavour.
How do I make my kimchi less spicy without making it bland?
Use less of the dried red pepper in the paste while keeping the garlic, ginger, onion and seaweed powder as written. The aromatics carry the savoury depth.
My kimchi tastes flat, is it ruined?
Almost certainly not. Give it more time, as the flavour develops right across the five to seven days in the fridge and keeps deepening for weeks afterwards.
Can I add more vegetables after mixing?
Yes. Daikon radish and carrot are classic additions and will dilute an over-salty batch, though a diluted batch keeps less well, so eat it sooner.
Fancy a second batch that comes out just right? Take a look at our kimchi making kits.
