Does washing kimchi with water reduce the sodium content much?
Does washing kimchi just before eating it reduce its sodium content much, or do I have to put it in water overnight or several days?
Best Answer
Answer depends on how the kim chi is made.
I make it using a variant on this recipe. The protocol there is to treat the leaves with a salty brine for 4 hours, then rinse them extensively.
No further salt is added in the recipe, so any salt in the final product will have osmosed into the leaves. Most of that salt won't come back out except with a prolonged soak*.
I've seen other kim chi recipes that do involve adding back salt after the initial brining and rinse. The sodium content of those could be reduced with a quick rinse, but you'll likely lose flavor too.
- Juices in with the kim chi are likely at euilibrium with sodium in the leaves, so simply pressing the stuff lightly to remove as much juice as possible might be the best way to limit sodium without sacrificing too much flavor.
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Should you rinse salt off kimchi?
It's not necessary, but not rinsing the salt after letting it sit for a while may lead to kimchi being too salty, and that's not what you want either. Also, after the fermentation, if kimchi is still too salty, you can rinse it off to minimize the saltiness.Can I rinse my kimchi?
Traditionally, kimchi is over-salted to remove as much of the water as possible, which requires a lot of salt. Always use plenty of running water to rinse the cabbage after salting.Why is kimchi washed?
The initial salting draws water out of the cabbage, otherwise the kimchi tends to get soggy/mushy. As you mention, it is frequently rinsed off after the initial salting. If you listed the ingredients that follow, I think you will see that there is quite a bit of salt re-introduced.Does kimchi leave water?
Even though you think all the liquid has leaked out, the kimchi still contains an enough amount of liquid in it. Another thing to be considered is that the kimchi should be turned over in the container each day or every 2 days so that the portion on top goes underneath the other portions.What Happens To Your Body When You Eat Kimchi
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