For A More Complex Flavor, Start Topping Your Steak With Kimchi

Steak is one of the rare canvases that is delicious when blank. When it's grilled with salt and served hot, many meat lovers feel few things beat well-seasoned, cooked beef. Because it's such a versatile ingredient, it can take on any number of creative variations. The beautiful thing is, when you travel around the world, you're likely to find other cultures doing unique takes on how to enhance the humble steak. For example, Argentina serves steak with chimichurri, Thailand has coconut-based curries with beef, and France highlights it with different sauces and preparations, such as au poivre and Bordelaise sauce. That said, fans of Korean barbeque already know that grilled beef and kimchi create a new complexity of flavor that stands out among the rest. 

So, why does this combination work so well? Kimchi, in essence, is a pickle: salted vegetables flavored via lactic acid fermentation with various aromatics and spices. The sour, acidic nature of kimchi (with varying degrees of intensity, depending on the age) compliments the heaviness of beef by cutting through fat naturally present in most steaks. Because of this, kimchi also functions as a tasty palate cleanser between each rich bite of salty, fatty meat that will make you hungry for more. If you find kimchi to be a bit funky or spicy for your liking, this complementary pairing works the other way, too; the savoriness of steak can help mellow the natural pungency in kimchi. Effectively, they're a match made in food heaven.

Kimchi is not only the perfect way to add addictive complexity to steak, but it also takes as little effort as cracking open a bottle of A.1. Sauce since you can buy it in jars. However, there are other ways to enjoy it with beef steak than layered over top. Look no further than some Korean home cooking classics. For example, if you have cuts of steak you don't like pan frying or grilling, try dicing the meat into strips and making kimchi fried rice. This is also a perfect way to use other vegetable scraps in the fridge, like carrots or cabbage, since kimchi can liven everything up with its spicy kick.

Another way to bring kimchi and beef together is in the always-delicious cheeseburger format. As we've already established, beef and kimchi are a harmonious pair — and cheese works just as well. Light, melty cheeses have become a trendy topping for spicy Korean dishes with similar flavors to kimchi. We suggest grabbing a mild cheddar or white American cheese to melt atop your beef patty. Drain 1 to 2 tablespoons of kimchi, dice it up, and dress it on your burger with some of your favorite toppings, like tomato, onions, and spicy mayo. Sure, a burger may not be the same as a steak, but if you find a good quality patty with some steak cuts ground in, we think that still counts.