Gochugaru Salmon With Crispy Rice Recipe (2024)

I just purchased Gochujang concentrated chili paste for another NY Times recent recipe. Would it be possible to substitute the paste for the powder?

Gochujang contains salt and sugar along with red chile, so if you substitute one for the other, you'll want to dial back the sugar and salt. I'd probably omit the maple syrup altogether and replace both it and the gochucharu with 2 tbsp gochujang, and skip extra salt. You'll miss the maple flavor, but the glaze should form up nicely and I'd expect the dish to work well as a whole.

I subbed the Gochugara with Gochujang and reduced the maple syrup to 1 tbsp. Everything else I followed exactly and this was one of the best meals we've made in a long time. it was also easy to prep and clean up. We'll be adding this to the regular rotation!

Rice tip: if you don't have leftover rice, smash your hot, fresh rice onto a plate and stick it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Cools it down and removes some moisture so it's pretty similar to leftovers.

Trying not to be overly dramatic here - but this is a pretty life changing salmon dish. Possibly one of the best NYT recipes I’ve tried. Thank you Eric Kim!

Double the sauceDouble the cucumberHalf rice (2 cups)Add a little hot sesame oil and salt to cucumbers

I will make the sauce in a separate pan before cooking and use it to baste the salmon as it cooks. I’ll also mix it in with the rice before frying it for more flavor, also I won’t have to clean a sticky sauce out of my cast iron :)

Roasted salmon at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Mixed together sauce ingredients without cooking, then basted salmon with it after first 10 minutes in oven—it turned into a beautiful, glossy, just sticky enough sauce and saved another pan. Excellent dinner.

This is a very good dish. The sauce recipe NEEDS TO BE DOUBLED to go far enough for four. It barely made three as written and photographed. We will do it again. Not having left over rice we made four cups of Jasmine rice in the rice cooker, let it cool and it worked very well. Ordered the gochugara spice on line. Just fine from Amazon.

I love gochugaru, but I've never experienced it as "mild," and I enjoy chilis of all kinds. The Kimchi that I ferment has quite a kick of heat, which comes from the gochugaru that I use.

Another masterpiece from Erik Kim. That man can do no wrong in our household. We made this dish as written and added some homemade Korean radish kimchi to go with it. Fantastic balance of flavors. 10/10, recommend!

This was so good! Super high flavor to effort ratio, my favorite kind of weeknight recipe. Well-written recipe, easy to follow, short list of ingredients, and tasted great. Wouldn't change a thing, except use 100% leftover rice (I did 50 leftover/50 freshly cooked bc it's what I had) to get some extra crisp factor going on. It makes a difference. Slam dunk, Eric Kim!

I found the gochugaru at a local Asian market. Made this last night with tofu slices baked in panko crumbs (425 degrees-15 min). Served over cauliflower rice with a side of steamed asparagus. A wonderful veggie meal. Doubled the shimmery sauce and made it in a small sauce pan. Next time I will cut the salt in half.

They aren't really interchangeable normally, although a glaze made out of gochugang might also be good. The paste is a fermented mix of chili with glutinous rice and some other stuff. Gochugaru is more like chili powder, but with a smokier and sweeter flavor. My guess is that a mix of chili powder with a bit of smoked paprika would be closer. Just a guess, though.The recipe looks great, and I already planned on salmon tonight!

Just tried this recipe tonight. My son and I were pretty happy with the flavor. I am GF, so i used Gluten Free Gochujang paste (amazon- Yoon Jiyeong Artisanal). This paste is not very spicy, but the flavor is very good. I would add a bit more other smoky hot chili powder to give it a bit more of a kick. Moreover, next time I’d try to use only 1 tbs butter to finish off. I found that (my generous) 2 tbs butter called for separated from the glaze when the fish cooled and made it too ‘greasy’

I loved this dish. Next time I will make the sauce in a separate pan while the rice is crisping. I made the mistake of putting the sauce in a too-hot cast iron pan and it immediately burned to a crisp. We enjoyed our salmon and rice with re-made sauce with all our windows and a fan running to clear the smoke in the house on a coolish Minnesota evening. ;)

I cooked this in a cast iron pan and there was a lot of spitting and splatter, the complete opposite of Eric’s video. I took care to pat dry the excess moisture on the salmon and let it air dry a bit in the fridge before cooking. Is it because the temperature got too high? Thank you fellow cooks for any insight!

Made an adapted version of this last night. I didn't realise the sauce was made using gochujang powder (I only had paste), but I managed to adjust the level of spiciness by doubling the other ingredients. Made it with noodles for an even quicker meal and added the juice of half a lime to the sauce instead of butter - delicious! Saved to my favourites, packs a lot of flavour! Can't wait to try it with crispy rice.

Delicious. Followed the recipe as written, but leaving the fish a tiny bit more rare. Absolutely perfect. Tender fish, great balance of mild spice and sweetness. The maple doesn’t really gut through, but the sweetness remains. I think it could probably be closely approximated using agave or honey instead, if needed. Ate with kimchi, to balance out the buttery texture of the fish/sauce.

This made for multiple enjoyable meals for me. I’m the only person in my house who doesn’t love salmon so I make it all the time but rarely love it myself. This is now my favorite way to cook it and I’ll look forward to eating it again. Made more and had leftovers with gim and avocado— delightful. Thank you EK, your recipes are always perfect.

The glaze caramelized up quickly and the sugars burned. When I put it on the fish, it formed a hard candy type shell that you couldn’t get a fork through. We ended up removing it (in one piece!) and nibbling it like a piece of candy. Also thought that the rice came out far too oily from all the fat and didn’t hold together at all, despite that it was sticky sushi rice. Salmon tasted good but could have done without all the rest. Would have been happier with plain salmon and rice.

This was so easy and delicious! I found the Gochugaru at Whole Fooods.

Yum! Adding this to our weeknight salmon rotation along with Eric Kim’s Doenjang Salmon Rice Bowl (thank you Eric Kim for continuing to introduce me to new delicious ingredients like doenjang and gochugaru) and Melissa Clark’s Vietnamese Caramel Salmon.Easy and delicious. I used a cast iron the first time I made this which ended up too hot and I sort of burnt the glaze (was still delicious, just toffee-like in texture), so I’d recommend a nonstick but could have been user error.

Make the gochugaru vinegar and maple syrup mixed ahead of time, and use 1/2 maple syrup to make it less sweet.

Yum! Used gochugang paste and halved maple syrup. Cooked 12oz salmon, approx. 3 cups of rice (too much) and same amount of sauce. Cooked in cast iron skillet - too hot for sauce.

I had to substitute Gochugaru with Gochujang, and it was perfect. I halved the recipe but made the full sauce recipe, and glad I did! I now have leftovers to put on other food this weekend. This sauce is amazing! I served with crispy roasted Brussels sprouts, topped with the sauce, of course.

I can never find thick salmon filets. I have a very good fish market, but the filets are partly thick (but not very) and partly really thin. Is this something I can demand from the fishmonger--thicker salmon filets?

This was breathtakingly delicious. Eric Kim’s recipes are always delicious and doable for a couple. Recommendations—double the sauce, and I used only 3/4 of the suggested gochugaru which left a pleasant warm heat without being too spicy. My boyfriend loved the dish and asked that I add it to our rotation. Also, to the salted smashed cucumbers, I added a touch of unseasoned rice vinegar, and a touch of sesame oil and soy.

Oops. I forgot to mention that this resulted in a really good di. My partner said it was one of the best salmon dishes he’d ever had. Thanks to Eric Kim for a wonderful meal that is definitely going into our regular rotation.

This was really delicious. I agree with doubling the amount of sauce. I also cut back by a quarter on the gochugaru. And to the salted cucumber chunks, I added a teaspoon each of of unseasoned rice vinegar and soy sauce, and half a teaspoon of sesame oil—plus a good shake of gochugaru. I kept the leftover dressing for use on another salad. My partner (and I) loved the dinner and he insisted that it now go in to our regular rotation.