You will most often see fillings for kimbap like crunchy yellow pickled radish, fresh cucumbers, sweet carrots, fried fish cake or savory beef, and more all wrapped in seaweed and nutty sesame seasoned rice.
What is kimbap?
Kimbap is the romanized name for gimbap, which translates to seaweed (gim) rice (bap) in Korean. Simply put, it’s a seaweed-wrapped rice roll filled with a variety of fixings like yellow pickled radish, spinach, cucumbers, eggs, and different proteins. While there are a couple of theories of how kimbap came to be, like the Japanese influence of makizushi in Korea during the Japanese occupation in the early 1900s, the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture states that wrapping banchan in rice and seaweed was a constant in Korean culture since the Joseon Era (1392-1910).
Kimbap rice
Can you use regular rice for kimbap? If you use long grain or jasmine rice for your regular rice consumption, I would say no. Since long-grain or jasmine rice is less sticky, it will be hard for kimbap to keep its round shape, especially after cutting into slices. You can also use Korean purple rice, too, since it’s got a sticky consistency. If you want your kimbap to keep its structure and stick together, make sure to use short-grain white rice. This is the same variety as sushi rice and just like other rolls (spicy tuna rolls or California rolls), short-grain rice has the best plump texture and strong glue-like consistency to keep all the fillings inside the seaweed wrapper. You can also use medium-grain rice, since it still has a sticky consistency, too. My favorite brands of short-grain rice to buy are Tamaki Gold short-grain rice, Koda Farms Kokuho Rice (medium grain), and Koshihikari short-grain rice. You can find these at your local Asian grocery stores like H-Mart, 99 Ranch, or Mitsuwa.
Choosing seaweed for kimbap
When picking seaweed for kimbap, you want to pick the dried and roasted seaweed sheets at your local Korean grocery store. There are different types of Korean roasted seaweed sheets available, so make sure to buy the full-sized sheets (about 8×9 inches in size) that are unseasoned. You can also use Japanese roasted seaweed, aka nori, since these are more widely available at American grocery stores these days and there is not much difference between the two.
Kimbap ingredients and filling ideas
What makes kimbap so versatile is that you can add any fillings you want based on what you have at hand. There’s beef kimbap, tuna kimbap, and more! Here are some ideas for what to put in kimbap. I usually like to pick one protein, pickles, and two or three vegetables.:
Yellow pickled radish (or danmuji): this is an essential staple in kimbap Vegetables: cucumbers, carrots, blanched spinach Meat: bulgogi, skirt steak, short rib, ham, or other types of already cooked meats Other protein: eggs, spam, tuna, fish cake, kani (imitation crab)
Tips for rolling kimbap
We get it, rolling anything in gim (or nori) in rice can be a bit challenging. Here is a guide to rolling kimbap:
What’s the difference between kimbap and gimbap?
Kimbap is the romanized version of gimbap, and both translate to seaweed rice. Kimbap and gimbap can be used interchangeably.
Why is kimbap not sushi?
Kimbap and sushi are two different dishes. While they both are seaweed and rice-wrapped rolls with custom fillings rolled in the same way as sushi–that’s where the similarities end. Where sushi rice is typically seasoned with sugar, salt, and vinegar, kimbap rice has sesame oil and salt. Sushi is filled with raw or cooked fish, and in contrast, kimbap has a mix of vegetables and proteins like yellow pickled radish, spinach, eggs, beef, fishcake, and more.
