Our Korean coleslaw recipe makes a Korean cabbage salad that’s a little zingy, a little sweet, a little sour, and a lot crunchy. This Korean slaw is the perfect side dish for Korean barbecue, fried chicken and fried chicken burgers. We love to serve it with an array of Korean side dishes and small plates, such as Korean meatballs, cheese corn, and potato salad.
One of our favourite Korean recipes, this Korean coleslaw recipe makes a zingy Korean cabbage salad that’s next in my series of Korean small plate dishes we love – Korean street food, Korean sides called banchan, and Korean dishes served as drinking food called anju – which I’ve been sharing and has included recipes for Korean corn cheese, Korean meatballs, Korean potato salad, and Korean cucumber salad.
If you’re a lover of cabbage dishes, especially coleslaw and cabbage salads, such as my colourful coleslaw made with purple cabbage and pickled pink shallots, this Burmese raw cabbage salad, and this Japanese style cabbage and cucumber salad, you’re also going to enjoy this classic Korean cabbage salad recipe for Korean coleslaw.
We love to serve this Korean slaw as a side to Korean fried chicken – or any fried chicken for that matter! – as one of an array of banchan, Korean sides or starters for Korean barbecue dishes, with Korean-style burgers like this Japanese chicken katsu burger, or tucked into a Korean-inspired gourmet hotdog.
If you’re a fan of Korean food and have made and enjoyed our recipes for Korean spicy udon noodles, Korean japchae (glass noodles), and bokkeumbap (kimchi fried rice), you will love this Korean coleslaw. It’s another easy, speedy recipe, but I’ll share a few tips to making this Korean cabbage salad recipe below.
Korean Coleslaw Recipe for a Korean Cabbage Salad Side Dish
This Korean coleslaw recipe, like the other Korean dishes I’ve been sharing recently, comes from a place of cravings for Korean food. We Australians are very spoilt for choice when it comes to cuisines, especially the Aussies who live in big multicultural cities, such as Sydney and Melbourne, or any Australian capital city for that matter.
It’s tougher to find Korean food in smaller regional cities and country towns in Australia, where you’ll find a Chinese restaurant, probably a Thai restaurant, classic takeaways like a fish and chip shop, pizzeria and kebab shop, a global fast food franchise or four, and cafes that bewilderingly close by 3pm.
It’s times like these when I miss the days when we lived in Potts Point, Sydney, and had several excellent Korean barbecue restaurants and a takeaway that did outstanding japchae, not to mention the Japanese izakayas and bathhouse. That was back in the days of the Hotel Nikko when the inner-city suburb was a base for Japanese and Korean businessmen.
Although in the case of this Korean food series, I was actually missing our favourite Korean eatery in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh that specialises in Korean street food.
If you haven’t been following my Korean food series, so far I’ve shared super versatile Korean recipes for Korean meatballs that could be finished in a sauce or glazed with a stickier sauce than the one I’ve made. You just need to add a little more sugar and reduce my sauce until it’s dense and sticky.
I’ve also share recipes for a Korean potato salad that’s like a Japanese potato salad, to which you could add ham, bacon, red bell peppers (capsicum), or even kimchi, and a creamy Korean corn cheese that can be made even cheesier with mozzarella or gooier with American burger cheese slices, or spiced up with chilli powder or chilli flakes.
In fact all of these Korean dishes could be spiced up with Korean gochujang (chilli paste) or gochugaru (chilli flakes) or even kimchi, which could be roughly chopped up and squeezed of its juices before being added to the potato salad, finely chopped for the Korean corn cheese, finely diced for the meatballs, and finely sliced for this Korean coleslaw.
Just a few tips to making this Korean cabbage salad recipe below, as it’s one of the quickest and easiest recipes of this series.
Tips to Making this Korean Coleslaw Recipe
This Korean coleslaw recipe is so quick and easy, I only have a few tips. As this is all about the cabbage, and its companion, the carrot, let’s start there. My recipe calls for purple cabbage (also called red cabbage) and white cabbage (also called green cabbage for its outer green leaves) and carrots, for a colourful salad, but use what you can source.
For shredding the cabbage, we recommend a mandoline. For the carrots, we use a nifty little tool that’s popular back in Cambodia, and all over Southeast Asia, that costs a dollar at our locals markets in Siem Reap, and looks like a small hand-held vegetable peeler with a wavy blade. This is what you want.
Otherwise, a good old-fashioned box grater will do the job, and that’s what I’ve been using in my mum’s kitchen in Australia, or a food processor with a shredding attachment. To slice the spring onions or scallions, I use scissors.
Not traditional, but to really make this Korean coleslaw sing, add some zesty quick pickled cabbage, one of our best pickle recipes, which will also add more colour.
Normally I like a combination of white sesame seeds and black sesame seeds, but I could only source white sesame unfortunately.
My most important tip: if you prefer a crunchy coleslaw, pour on the dressing for this cabbage salad at the last minute, just before serving; otherwise you’ll get a soft salad or even soggy salad depending on how long you leave it. Of course some find that desirable in a Korean coleslaw.
The potato salad can certainly be made ahead, and you can also shred the cabbage, grate the coleslaw, slice the spring onions or scallions and make the dressing ahead of it, then finish the coleslaw just before serving.
Korean Coleslaw Recipe for a Korean Cabbage Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup white cabbage - shredded
- 1 cup purple cabbage - shredded
- 1 cup carrot - shredded
- 2 spring onions - or scallions, finely sliced
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp sugar
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- ½ tsp salt - or to taste
- ½ tsp white pepper - or to taste
- 1 tbsp sesame seeds
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine the shredded white cabbage, purple cabbage, carrot, and sliced spring onions or scallions.
- To a small jug or bowl with spout, add the soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, garlic powder, salt and white pepper, and stir vigorously to combine. Taste and adjust to suit your palate.
- Just before you’re ready to serve, pour the dressing into the large bowl of salad ingredients and use a wooden spoon to stir it in to incorporate it thoroughly.
- When you’re ready to serve the coleslaw, transfer it to a serving bowl, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and serve immediately.
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make our Korean coleslaw recipe for a Korean cabbage salad as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
