I don't bake. I make soup
My mom’s kimchi soup recipe for lazy Sundays
Welcome to Lazy Living. I’m Mia, founder of Lazy Skinscience & Sundae School, recovering overachiever, and born-again lazy. I write about how to live ambitiously lazy.
When someone asks what I cook most, I say soup. I don’t bake. I make soup.
I grew up with soup in Korea. At home in Seoul, my mom always has at least two pots bubbling: yukgaejang, a fiery beef broth laced with vegetables, and kimchijjigae, the pork-studded kimchi soup that fixes almost anything. Koreans even mark milestones with soups like seaweed soup for birthdays and rice cake soup for New Year’s.
Now in my tiny New York kitchen, I still make soup every Sunday. It’s my version of meditation. Unlike baking, there’s no precision or perfection. You taste, adjust, and let the flavors evolve: a spoonful of shrimp paste, a touch of sugar, maybe a bit more garlic. It’s also the laziest kind of cooking - chop, toss, simmer, and let time do the rest.
That’s why I love soup so much. Soup rewards patience. It doesn’t demand perfection. It just needs time - and a lazy hand to stir occasionally - until everything clicks to become a magical combination of bursting flavors.
With the weather turning cold, I wanted to share my family’s all-time favorite: my mom’s kimchi soup, adapted for my tiny kitchen in New York.
Kimchijjigae (kimchi soup with pork and tofu)
5 ingredients: (1) 1/2 onion, (2) garlic (1 tbsp finely diced), (2) Korean leeks (1/2 branch) or scallion (2-3 branches), (3) kimchi (1 bowl of kimchi + 1/2 bowl of kimchi juice), (4) pork with some fat (0.5 lb of shoulder / stew pork), (5) tofu
3 seasonings: (1) Mirin, (2) Korean fermented shrimp paste (saeu-jeot 새우젓), (3) any type of fish sauce (best is anchovy sauce 멸치액젓 but sand lance fish sauce 까나리액젓 or tuna extract sauce 참치액젓 is good too)
Chop up: onions (fine), garlic (fine), Korean leeks or scallion (small pieces), Kimchi (small pieces). For pork: separate the fat from meat. And dice each of them into small pieces (the separated pork fat will make the magic happen!)
Scissors > knives for cutting kimchi Heat up a pot with some vegetable oil (1 tbsp) and stir fry the diced pork fat first. Once the pork fat starts melting and cooking, dump the onions into the pot and stir them with the pork fat
Once the onions are browned by the fat, put in the rest of the pork meat. Put sugar (1/2 tbsp, softens the meat), mirin (2 tbsps, to rid the meat smell) and stir to cook
When the pork’s pinkness is gone, put in 1 bowl of kimchi. Turn the heat up to strong. Stir for ~5 mintues
Put in the kimchi juice (1/2 bowl) and 1.5 cup of water. And boil for 10 minutes!
After 10 minutes, put 3 more cups of water. Put in the garlic. Keep it boiling. Taste the soup
After tasting, season it with the shrimp paste and fish extract. Don’t overdo them from the beginning. Depending on your kimchi’s fermentation level, you’ll need different amounts of the seasoning. So start with half a spoon each, taste and adjust
Once it’s well seasoned, put in the diced tofu and leeks / scallion. (Add some chopped spicy pepper if you’d like to bring some heat) Boil for another ~5 minutes and it’s ready to be enjoyed hot
A hearty bowl of kimchi soup can cure anything
Hope you have a very lazy Sunday.