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Mandu Salad. I'm finally back in Seoul after a month long stay in the US. Katie and I spent Sunday cleaning up the kitchen studio for our next shoot! I was (secretly) curious to see what Katie was eating while I was gone. I opened up our refrigerator and peeked inside...

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There was nothing there beyond the usual suspects: tub of Kimchi, container of lettuce, old spaghetti sauce. I smirked as it seemed that Katie dined out with friends for most nights and unofficially closed down the kitchen 🙂 Good for her!

Next, I peeked into the freezer and saw two large bags of mandu (Korean dumplings) in the back. She laughed and told me that mandu had been her go-to, late-night snack. She also said that she learned a tasy way to eat mandu.

Skip the soy sauce. And instead, pair it with a salad. A gochujang-based salad! We ended up making it as I was curious. I was impressed by the salad dressing - it had the right balance of spicy, sweet and tangy. The sauce actually reminded me of jjolmyeon sauce, but slightly lighter and less spicy. I agreed - an exciting way to eat dumplings!

Cooking notes: Feel free to use any type of dumplings! No need to stick to Korean mandu.

Mandu Salad

Time to step yo dumpling game up!

3.75 from 4 votes

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Course: Easy

Servings: people

Ingredients

Dumplings - 8-10 or however many you want!

Salad Ingredients

Cabbage - 2 layers
Lettuce - 5 pieces
Perilla leaves - 5 optional
Carrot - small piece length of your pinky
Sesame seeds - few shakes optional, garnish

Gochujang Salad Sauce

Gochujang - 3 Tablespoons
Vinegar - 2 Tablespoons
Sugar - 2 Tablespoons
Minced garlic - ½ Tablespoon
Sesame oil - ½ Tablespoon

Instructions

Veggie Prep

Wash all your veggies. Put them in a salad spinner or let them drip off excess water.
Cut cabbage into very thin slices (the thinner the better).
Cut lettuce into thin bite-sized sections.
Take stems off the perilla leaves and cut leaves into thin sections
Julienne the carrot. The thinner the better
Note: Feel free to throw in other veggies that are leftover in your refrigerator.

Make Marinade

Thoroughly mix together all of the ingredients listed under 'gochujang salad sauce'

Make Salad

Pour in about 75% of the gochujang salad sauce over the mixed greens. Give it a toss and sample it. Add more sauce if you need (I ended up using all of it). Garnish with sesame seeds.
Cook your dumplings. Make them extra crispy 🙂
Time to plate: Place a scoop of salad into the middle of the plate. Then arrange dumplings around the salad.
Bon Appetit!