Korean BBQ Sauce Is The Sweet And Spicy Glaze Your Burger Craves
When Korean BBQ comes to mind, you may envision a steaming hot grill in the center of a table, bottles of soju littered amongst ramekins of kimchi, accompanied by an endless array of plates featuring marinated meats and vegetables. Here, savory is intermingled with spicy, sweet, and salty. It's a mouthwatering picture. Unfortunately, hitting the nearest Korean BBQ joint every time a craving hits is not always a viable option. However, you can easily capture the spirit of this by glazing your burgers in Korean BBQ sauce.
There are a range of differences between Korean BBQ sauce and American, but if you're looking for a playful way to glaze your burgers, Korean BBQ is where it's at. It's spicy, sweet, tangy, and gloriously umami. A variety of Korean sauces could lend themselves to a burger glaze, but for a robust flavor that shines with metaphorical fires and tickling sweet aromas, a sauce including Gochujang is excellent.
Brush your burgers with some of this sauce while they sizzle away, and watch the glaze get to work. If your burgers could talk, they would say, "Thank you."
What it's made from
There are various methods of creating Korean BBQ sauce, but it commonly contains Gochujang, soy sauce, honey, rice wine vinegar, brown sugar, sesame oil, and grated fresh ginger and garlic. These ingredients create an explosive medley that punches through your preconceptions of what the flavors of sweet, spicy, and umami truly are. For additional tang, it's also common to see sliced scallions fried into the mix. Korean BBQ sauce also ranges in color from jet black-like treacle to a deep red hue.
This sauce can effortlessly lift any burger, from vegan patties to juicy beef stacks, wonderfully accentuating the savory flavors in each. If you opt for meat patties, you can also appreciate how the soy sauce tenderizes the burger. This means that the initial bite will be even juicier and more delightful.
In order for this glaze to really shine, it can also be an excellent idea to pair it with a burger topping that's fresh or crunchy. A kimchi slaw made with nappa cabbage and pear or crispy fried shallots would each create a remarkable interplay with texture and flavor.
Different BBQ variations
Two other Korean sauces could lend themselves to a glaze: ssamjang and bulgogi. Bulgogi, or 불고기 in Korean, is the name for a Korean dish that includes marinated meat. However, it can also be used to describe the sauce inside the dish. Bulgogi sauce is sweet savory, and contains subtle fruity hints from pear or apple. Bulgogi sauce is not usually spicy. However, you can add some gochujang and gochu-garu (Korean pepper flakes) to the sauce to spice it up. This also thickens the sauce, making it ideal for a burger glaze.
Ssamjang is a Korean BBQ condiment that's the perfect dipping sauce for grilled meats. Formed by combining doenjang (fermented Korean soybean paste) and gochujang, this sauce is funky, sweet, spicy, and slightly bitter. While this sauce would wonderfully tenderize meaty burgers and create a glaze that hits all those cravings, it can also be combined with creamy ingredients to form a decadently rich sauce. Add it to cheese, mayonnaise, and a touch of lemon juice for a creamy glaze that tastes as wonderful and delicious as it looks.
If you're craving a Korean BBQ between your burger buns, get a Korean BBQ sauce glazed over the top of those burgers. It will seriously satisfy all those hankerings.