You’ve baked hundreds of sourdough loaves of bread. They still taste lovely, but you are looking for something new. Something to tickle the taste buds. Something savory. Maybe something Asian inspired? Why not! This is my recipe for gochujang sourdough bread.
This bread brings a lot of the flavor profile from Korean food: fermented, salty, tangy, spicy, garlic, and scallions. While it’s in no way a Korean bread, it will fulfill your carb-loaded Korean dreams.
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Secondly, gochujang is a Korean red chili paste. It has a very distinct taste. Sweet, savory, tangy, fermented, and spicy. A uniquely Korean taste.
It’s made from chili powder, glutinous rice (as in glue, meaning sticky, not gluten), fermented soybean powder, barley malt powder, and salt.
It’s used for a variety of Korean dishes, like bibimbap, and tteokbokki, and in stews, soups, salads, and marinated meat dishes.
If you haven’t ever tried it, I would recommend it. It’s really good.
The dough composition in this gochujang sourdough bread recipe
Vitals
Total weight
1400 grams
Pre-fermented flour
9.1%
Hydration
75.3%
Yield
2 small batards
Dough
The dough in this gochujang sourdough bread is comprised of 80% bread flour and 20% whole-grain spelt flour.
The hydration of the dough is just a bit over 75%, but if you add the water content in gochujang (about 44%) the hydration is a bit over 82%. So unless you have very strong bread flour, I recommend that you start out a bit lower.
The salt content is 2.1%. Many people are worried about eating too much salt, but instead, you should worry about eating too much processed food.
If you are really worried about the salt, you can lower it to 0%, since gochujang has enough salt for the bread. It will be blander though.
The inoculation is 20%, which is fine for a 21°C/70°F fermentation. Scale up or down based on ambient temperature. So if it’s warmer lower the inoculation, and colder increase the inoculation.
Weight
Ingredient
Baker's Percentage
468g
bread flour
80%
117g
whole grain spelt flour
20%
426g
water
72.8%
117g
sourdough starter (100% hydration)
20%
12g
salt
2.1%
100g
gochujang
17.1%
60g
spring onions
10.3%
100g
garlic cloves
17.1%
If you want to play around with the formula, change hydration, quantity, or inoculation, you can do so here in my Bread Calculator.
The conclusion of this gochujang sourdough bread recipe
Does this bread bring something new to the table? Absolutely.
The piquant taste of the gochujang blends incredibly well with the well-fermented taste of sourdough.
The huge cloves of garlic that are slow-roasted inside the bread and mild and fragrant. No overpowering garlic taste or smell here.
The scallions bring a bit of sharpness to the table.
This bread does well just as-is, with some cold butter on top, or maybe as a grilled cheese sandwich.
It’s the perfect companion for almost any hot dish that you can come up with.
Hey, why are you still reading? You should be baking.
Please share this recipe for gochujang sourdough bread on social media
This is my recipe for Gochujang Sourdough Bread. If you like the recipe please consider sharing it with like-minded bread lovers on social media.
If you make it and post it on Instagram, please tag me as @foodgeek.dk so I can see it. That would make me very happy.
