Cold Instant Ramen Recipe: How to Make 10-Minute Korean

Bibim Guksu

Kimchi bibim guksu is Korea's answer to a hot day and an empty stomach, featuring cold wheat noodles tossed in a spicy, tangy sauce made almost entirely from fermented kimchi. The name translates loosely to ‘mixed noodles’, and mixing is really the whole idea of bibim guksu, so this is a cold ramen recipe. You boil noodles, chop kimchi, mix a few pantry staples, and eat within fifteen minutes. It's the kind of dish Koreans turn to on repeat, especially once a batch of kimchi has fermented long enough to reach the perfect amount of sourness. The OG bibim guksu uses thin wheat noodles, but this recipe simplifies things by using a pack of Sunfeast YiPPee! noodles. Korean Fiery Hot Style Noodles, just the noodle cake, not the tastemaker. The substitute noodles are slightly springier and curlier, with the fermented kimchi, its brine, and the gochujang-based sauce adding all the flavour. This also simplifies the cooking method back to something very close to the classic version. The noodle cake goes into boiling water and cooks quite quickly, generally in two to three minutes, so it needs watching closely to avoid overcooking into mush. Once done, a full rinse under cold running water is a must to strip the surface starch that instant noodles are often coated with. Cold ramen only works if the noodles are properly separated and chilled before they hit the sauce.