Sundubu (or soondubu) is hands down my favourite soup ever. It’s a Korean soup that I fell in love with before going vegan and one that has been so easy to veganize that it makes no sense to me to ever suggest adding meat!

It’s savoury, it’s spicy, it’s filling, it’s delicious. This is an incredible soup to make if the cold or flu is running thru your house and everyone is congested. Your sinuses will be cleared up immediately.

As always I won’t be giving exact measurements because I firmly believe cooking should be based off of your palate, not mine. I’ll give you what you need and an idea of what it should taste like, but I want you to make it how you’re family will eat it!

You can add any vegetable or seasoning you’d like that I didn’t add (sometimes I’ll add basil and oregano if we’re dealing with illness. Two spices that definitely arent in traditional sundubu).

What You’ll Need:

-Onion

-zucchini, yellow and green

-silken tofu (you can use firm and extra firm. I prefer the texture of silken)

-any type of mushroom

-gochujang

-gochugaru (Flakes and powder. Flakes is optional)

-kimchi

-salt

-Onion and garlic powder

-Turmeric (not used traditionally but turmeric is a sneaky spice I like to add into everything).

Note: traditional Korean sundubu is typically made with a kelp and anchovie broth. Which isn’t vegan so i don’t do it. I also never have kelp on hand. If you want a traditional legit Korean sundubu check out the blogger maangchi. She has an incredible recipe!)

Cook it Up:

Because we’re just using vegetables, this is an insanely quick dish to make!

We don’t cook with oil so I used about a cup of water to soften up my dice onions.

Once soft I add in chopped zucchini and mushroom along with enough water to cover all of it. Then I let everything cook down and soften.

Once the zucchini softens it’s basically done. Drop in an entire container of kimchi, and season with the seasonings. At this point I also add about 3-4 cups of water. I like my soup to be soupy!

You’ll wait to add the tofu until you’re done seasoning. Especially if using silken. Too much stirring breaks it down too much.

About the seasonings, Gochugaru flakes don’t add much spice to the dish in my opinion, so I wouldn’t rest on the flakes spicing up the soup. The spice comes from the gochugaru powder and the gochujang. If you like spicy, go heavy on those. If you don’t go light. Remember you’re adding an entire container of kimchi. The kimchi is swimming in gochujang.
The garlic and onion are just compliments. We’re not making garlic and onion soup. Just a compliment to the gochujang.
Salt to taste. Taste it first and adjust.
As for the turmeric just a little sprinkling. Turmeric is such a powerful herb I literally add it to everything. Skip it if you hate it or don’t have it.

Finally, add your tofu and let the soup cook down a bit and the tofu to marinate.
And you’re done! This also reheats beautifully.

With all of my recipes, tailor it to make it your own. A side of rice is incredible with this soup! Add a grilled cheese to make it more of an American comfort dish. Go light on the spice if you’re not a fan. Make it so that you’ll like it!

This time we skipped the mushrooms and added bok choy and rice (rice not pictured).