Looking back now, I realize that when I was growing up in 1980s Korea, everything we ate was wellness food.
Every morning, my mother would set the table with japgokbap — rice cooked with a medley of grains like barley, millet, and black beans — alongside doenjang-jjigae (a hearty stew made from fermented soybean paste), siraggi-namul (dried radish greens seasoned with garlic and sesame oil), kongnamul-muchim (blanched soybean sprouts tossed in sesame), and of course, kimchi pulled fresh from the earthenware crock in our yard. That was our everyday table. The whole spread — five, six little dishes fanning out around a bowl of multigrain rice. In Korea, we call this setup bapsang, literally "the rice table," and it's the backbone of how Koreans have eaten for centuries.
But as a kid, I was bored to death by it. I craved jajangmyeon — black bean sauce noodles from the Chinese restaurant near school. I'd slow my steps passing the new pizza place in the neighborhood. I got scolded for begging for hamburgers and spent every birthday dreaming of donkatsu (a crispy breaded pork cutlet, Korea's answer to the Japanese tonkatsu, and the ultimate birthday treat for '80s Korean kids). Back then, "Western food" was a rare reward reserved for special occasions, and the daily parade of vegetable side dishes felt like the very definition of ordinary.
But lately, the world has been turning in the most amusing direction.
When a Bowl of Greens Broke the Korean Internet
Earlier this year, one dish dominated Korean social media like nothing else: bomdong bibimbap.
Let me explain. Bomdong is a type of napa cabbage that grows through winter and is harvested in early spring — the leaves splay outward instead of forming a tight head, and after enduring months of cold, the vegetable develops a distinctively sweet, crisp flavor that Koreans associate with the first taste of spring. Bibimbap, as many of you may know, is Korea's iconic mixed rice bowl. Bomdong bibimbap is the simplest version imaginable: you toss freshly torn bomdong leaves in a quick dressing of gochujang (fermented red chili paste), sesame oil, and garlic, pile it over steaming rice, and mix it all together with your spoon.
The craze started when an 18-year-old clip resurfaced on X (formerly Twitter) in January 2026. The clip was from 1 Night 2 Days — one of Korea's most beloved variety shows — and featured the wrestler-turned-entertainer Kang Ho-dong devouring a massive bowl of bomdong bibimbap on a countryside shoot, moaning with delight: "Mom, this cabbage is better than meat!" The clip went viral across Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts practically overnight. Online mentions of "bomdong bibimbap" surged 888% compared to the same period the previous year. Supermarket sales of bomdong jumped over 37%. On Coupang — Korea's equivalent of Amazon — more than 50,000 people purchased bomdong within a single month. Delivery apps started listing bomdong bibimbap bowls at up to ₩15,000 (roughly $11 USD) per serving, and many sold out immediately. Kang Ho-dong himself even filmed a new short-form video recreating his legendary eating scene to promote his latest show.
What makes this phenomenon so telling is what it replaced. Just weeks earlier, the hottest food trend in Korea had been the Dubai Chocolate Cookie (nicknamed "dujjeonku") — an extravagant dessert stuffed with pistachio cream and shredded kadayif pastry, imported and expensive. And then, almost overnight, the spotlight swung to... a bowl of seasonal cabbage mixed with rice and chili paste.
Korean netizens captured the mood perfectly: "We went from an extreme-sugar dessert craze to bomdong bibimbap — how funny is that?" "Seasonal vegetables are more appealing than overpriced desserts." "Local food just feels healthier." No stove required. A 30-second video can capture the entire recipe. Yet it carried something the Dubai cookies never could: the comfort of seasonal eating, the satisfaction of doing something good for your body, and a wave of collective nostalgia. The bomdong bibimbap craze wasn't just a fad — it was a signal of where the Korean table is heading.
And in the spring of 2026, that direction is unmistakable. Everywhere you go in Seoul, restaurants are competing over who can serve the most wholesome single bowl. Brown rice topped with seasonal namul (the Korean word for wild or cultivated greens, blanched or sautéed and lightly seasoned). Sujebi — hand-torn wheat dough simmered in broth — enriched with ground deulkkae (perilla seeds, which lend a nutty, almost creamy flavor entirely different from sesame). Doenjang-jjigae made with house-fermented soybean paste. These are the exact same dishes I ate every day as a child, now repackaged under the label "premium wellness Korean cuisine." My mother would laugh. "What's so special about that? It's just what we always ate."
2026: The Korean Table Is Changing
There's a buzzword driving Korea's food culture this year: "honwelsik." It's a newly coined portmanteau — hon (solo, from honbap, meaning eating alone), wel (wellness), and sik (meal). The word captures a growing movement: meals that are convenient enough for one person but still nutritionally thoughtful and health-conscious. According to analysis by Seoul National University's Food Business Lab, consumption of "one-bowl meals" like rice bowls, bibimbap, and salads has risen sharply. Interestingly, purchases of pre-made meal kits have actually declined, while online orders of fresh ingredients — whole grains, vegetables, and fruits — have surged.
People are going back to the ingredients themselves. Just like my mother's generation always did.
The 2026 dining trend report from Baedal Minjok — Korea's largest food delivery platform, essentially the DoorDash of Korea — reveals another fascinating shift. The Korean concept of boyangsik — "nourishing food" traditionally associated with restorative dishes like samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup) or grilled eel — is being redefined. Today, lighter, healthier options like salads, home-cooked meals, and shabu-shabu (thin-sliced meats and vegetables swished in hot broth) are increasingly filling the boyangsik role. Consumers aren't chasing perfect "health food" — they're looking for what the industry calls "self-satisfaction wellness": taking the foods they already enjoy and removing just enough guilt to feel good about eating them.
And here's where I feel a strange sense of déjà vu. My family's 1980s dinner table was exactly this — not because we were health-conscious, but because a diet built around seasonal vegetables and fermented foods was simply the natural way of life. That unnamed eating philosophy from my childhood has now returned wearing sleek new labels: "slow aging," "healthy pleasure," "clean eating."
From Grandmother's Fermentation Crocks to Global Superfood
At the heart of traditional Korean food culture lies fermentation. Ganjang (soy sauce), doenjang (fermented soybean paste — earthier and more complex than Japanese miso), gochujang (fermented red chili paste — sweet, spicy, and funky all at once), kimchi (lacto-fermented vegetables, most famously napa cabbage), and jeotgal (fermented seafood). These aren't condiments or side dishes — they're the foundation on which the entire Korean flavor system is built. For thousands of years, every Korean household kept a row of large earthenware crocks called jangdokdae in their backyard, each one holding a different fermented paste or sauce slowly aging in the open air.
These fermented foods are now being rediscovered on a global scale. When a 2024 Netflix documentary explored the science of gut health and the microbiome, it sparked an explosion of interest in fermented foods worldwide — and kimchi stood at the center of that conversation. Even in Northern European countries where the very concept of fermentation once provoked skepticism, interest in Korean fermented foods has grown dramatically. Korea's traditional jang (fermented pastes) and kimchi are now regularly cited as prime examples of gut-friendly eating.
And then there's another treasure Korea can offer the world: temple food — sachal eumsik in Korean.
In May 2025, Korea's Cultural Heritage Administration officially designated temple food as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage. Korean Buddhist temple cuisine uses absolutely no meat, fish, eggs, dairy, or artificial seasonings. It also avoids the five pungent vegetables (oshinchae: garlic, green onions, chives, leeks, and wild garlic) believed to disturb the mind during meditation. Instead, temple cooks build deep, layered flavors using dashima (dried kelp), mushrooms, perilla seeds, and raw soybean powder as natural umami sources. Protein comes from tofu and mountain herbs. Each temple across the country has passed down its own unique recipes for kimchi and jangajji (vegetables preserved in soy sauce, fermented paste, or vinegar) — regional variations that reflect the local terroir.
This is a plant-based culinary tradition that Korea has maintained for centuries — and it's fundamentally different from Western approaches to veganism. Where much of Western plant-based food starts by replicating meat (soy sausages, bean-based burger patties, oat-milk cheese), Korean temple food was never trying to imitate anything. It was built from the ground up to celebrate the textures, flavors, and possibilities of plants themselves.
Dear Vegans and Vegetarians: Korea Has Been Waiting for You
Let me shift perspective here for a moment. If you're a vegan or vegetarian traveler considering a trip to Korea, I want to share something that might surprise you.
Korea is far more plant-friendly than you probably think.
Yes, Korean BBQ is world-famous, and yes, meat plays a major role in the modern Korean diet. But if you dig into the deeper history, Korea's food roots are largely plant-based. Under the influence of Buddhism during the Goryeo Dynasty (918–1392), meat was widely avoided for centuries. Even today, the everyday Korean bapsang (dining table) is built on a foundation of vegetables: the majority of the small side dishes (banchan) that arrive automatically at every Korean restaurant are made from plant-based ingredients — seasoned greens, fermented vegetables, tofu, and seaweed.
Here are the Korean wellness foods I'd recommend for vegan and vegetarian travelers.
Bibimbap (비빔밥) — Korea's signature mixed rice bowl. Steamed rice is served in a sizzling stone pot (dolsot) topped with an array of seasonal namul — think spinach, fernbrake, bellflower root, bean sprouts, shredded carrot — and a generous spoonful of gochujang. You mix everything together right at the table. Just ask for it without the egg and meat ("gyeran-gwa gogi-reul bbae-juseyo"), and you have a perfect vegan bowl. The city of Jeonju, designated a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, is the birthplace of bibimbap — if you can make the trip, it's absolutely worth it.
Japchae (잡채) — Sweet potato glass noodles stir-fried with a colorful medley of vegetables — spinach, carrots, mushrooms, bell peppers — and dressed in soy sauce and sesame oil. The noodles are translucent, springy, and slightly chewy. Without meat, it's still one of the most satisfying dishes in Korean cuisine. You'll find it at celebrations and everyday tables alike.
Gimbap (김밥) — Think of it as Korea's answer to the handheld meal: seasoned rice and fillings rolled tightly in sheets of roasted seaweed (gim), then sliced into bite-sized rounds. Order yachae gimbap (vegetable gimbap), and you'll get a roll filled with carrots, spinach, pickled radish, cucumber, and sometimes burdock root. It's Korea's ultimate grab-and-go comfort food and a vegan traveler's reliable friend.
Tteokbokki (떡볶이) — Chewy, thumb-sized cylinders made from rice flour, simmered in a sweet-and-spicy gochujang-based sauce. It's Korea's most iconic street food, sold at every market and food stall. One caveat: some versions include fish cake (eomuk) or use anchovy-based broth in the sauce, so if you're strict vegan, ask before ordering — or seek out restaurants that specify vegan tteokbokki.
Doenjang-jjigae (된장찌개) — A bubbling stew made with doenjang (fermented soybean paste), loaded with tofu, zucchini, potatoes, and chili peppers. It's the Korean equivalent of comfort food — warming, savory, and deeply umami. Be aware that many restaurants use myeolchi yuksu (anchovy stock) as a base. For a fully plant-based version, look for temple-style doenjang-jjigae, which uses kelp and mushroom broth instead.
Temple Food (사찰음식) — The Buddhist plant-based cuisine described above. In Seoul's historic Insadong district, restaurants like Osegye Hyang serve vegan reinterpretations of Korean classics — vegan bulgogi (grilled "meat" made from wheat gluten and mushrooms), vegan tangsuyuk (sweet-and-sour "pork") — all in a cozy, traditional hanok-style setting where you sit on heated floors. For an even deeper experience, major temples like Jogyesa in central Seoul offer templestay programs where you can live alongside monks for a day or more, participating in meditation, tea ceremonies, and communal meals — all of which are 100% plant-based.
Namul Banchan (나물 반찬) — When you sit down at virtually any Korean restaurant, a parade of small dishes arrives at your table before you've even ordered. These are banchan — complimentary side dishes that are part of the Korean dining experience. Among them, namul dishes are almost always vegan: blanched spinach dressed with sesame oil and garlic, soybean sprouts in a light seasoning, doraji (bellflower root) with a mild, slightly bitter crunch, or gosari (fernbrake fiddleheads) braised until tender. These humble greens are what Koreans have eaten every single day for generations — and they are the most honest expression of Korean wellness food there is.
What Goes Around Comes Around
If I had to summarize Korea's 2026 food culture in a single thought, it would be this: the table is no longer just about flavor. It's where health, sustainability, personal experience, and individual values all converge. The question has shifted from what we eat to why and how we eat it.
And the irony? The answer has been sitting right in front of us all along.
Multigrain rice. Fermented soybean stew. A few seasonal greens. Kimchi from the family crock. The very table I found so tiresome in the 1980s has, forty years later, become a globally celebrated "superfood diet." The Korean twenty-somethings tracking their blood sugar spikes and reaching for brown rice. The New Yorkers eating kimchi for gut health. The European vegans discovering the essence of plant-based cooking in Korean temple food. They've all, in the end, arrived at the same table.
Mom, I finally understand how extraordinary that table was.
It took me forty years, but — thank you.
