Gochujang – Korean Red Chili Paste [ Medium | 1.1 lb (500g) ] – Gluten-Free/ 0 Fat/ 0 Cholesterol / (40 Calories/Serving) | Spicy & Sweet Savory Fermented Sauce | Great for Bibimbap, Marinades, Stews & BBQ - O’food Chung Jung One
🌱 Vegan
🥕 Vegetarian
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🦐 Shellfish-Free

O'Food Gochujang Korean Red Chili Paste, Medium, 1.1 lb

$17.75

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Product Details

Gochujang is the fermented red chili paste at the center of Korean cooking. The long ferment is what separates it from a plain chili sauce: it comes out sweet, salty and deeply savory as well as hot, so a spoonful can carry a dish rather than only adding fire to it.

Korean makers print a heat rating on the tub, and this is the medium step on that scale — hot enough to read as properly spicy, mild enough to use by the spoonful rather than the drop. It is the level most home cooks settle on when they are feeding a mixed table, with room to push the heat up if a dish wants it.

Use it as the sauce for bibimbap, loosened with sesame oil and a little vinegar. Stir it into tteokbokki or a pork and potato stew, whisk it with soy, garlic and sugar for a bulgogi-style marinade, or brush it onto chicken wings in the last minutes of roasting. It earns its keep outside Korean cooking too, in glazes and dipping sauces.

O'Food Gochujang Korean Red Chili Paste, Me... $17.75

Questions About This Product

The things people actually want to know before they cook with it.

How spicy is the Medium version, really?
Gochujang generally lands around 1,000 to 2,500 Scoville units, roughly comparable to sriracha or a jalapeno, and the fermented sweetness and salt mute the burn so it reads milder than that number suggests. Korean producers rate gochujang on a standardized GHU scale, where mild sits around 10 to 30, medium hot around 30 to 45, and very hot at 45 and above. Medium is the level most Korean recipes assume, so it is the safe default if you are not sure. Most people who cook with it find the sweetness and depth more prominent than the heat.
What are the other heat levels in the O'Food line?
O'Food sells the same gochujang in a range of heat levels, commonly Mild, Medium (sometimes printed as Medium Hot), Hot and Extra Hot, across sizes from small 200 g tubs up to 1 kg and foodservice pails. The recipe and base are the same style; the chili proportion changes. If you regularly cook Korean food and want one jar, Medium is the workhorse.
Is O'Food the same brand as Chung Jung One?
Yes, they are the same product family. O'Food is the international brand name for Chung Jung One, the Korean brand owned by Daesang, and many US listings print both names on the same package. If you see a recipe that calls for Chung Jung One gochujang, this is the product it means.
What does Sunchang on the label mean?
Sunchang is a county in North Jeolla Province, Korea, that is famous for gochujang and is the traditional home of the style. Chung Jung One's gochujang is associated with Sunchang and the name appears on much of the packaging as a regional and heritage marker rather than a heat or grade indicator. The related Gold designation on some tubs is a product-line tier within the brand, not a spiciness rating.
Is gochujang the same as gochugaru or as the squeeze-bottle Korean chili sauces?
No, all three are different. Gochugaru is dry Korean chili flakes with no fermentation, sweetness or salt. Gochujang, like this one, is a thick fermented paste of chili, rice and salt that you cook into dishes. The squeeze-bottle products often labeled Korean chili sauce or gochujang sauce are thinner, pre-sweetened finishing sauces built from gochujang, and America's Test Kitchen specifically warns against swapping those in where a recipe wants the paste.
Can I substitute sriracha, miso or chili garlic sauce for gochujang?
Not cleanly, though you can approximate. Gochujang brings chili heat, salt, a malty sweetness and fermented soy-and-grain depth in one ingredient, so a single-note hot sauce like sriracha misses the body and sweetness. A closer improvised stand-in is miso plus gochugaru or another chili paste plus a little honey or sugar, which covers ferment, heat and sweetness. Expect a different texture, since gochujang is thick and sticky rather than pourable.
It is too spicy or not spicy enough for me. Can I adjust it?
Yes, and this is standard practice. To dial the heat down, dilute it into the dish with more of the other liquids and add a little honey or sugar, which blunts the burn. To push it up without changing the character, stir in gochugaru, since that adds Korean chili flavor rather than the different heat of a Thai or Mexican chili. Adjust in small increments; gochujang is concentrated and salty.
Do you eat gochujang straight out of the tub?
It is not a table hot sauce and is generally not eaten plain. Gochujang is a cooking paste that gets thinned, sweetened or cooked into something: whisked with sesame oil, vinegar and sugar for bibimbap sauce, simmered into tteokbokki or stews, or blended into marinades for grilled meat. Tasted alone it comes across as very salty and intense in a way that misrepresents how it behaves in a dish.
Traditional gochujang uses barley or wheat. What is different about this one?
Classic gochujang is built on chili powder, rice, fermented soybean powder and barley malt, and many commercial versions include wheat-derived ingredients, which is why gochujang is not automatically gluten free. The O'Food tubs are marketed on a brown rice base and carry gluten-free and no-corn-syrup claims on the package. Because formulations differ between brands and even between sizes, check the package in front of you rather than assuming all gochujang matches.
How much should I use in a recipe?
For a sauce meant to dress two to four servings of bibimbap, a common starting point is about two tablespoons of gochujang loosened with sesame oil, a splash of vinegar and a little sugar. For tteokbokki or a braise, most recipes use two to three tablespoons per pot alongside gochugaru and soy. Because gochujang carries salt as well as heat, add it early and hold back on other salty seasonings until you have tasted the dish.
My gochujang got darker and drier on top. Is it ruined?
Darkening over months in the refrigerator is normal for gochujang and is a result of continued slow change in a fermented, sugar-containing paste; the surface can also dry slightly where it meets air. Neither on its own means the tub has gone off. What does signal a problem is fuzzy mold, a watery separated texture that will not stir back together, or a sour or alcoholic off smell. Pressing the paste flat and keeping it covered slows the drying.
Where is it made?
O'Food gochujang is produced in Korea and imported for the US market by Daesang America, the same company behind the Chung Jung One name. That matters to some buyers because a number of gochujang-style products sold in the US are formulated or manufactured outside Korea for Western palates.

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