Joanne Lee Molinaro’s Kitchen Smells Like Doenjang—and She Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way

9 Minute read

03 Oct 2025

Journalist

The James Beard Award–winning author returns with The Korean Vegan: Homemade Recipes and Stories from My Kitchen, a book that blends cultural pride, family memory, and plant-based recipes.

When I called Joanne Lee Molinaro one recent afternoon, she picked up while standing in her front yard, hands buried in salted cabbage. She was making kimchi. “I wanted to make sure I got that part done before I hopped on,” she said with a laugh. It was the perfect introduction to a conversation about her latest book—a project that’s as much about lived practice as it is about recipes on the page.

The new volume, The Korean Vegan: Homemade Recipes and Stories from My Kitchen, is heftier than her first, both literally and metaphorically. “The first one was supposed to be like an introduction—it’s like an amuse bouche to Korean food,” Molinaro explained. “And this is really meant to be, okay, now we’re getting to entrée level, size and heft.” The shift in subtitle—from The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen to My Kitchen—marks a deliberate turn from documenting heritage to claiming her own voice as a Korean American cook.

Building on the First Book

Molinaro’s debut gave readers traditional Korean recipes with a plant-based twist. This second book, she says, carries far more of her own personality. “You’re going to see kimchi nachos, kimchi mac and cheese, kimchi quesadillas…like a kimchi buffalo dip,” she said. “There’s a lot of kimchi, obviously, but you can see now there’s so much more of the Joanne in this book than in the first one.”

That confidence extends beyond recipe choice. There are more stories, more pantry guidance, and more cultural context woven throughout. Where her first cookbook was steeped in her mother’s kitchen, this one embraces her own.

Destigmatizing the Pantry

A core part of that work is demystifying Korean ingredients for a wider audience. Molinaro acknowledges how intimidating it can be to walk into a Korean grocery store and not recognize what’s on the shelves. Her response: include brand names and explanations, especially for essentials like doenjang (fermented soybean paste).

“I remember my first book, I suppose what I do in my pantry section is, I include brand names because I know how intimidating it is,” she said. Some readers recoiled from the smell of doenjang, but Molinaro sees that as a marker of authenticity: “I really wanted to reply, well, then you know that it’s a good doenjang. It’s supposed to do that. I mean, my house smells like doenjang all the time. And I’ve gotten to a point where I’m like, I’m not going to be ashamed of this. I’m a fucking James Beard award–winning cookbook author. I’m not going to be ashamed of the smells that got me to that point.”

Her pantry section, then, is about more than accessibility—it’s about destigmatizing. “Yeah, your house is going to smell if you use soy sauce, doenjang, even gochugaru. But lean into it, embrace it. These are the smells that are going to make the doenjang chigae…”

A Cooking Philosophy Rooted in Joy

Molinaro’s approach to recipes is disarmingly flexible. “My overriding cooking philosophy is to make it taste the way you want,” she said. If her mother’s kimchi was always salty, hers leans sweet. If her mother’s doenjang chigae was watery, she makes hers thick and hearty. “That’s one of the joys of being an adult,” she added.

For her, joy is central: the joy of preparing, the joy of eating, the joy of flavors that resonate personally. And yes—potatoes play a starring role. “That’s the other thing. I add potatoes to everything because it’s my favorite food in the whole wide world.”

Family Stories, Memory Recipes

The book is rich with family stories that tether technique to memory. One of her favorites comes from her grandmother, who used Sweet’n Low packets stolen from restaurants when making radish kimchi. “She hated the slimy syrup you get when you add sugar to liquid,” Molinaro recalled. The workaround—sugar substitutes—made for better texture and became part of her grandmother’s Korean American cooking identity.

Another deeply personal recipe is oi sobagi (stuffed cucumber kimchi). While it appeared in her first book, the memory remains vivid. Her grandmother used to make it in huge jars weighted with stones from Lake Michigan. “Pulling out one of these pickles…then just stuffing your mouth with it, with a huge hot spoonful of fresh steamed rice—that takes me directly back to my childhood,” Molinaro said.

Wrestling with Identity

But Molinaro’s work isn’t just about nostalgia. She’s faced criticism—particularly from Korean men—that her vegan approach makes her a “fake Korean.” It’s a charge she’s had to grapple with. “Identity becomes very complicated here in the United States,” she explained. “Whether you’re not Korean enough or you’re not American enough, every single day it’s something different.”

Ironically, she finds more openness in Korea itself, where veganism is expanding rapidly thanks to Buddhist cuisine traditions and new meat alternatives. “There’s a reason why my book…has been translated in Korea, it’s being sold in Korean throughout Korea,” she said. “Most Korean American authors do not have that experience.”

Korean Food’s Global Moment

She’s also thrilled by how Korean food is being elevated worldwide, particularly in fine dining. There are restaurants with dedicated plant-based menus, signaling an embrace of temple cuisine alongside more traditional fare. “We see it with K-pop, we see it with K dramas, we see it with K movies, and we’re definitely seeing it in K food,” she said.

What’s Next

As for opening her own restaurant, Molinaro admits it’s tempting when the frustration hits. “As a consumer, I need Korean vegan food somewhere. I wish I could get it easily,” she said. But she also acknowledges the reality: “I have seen the anguish, the agony, the hard work, the blood, sweat and tears, I mean literally, that goes into not just opening a restaurant, but surviving in a restaurant. And I just don’t know that I have what it takes, or even if I did, that I have left over from all the other things, what it takes to do that.”

For now, she’s content to feed people through her books—and through events tied to their launch. With The Korean Vegan: Homemade Recipes and Stories from My Kitchen, she’s at mile 18 of what she likens to a marathon: the painful, barf-mode stretch where endurance matters most. And yet, she’s already looking ahead, smiling through the sweat, still with her hands in the cabbage.

Recipes from Joanne Lee Molinaro's The Korean Vegan: Homemade Recipes and Stories from My Kitchen

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55MIN

Joanne Lee Molinaro’s Kimchi Mac ’n’ Cheese with Kimchi Queso

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Easy

8H 0MIN

Joanne Lee Molinaro’s No-Knead Rice Bread (Bap Bbang | 밥빵)

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The Chef

Joanne Lee Molinaro, a.k.a. The Korean Vegan, is a James Beard Award winner, New York Times best-selling author, and viral storyteller blending Korean American heritage with plant-based cooking.

03 Oct 2025