What I Ate: Chicken Bibimbap

Bibimbap is a staple meal in our house. It used to be somewhat of a production to make, mostly because there are so many various ingredients that can be added in, but I think I've got a system down that is pretty efficient and works really well.

First of all, you've got to get rice going and then you've got to set up your serving dishes. I grab three (for my family) and get them ready, assembly line style. After that, you really only need one pan. That same pan gets used to cook through each element. I heat it up over medium and add in a little oil (about a tablespoon of avocado oil and a few drops of sesame oil) and then I toss in the first vegetable. After that's cooked through, I divide it amongst the serving dishes. Then, I add in a little more oil and cook the second. And that continues until I've gone through all of the (cooked) vegetables.

In between cooking the vegetables, I also work on chopping up raw veggies for the bowls. I like raw carrot, raw cucumber, and usually some sort of lettuce-y element, whether it's spinach, red leaf lettuce, or perilla leaves.

After the vegetables are done, I add a little more oil, some garlic, some ginger, and onion, if I'm feeling cheeky. Then, in goes ground meat (chicken, beef, turkey, pork, whatever your preference; tofu works too). That gets broken up and cooked halfway through. Then, I add in some soy sauce, a little brown sugar, and black pepper. The meat finishes cooking with the seasonings and then it's added to the serving dishes.

I chop up a few raw vegetables, toss in some julienned radish kimchi, and then scoop on some rice. After that, I fry up an egg to top off each bowl, whip up a little spicy sauce, and it's time to serve.

As far as the vegetable selection goes, it's different every time. Here's a (likely incomplete) list of every vegetable we like to use:

• cucumbers (raw)
• carrots (raw)
• red onion (sauteed)
• zucchini or yellow squash (sauteed)
• mushrooms (sauteed)
• broccolini or broccoli (blanched)
• bok choy (sauteed)
• avocado (raw)
• mung bean sprouts (blanched)
• red leaf lettuce (raw)
• spinach (raw)
• perilla leaves (raw)
• green beans (blanched)
• peppers (raw)
• shredded cabbage (raw)
• baby kale (raw)
• watercress (blanched)

And, in our house, we can never have bibimbap without some sort of spicy soup. Soon tofu is the favorite.

The sauce is super easy. It's just hot pepper paste (gochujang), a little sugar, a little vinegar, a little sesame oil, and a little apple juice to water it down and make it a smoother sauce that can be easily mixed in. The proportions are really up to you, whether you like it a little sweeter, more tart, or balanced.

Seriously, this is my favorite meal ever.

xoxo.