Why I built this
Most Western "cups to grams" tools cover flour, butter, and sugar but leave you guessing on Korean staples. A recipe might call for "1 tablespoon gochujang" and you have a 500 g tub — how much do you actually scoop? Korean cookbooks translated into English usually preserve volume measurements (tbsp, cup), but modern Korean cooks weigh by gram.
I built this for the gap. The numbers come from manual measurements (mine and several Korean home cooking blogs cross-checked) and approximate the densities you would see in a brand-name jar from a Korean supermarket. They are accurate within ±5% — close enough for any dish where you also taste-adjust at the end.
Ingredients covered
22 Korean cooking staples: gochujang, doenjang, ssamjang, ganjang (Korean soy sauce), sesame oil, perilla oil, rice vinegar, fish sauce, salted shrimp, rice syrup (jocheong), Korean sugar, honey, rice flour, glutinous rice flour, potato starch, gochugaru (coarse and fine), minced garlic, minced ginger, toasted sesame seeds, uncooked short-grain rice, and cooked rice.
Quick reference
- 1 tbsp gochujang ≈ 18 g (pack firmly)
- 1 tbsp doenjang ≈ 17 g
- 1 tbsp Korean ganjang ≈ 16 g
- 1 tbsp sesame oil ≈ 14 g
- 1 tbsp gochugaru (coarse) ≈ 6 g
- 1 공기 (Korean rice serving) = 200 g cooked ≈ 80 g uncooked
FAQ
Why does my recipe say "1 tablespoon gochujang" but the result tastes too mild? A tablespoon of gochujang is about 18 g — surprisingly dense because of how it packs. Many Korean cooks scoop it loosely, ending up with 12–14 g instead. If your dish tastes flat, you may have under-measured. Pack the spoon firmly for accuracy.
Is Korean soy sauce (Joseon ganjang) the same as Japanese soy sauce? They share an origin but differ. Joseon ganjang (조선간장) is fermented purely from soybeans and is saltier with a thinner body — used for soups and namul. Yangjo ganjang (양조간장) is closer to Japanese shoyu and used for braising. The density (16 g/tbsp) is similar across both styles.
How much gochugaru goes into 1 kg of cabbage for kimchi? A typical home kimchi uses 80–120 g of gochugaru per kg of salted cabbage. That is about 13–20 tablespoons of coarse gochugaru. Adjust by spice tolerance — Korean grandmothers often go higher (150 g/kg).
Why is jocheong (rice syrup) heavier than honey in the table? Jocheong (조청) is a traditional Korean syrup made from malted barley and rice — it is denser (≈21 g/tbsp) than refined sugar but similar to honey. The honey value (21 g/tbsp) here is for liquid acacia honey; thick crystallized honey can be 23+ g/tbsp.
What is 1 공기 of rice in grams? One Korean rice serving (1공기) is conventionally 200 g of cooked rice, which comes from about 80 g (≈ 0.4 cup) of uncooked short-grain rice. Restaurants serve this; home portions vary widely.
Why are sesame oil and perilla oil both 14 g/tbsp? They have nearly identical densities (≈0.92 g/ml) since both are pressed from oilseeds. Sesame is darker and nuttier; perilla is lighter and grassier. Korean banchan (side dishes) often substitute one for the other 1:1 by volume.