Ojingeochae Muchim (오징어채무침)

Ojingeochae muchim is the banchan that lives in every Korean refrigerator. It takes ten minutes to make, requires no cooking, and keeps for weeks in an airtight container, which makes it the perfect side dish for people who want Korean food at home but do not want to cook a new banchan every night. Open the container, spoon some onto your plate next to your rice, and dinner has a side dish.

The base is dried shredded squid, which you can find in any Korean or Asian grocery store in clear packages. The squid is already cooked and dried, so all you do is cut it into bite-sized pieces with scissors and toss it with the sauce. The sauce is gochujang for sweet-spicy heat, rice syrup for sticky sweetness, oil for richness, garlic for punch, and sesame oil for nuttiness. You mix it until the sauce is shiny and red, toss the squid in, and put it in the fridge. The squid absorbs the sauce slowly over the next day, and by the second day it is even better than the first.

The texture is what makes it addictive. Dried squid is chewy in a way that is deeply satisfying, almost like jerky but softer and sweeter. The gochujang coating makes each strand sticky and spicy. It is one of the most popular snacks in Korea, eaten with beer or soju, packed into lunchboxes, and served alongside rice at nearly every meal.