As much fun as elaborate, long recipes for baking and fermentation can be, there’s just no way to pull them off on a regular weeknight. But we still are usually in the mood for something flavorful and reasonably healthy. The solution? A simple bowl of rice and veggies starring fish for protein, dressed with a spicy, funky sauce made from a Korean red pepper paste called gochujang.
Rice is not exactly difficult to prep as the main starch for a weeknight dinner, and white rice cooks very fast. It can be finicky though, depending on your precise ratio of water and how quickly you heat it, so consistently getting the texture you want can be a challenge.
We make rice often enough that we bought a rice cooker a couple of years ago and haven’t looked back. It turns out that you can also steam other things in it at the same time as you’re cooking the rice! Thus, in trying to find a low-effort weeknight rice dish, this cook-almost-everything-in-the-rice-cooker recipe was born, You could definitely do something similar in an Instant Pot or simply cooking in multiple pots on your stove.
Here in the northeast, we have ready access to very fresh seafood for protein. This recipe features salmon, but we’ve made this same recipe with white fish like cod and even bluefish. Most fish steam just fine, so the choice is yours. Just make sure to do a bit of research on what can be obtained sustainably in your area (the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch is an extensive and helpful guide and rating system for this) as well as if you can buy more directly from small fisheries at your farmer’s market.
I’m not exactly sure where we originally tried gochujang, the Korean fermented chili pepper paste that forms the base of this sauce, but one of the first times we tasted it was at Anju Noodle Bar, a restaurant in Kittery, Maine. It’s spicy and has some of that fermented funky flavor, and we’ve started using it frequently in our cooking. We’ve definitely had it when visiting some of David Chang’s restaurants in New York City, and it generally seems to be popping up more in recent years outside of just Korean cuisine.
Gochujang can be a bit tricky to find, so look for it your local Korean or southeast Asian grocery being sold in a small red tub. The gochujang itself is a very thick paste, so we smooth it out and add some additional flavor with some sesame oil, vinegar, water, and soy sauce. The recipe makes plenty, so use only as much as you want for taste.
Just as with the protein, any veggie will work in a versatile dish like this. We used Emilie’s recent recipe for roasted broccoli. Brussel sprouts, asparagus, or sauteed dark greens like kale and spinach would also work well. Top it with toasted sesame seeds, scallions, and some the gochujang sauce, and you’ve got an above-average dinner in about 30 minutes!
- 12 oz salmon
- 2 cups white rice uncooked
- Salt and pepper or soy sauce
- Green vegetable of your choice cooked
- Gochujang sauce recipe below
- 1 scallion chopped
- 1 Tbsp sesame seeds toasted
- 3 Tb gochujang
- 1 Tb Rice vinegar
- 1 Tb sesame oil
- ½ Tb soy sauce
- 2 Tb water
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Season salmon and fit into the steaming tray in the rice cooker. Alternatively, use in a steamer tray/basket on the stove top, or cook the salmon in another preferred way.
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Rinse rice and place in rice cooker according to the appliance directions, season to taste
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Steam rice and fish together on the rice cooker cycle. The fish takes about 20 minutes to steam, which is why this works best with white rice.
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Combine all sauce ingredients and whisk until smooth. Add more water to thin if needed.
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Prep veggie of choice. Our go to is roasted broccoli.
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Fill bowls with rice and veggies and top with steamed salmon, and top with gochujang sauce, sesame seeds, and scallions.