Kimchi Lasagna
Instant Pot is finally here in Malaysia! After years of hearing about its magic—from a Taste article touting how “The Instant Pot Cult Is Real”, to Melissa Clark’s New York Times piece on how she was “turned into a believer”, to watching Lisa Childs’s YouTube channel dedicate to the one appliance—I was giddy with excitement when I found out it would be sold here. And as luck would have it, with its arrival to my motherland, I got asked to test out the Instant Pot and come up with a few recipes for it. So for the next couple of weeks, I’ll be sharing a few Instant Pot recipes that will build on the wealth of Instant Pot recipes that are already out there, but with a few surprises in store!
Here’s a real doozy of a recipe. Imagine the layers of a classic lasagna—luxuriously soft, meaty mince bursting with juices, melty, oozy cheese, wedged between sheets of tender pasta that lends structure and a bit of bite to tie everything together. It’s an age-old dish, its hearty appeal transcending through the years from the heartlands of Italy to across the world.
But then, imagine if, invading through your imaginary lasagna, rippled throughout the layers, was a funky tang of kimchi, with bits of cabbage in the lasagna where they would be tomato, melded together with the slight, tingly heat of Korean gochujang. And in between all that, where you expect a pasta layer to be, there’s instead the soft chew of tteok (Korean rice cakes). It might sound like an overtly forced mashup of two signature dishes from two food cultures that are worlds apart, and yet it really works!
I love a good lasagna, don’t get me wrong, but what I love more than a tasty classic dish is wild food experimentations, especially experiments that turn out surprisingly well. And this one definitely surprised and ticked all the boxes, and more!
Before we go on, a quick word about the sponsors of this episode—Instant Pot! I did use the Instant Pot for the majority of cooking for this recipe—sweating the onions and kimchi base, making the meat sauce, and cooking the lasagna—and thanks to the 7-in-1 functionality of the Instant Pot, it was super simple to use and the pressure and temperature control during the cook of the lasagna itself was seamless. All I had to do was press one button and set the time, and just let it do its thing without even having to check. Plus, while making lasagnas can be a messy process, what with all the layering of different sauces and components, plus the potential oven spillage, making it in the Instant Pot made clean-up a breeze too, with only just the one pot and the lasagna vessel to wash! (If you’re based in Malaysia and looking to get yourself one, head to their site here.)
About the Dish
This dish is put together like you would a traditional lasagna—sheets of pasta, meat sauce, and cheese layered together—but it differs greatly in its flavour profile. Where in a traditional lasagna you’d have minced beef slowly stewed in a tomato-rich sauce (almost like a bolognese, really), for this kimchi lasagna, the meat is cooked together with chopped up cabbage kimchi, along with a heaping spoonful of gochujang for extra depth of flavour and colour too, plus a dash of fish sauce for extra umami and layered funk.
To add even more Korean soul into the dish, I also replaced a layer of lasagna with tteok. (In truth I wanted to do without lasagna sheets entirely, but the tteok didn’t have enough structural integrity to hold the whole lasagna together, so while there’s tteok in the middle layer, the top and bottom of the lasagna is still made with lasagna sheets.)
As a final (if minor) Asian touch, I also threw on some scallions to garnish, a herb that is almost never used in classical Italian cooking.
Just as a helpful visual indicator, here are the layers of my lasagna:
Cheese
Pasta sheet
Ricotta
Kimchi meat sauce
Tteok
Cheese
Ricotta
Kimchi meat sauce
Pasta sheet
A few tablespoons of liquid from the kimchi meat sauce
After the construction of the lasagna itself, the cooking is straightforward. You can cook it in the oven for around 45 minutes. But in my case, for extra convenience, I did use the Instant Pot, which hastened the cook time slightly and ensured that everything within is cooked through. Once it’s done in the pot, it’s ready to be eaten. But if you can have time for an extra step, throw more cheese on top of the lasagna and broil it in the oven to have a caramelised, extra melty top crust. It’s a bit of extra effort for sure, and the only extra trouble with this Instant Pot method, but it’s totally worth it!
Tips for Success
If you’ve made lasagna before, this recipe should be straightforward enough, but here are some more tips and tricks to get the best out of your kimchi lasagna:
Before the first layer: Before placing the first layer of pasta sheet on the bottom, it’s useful to add 2-3 spoonfuls of liquid from your meat sauce on the base of the baking tin to ensure that the pasta sheet hydrates nicely during the cooking process.
Layering the lasagna: Everyone will have different ways of building and layering their lasagna. Some prefer 3 layers, some swear by having cheese in between every layer, some stack it as high as they can. For this kimchi lasagna, I would recommend having lasagna sheets on the top and bottom to make sure it holds together, and as for the layers in between, I alternated between the sauce, ricotta, and cheese, with a layer of tteok somewhere in the middle. The order laid out in the recipe below is just my personal preference that ensures even distribution of the fillings and flavours, but feel free to do as you please!
About the tteok: The tteok isn’t strictly necessary and you can replace it with another layer of pasta. But I think it adds a really interesting textural contrast, with its subtle bounciness and chew, and edges the dish more towards the Korean side of things as well. I would recommend buying flat discs of tteok as opposed to the cylindrical sticks, as the discs cook faster and it’s easier to form a layer with it as well.
Type of cheese to use: Mozzarella is typical for most lasagnas, but I use a combination of mozzarella, cheddar, and parmesan. The first would give a nice stringy pull, and the latter two lends the lasagna a stronger, bolder, cheesier flavour, which nicely contrasts that strong, funky flavour of the kimchi.
Instant Pot setup: We want the lasagna to steam under pressure here. So the lasagna will be built in a circular springform pan, then placed on top of a trivet in the Instant Pot itself, with a cup of water below it so it allows for steaming but doesn’t touch the bottom of the cake tin and cook it directly.
Kimchi Lasagna
Makes one 18cm (7 inch) lasagna; Serves 3-4
Ingredients
Kimchi meat sauce
15ml (1 tbsp) vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
300g (10 oz.) cabbage kimchi, chopped into small pieces
300g (10 oz.) ground beef
25g (1 1/2 tbsp) gochujang
10ml (2 tsp) fish sauce
180ml (3/4 cup) milk
60ml (1/4 cup) heavy cream
2g (1/4 tsp) salt
1g (1/4 tsp) pepper
Ricotta sauce
200g (approx. 1 cup) ricotta cheese
1 egg
2g (1/4 tsp) salt
3-4 lasagna sheets
120g tteok, preferably the sliced, disc-shaped ones
100g (1 cup) shredded mozzarella cheese
100g (1 cup) shredded cheddar cheese
50g (½ cup) shredded parmesan
1 stalk spring onion, sliced thinly to garnish
Directions
Make meat sauce: Start with either a pan over medium heat or the Instant Pot on Saute mode. Pour the oil in, along with the diced onions, and sweat for 3-5 minutes until the onion bits turn translucent, stirring it occasionally so it doesn’t burn. Add the minced garlic in, and cook for a further 1-2 minutes, then add in the chopped kimchi. Let the kimchi saute for 3-5 minutes, until you barely see any liquid left. Then, add in the ground beef, gochujang, fish sauce, milk, and heavy cream. Bring it to a boil, then cover the Instant Pot with the lid, and let it cook for 10 minutes on high pressure, followed by 5 minutes of natural release. (Or if you’re using a pan, just let it simmer gently on low heat for 30 minutes until thick and saucy.) Season to taste with the salt and pepper, and that’s the meat sauce done! Reserve it in a bowl, ready for assembly.
Make ricotta sauce: As the meat sauce is cooking, mix the ricotta, egg, and salt in a bowl, and set aside ready for assembly.
Assemble: To cook the lasagna in the Instant Pot, the best vessel to use is a deep, circular springform baking tin 18cm (7-inch) in diameter. Alternatively, if you plan on cooking this in an oven, any similar-sized vessel would work too. Whichever you choose, brush the cooking vessel with a light layer of oil, then start the lasagna assembly. Pour a few tablespoons of the meat sauce liquid into the bottom of your cake tin, then add your lasagna sheets to cover the bottom surface of the cake tin. (You might have to break your lasagna sheets into smaller pieces; it’s okay if they overlap slightly.) Then, add in 1/2 of your meat sauce, followed by 1/2 of the ricotta sauce, then 1/3 of the cheeses (the mozzarella, cheddar, and parmesan combined). Next, arrange the pieces of tteok in a single layer. Then, top it with the rest of the meat sauce and the rest of the ricotta sauce as well. Finally, add in a layer of lasagna sheets, and top it with 1/3 of the cheese. At this point, all you should have left is 1/3 of cheese, which will be reserved for later.
Cook in Instant Pot: Pour one cup of water (240ml) into the Instant Pot and bring it to a boil. The lasagna will be placed on a trivet on top of the water, and so the amount of water would vary depending on the height of your trivet. (You want to make sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the lasagna when it’s on the trivet.) Cover the top of the lasagna baking tin with foil, then place the lasagna into the Instant Pot. Cover the pot with the lid (making sure the release valve is on sealing) and cook on high pressure for 25 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of natural release. When it’s done, turn the release valve to venting to release any remaining pressure, and take out the lasagna.
(OR cook in the oven: Heat your oven to 180°C (350°F). Then, place the lasagna in the oven and cook for 45 minutes, until the edges of the lasagna are slightly crisp and the top is nicely browned. You can skip the next step if you feel your lasagna is sufficiently caramelised.)Broil lasagna: While the lasagna is almost done, ready your oven broiler and heat it up to 250°C (480°F). When the lasagna is out of the Instant Pot, add the remaining cheese on top of the lasagna, and broil it in the oven for 3-5 minutes, until the cheese is fully melted and nicely browned.
Garnish and serve: If you’re using a springform tin, remove the lasagna from the tin. Then, garnish with the chopped spring onions, portion it with a knife, and serve!
More Fun Recipes!
