30-minute pork and kimchi CYOA bowls

with tahini-jang sauce

throw this on the table and let everyone CYOA!

This week is a CYOA (aka Choose Your Own Adventure) meal. Because the components of this recipe can become lettuce wraps, a bowl, a salad, or, ya know, deconstructed, absolutely-not-touching piles of individual ingredients if you’re feeding picky monster children.

Basically, we’re gonna have rice, the most addictively salty, savory kimchi pork stir fry situation, lettuce leaves, and a bunch of toppings, and you’re gonna do whatever the heck you want with them.

It’s a choose your own adventure situation, everyone’s happy, and everyone’s eating KIMCHI! Yes, even people who claim to hate kimchi will love it here! If they didn’t already learn to love it when we made bacon kimchi salmon fried rice.

Cooking the pork and kimchi truly takes under 15 minutes, but if you’re also cooking rice (instead of simply microwaving frozen rice), it’ll bump you up to the 25-ish minute mark.

Kimchi kimchi kimchi — I LOVE KIMCHI! It is a staple in Korean cooking, it’s so incredibly flavorful, and it’s so good for you. Kimchi is fermented cabbage and it has probiotic super powers that are incredible for your gut.

However, I’m willing to admit that it’s funky, fermented flavor can be a bit off-putting at first. But we’re cooking it, which takes that funk out. The heat mellows out the flavor and leaves it tender, a bit sweet, and savory. It is DELICIOUS.

If — no, when! — you get hooked on kimchi, click here for a round up of other ways to cook with it.

one more option for ya: pork and kimchi sweet potato bowls

I would be remiss if I didn't share my favorite way to enjoy the leftover pork and kimchi. I had a bunch of leftover roasted sweet potatoes in the refrigerator, so I filled a bowl with sweet potatoes and pork, microwaved it, mixed it all together, and OMG. Insane. Like I considered changing the recipe to be sweet potato kimchi pork bowls. But I know variety is the spice of life, and a blanket CYOA meal gives more options and can please a wider range of people.

That said: If you love sweet potatoes, consider making this option. I just washed 4 sweet potatoes; cut them into small cubes; tossed the cubes on a large sheet pan with oil, salt, pepper, and a bit of paprika and garlic powder; and roasted them at 425°F for 35 to 40 minutes.

Toss the roasted sweet potatoes with a big scoop of pork. Top with extra cilantro and sesame seeds. YUMMMM, please let me know if you make this variation.

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30-minute pork and kimchi CYOA bowls

Serves 4 to 6 (I find that 1 pound of ground meat cooks down so much that just 2 people can typically finish it, so we are using 2 pounds! Makes great leftovers!)

Cook time: 15-30 minutes (depending on whether you cook your rice from scratch or not!)