cheesy chicken + kimchi rice

I'M OBSESSED

Julia Turshen’s chicken + kimchi rice!

When I lived and owned a catering company in Coronado, CA, I also moonlit as a private chef, preparing meals for a few families that I’d drop off once a week for them to reheat. One of the families gave me a copy of their favorite cookbook, It’s All Good, written by Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen, and told me to make absolutely anything from it and they were guaranteed to love it. It became, and remains, one of my favorite cookbooks, and I fell in love with the approachable way that Julia Turshen writes recipes and talks about food.

Lucky for us, she’s now on Substack with a fabulous newsletter called Keep Calm and Cook On. And even more lucky for us, her latest book, What Goes With What, just published. If you love the way I write recipes, you will love this book!

One of my favorite things about Julia’s Substack is that she frequently shares charts demonstrating how to put flavors together. They show how to create a number of delicious meals using one base equation — they’re like a really excellent visual representation of the riffs and substitutions that I share for every single ingredient in my recipes here. I was thrilled to see that her newest cookbook is organized by charts — 20 of them! — for how to make salad dressings, grain bowls, sautéed chicken dishes, and more.

Here’s a chart from the book that I really love, and think you will too:

chart by Julia Turshen from What Goes With What. Here, Julia explains how this particular chart was the one that started it all!!

We’re making Julia’s chicken + kimchi rice¹, turned cheesy, like she recommends in the headnote. This is an absolutely stunning one-pot, five-ish ingredient meal. The entire meal takes only about 5 minutes of active cook time, then 20 minutes for the rice to cook, and 10 minutes for it to steam. At the end you have a big pot of comforting, nourishing, cheesy rice with chicken and kimchi!

Guys: this is a really, really delicious recipe. Even if it doesn’t sound like something you’d make — trust me on this one. Absolutely delightful. I truly could not stop eating it.

Here’s the headnote from the book: File this under “easiest one-pot meal.” By using a big jar of kimchi, you obviously get a ton of flavor, but you also get the benefit of a bunch of cabbage that’s already been cleaned and chopped. Like every one-pot rice recipe, this one is really nice topped with fried eggs. You can also add some grated sharp cheddar cheese right before serving (cheddar and kimchi are great friends).

This recipe incorporates a whole 16-ounce jar or bag of kimchi, a traditional Korean dish consisting of vegetables — most often cabbage — that have been fermented along with seasonings like chili, garlic, and ginger. If you’ve ever taken a big bite of raw kimchi, you know it can be intense! It’s got tons of delicious tang and, depending on the kimchi you have, can be spicy or sour tasting too. But like I’ve talked about when we’ve cooked with kimchi in the past (remember bacon kimchi salmon fried rice and 30-minute pork and kimchi CYOA bowls?!), when you cook kimchi — which, by the way, is full of mood- and gut-boosting probiotics — it mellows out and infuses the dish with a rich sweet and savory flavor. So even if you’re not a fan of raw kimchi, I hope you’ll give it a try — I think you’ll love it here!

As you’re shopping for kimchi, keep your fam’s spice tolerance in mind. It comes in mild, medium, and spicy. I usually cook with mild, then top George’s and my bowls with chili crisp, gochujang, or sriracha for extra heat.

Thank you

Julia Turshen

for sharing this recipe with us! For more from Julia, check out her site and Substack and grab a copy of What Goes With What. You can also enter to win a copy of her new book right now! To enter, simply comment on this post — tell us why you’d love the book, what you love about Julia, or what you thought about this meal after you inhale it over the weekend. A random winner² will be chosen on Monday, 10/28, and notified via Substack!

1. As always, see the notes + subs sections beneath the recipe — I’ve left lots of riff ideas, notes, and ingredient swap options.

2. Julia wrote a tip-packed “Seven Lists” mini magazine for some of her pre-order book bundles. One of the lists is “Seven Tips for Cooking with Kids” and is filled with great ideas, whether you’re a mom, dad, aunt, uncle, or grandparent. I asked Julia if she’d share it with us, and she did! So don’t miss that PDF at the very end of this post.

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Recipe from What Goes With What by Julia Turshen, modified slightly for What to Cook

Serves about 4 

Cook time: ~45 minutes

Tools:

• A large heavy pot (such as a Dutch oven) with a lid (if you don’t have a lid, you can use a sheet pan to cover it!)

Ingredients: