What Is Banchan? A Korean Side Dish Shop Owner Explains After 35 Years

Illustration: a Korean banchan table, rice in the center

For 35 years, I ran a banchan shop in Bucheon, a city in Gyeonggi Province, right next to Seoul. Every day I made more than 30 different side dishes. 

My customers were mostly busy people, office workers and working mothers who stopped by in the evening on their way home. And every so often, someone asked me a version of the same question: 

“What exactly is banchan?”

Koreans rarely need to ask, because they grew up with it. But visitors from abroad, and even young Koreans who have never cooked for themselves, wonder about it. 

So let me answer the way I would if you were standing at my counter.

Illustration of a neighborhood banchan shop like mine in Bucheon

The Short Answer

Banchan (반찬) means the side dishes served with rice in a Korean meal. In Korea, rice is the center of the table, and banchan is everything that makes the rice delicious.

You don’t eat banchan alone the way you might eat a salad. You take a small bite of a side dish, then a spoonful of rice, then another bite. That’s why banchan is often salty, spicy, sour, or sweet. It is seasoned to go with plain rice, not to fill you up on its own.

What Is on a Banchan Table?

Illustration: a counter filled with small trays of side dishes

Running a shop with more than 30 dishes a day taught me that banchan falls into a few families. This is also how Korean home cooks think about it.

Kimchi. This is the one everyone knows, and the one I made the most variety of. Napa cabbage kimchi is the famous one, but there are also radish, cucumber, green onion, and many more. In my shop, kimchi was never just one item. It was a whole section of the counter.

Illustration: napa cabbage, radish and cucumber kimchi

Gyeran-mari (rolled omelet). Eggs cooked in thin layers and rolled into a log, then sliced. It’s mild, slightly sweet, and soft. If you are new to Korean food, this is the safest dish to start with, and it was one of my signature dishes.

Illustration: gyeran-mari, the rolled omelet

Eomuk-bokkeum (stir-fried fish cake). Fish cake sliced into strips and stir-fried in a savory-sweet soy sauce with onion and carrot. It’s another signature dish of mine, and a favorite with children.

Illustration: eomuk-bokkeum, stir-fried fish cake

Miyeok-julgi-bokkeum (stir-fried seaweed stems). Many people outside Korea have never heard of this one. The stems of sea mustard are salted, then stir-fried with garlic and sesame. They have a crunchy, chewy texture that is completely different from the seaweed you see in sushi rolls.

Illustration: miyeok-julgi-bokkeum, stir-fried seaweed stems

Mechuri-al-jangjorim (quail eggs braised in soy sauce). Small quail eggs simmered slowly in a sweet and salty soy sauce until they turn dark and the flavor soaks all the way through. This kind of braised dish is called jorim, and it keeps well, so many families like having it in the fridge.

Illustration: mechuri-al-jangjorim, soy-braised quail eggs

Namul (seasoned vegetables). Vegetables that are blanched or lightly cooked, then seasoned with sesame oil, garlic, and salt or soy sauce. Seasoned mung bean sprouts (sukju-namul) are one of the best-known examples. They are mild and fresh, and I’ll tell you more about them below.

Illustration: sukju-namul, seasoned mung bean sprouts

Besides these, there are jeon (pan-fried dishes) and jeotgal (salted seafood). I’ll explain each of them in later posts.

Illustration: the evening the sukju-namul sold out

Why So Many Small Dishes?

Visitors often ask me, “Why does Korean food come with so many little plates?”

A Korean meal is designed for balance. A traditional table has rice, soup, and several banchan with different flavors, colors, and textures: something crunchy, something soft, something spicy, something mild. When one dish is strong and salty, another one is gentle to balance it.

There is also a tradition that the number of side dishes reflects how generous a table is. Meals in the old royal court were famous for serving twelve. At an ordinary home, three or four is plenty.

Banchan Is Meant to Be Shared

Banchan is placed in the middle of the table, and everyone eats from the same plates. That’s why the portions are small, and why many Korean restaurants will refill your side dishes for free.

To me this says something about Korean eating habits. A meal is something you share with others, not something you eat alone in front of your own plate.

Why Korean Families Buy Banchan from Shops

Making ten different side dishes every day is a lot of work, and most Korean households simply don’t have the time. In my shop in Bucheon, the busiest hour was always the evening. Office workers and working mothers stopped by on their way home to pick up what they needed for dinner.

I still remember one working mother. One evening she came in straight from work, looked at the counter, and found that the seasoned mung bean sprouts (sukju-namul) were sold out. “My child won’t eat dinner without sukju-namul...” she said, clearly worried. She stood there, almost shifting from foot to foot, because her child was waiting at home.

Sukju-namul is one of the most delicate banchan there is. It can turn sour quickly, so I never made large batches of it. I made a small amount at a time, and when it was gone, it was gone. I would rather run out than sell something that wasn’t fresh.

In the end, she picked out a few other side dishes and took them home. I hoped they would be enough for that night.

That evening showed me the other side of my job. For a customer like her, banchan is not just food. It is what lets a tired parent come home and still give her child a proper meal. And for me, it meant that freshness had to come first, even when it meant disappointing someone at the counter.

This is why I made more than 30 dishes a day, in the right amounts, and why every dish had to taste like it came from a home kitchen.

How to Start Eating Banchan

Here is my advice for beginners.

1. Start with the mild dishes. Gyeran-mari (rolled omelet), eomuk-bokkeum (stir-fried fish cake), and sukju-namul (seasoned mung bean sprouts) are easy first choices.
2. Always eat with rice. Banchan is seasoned to go with rice and can taste too strong without it.
3. Try a little of everything. Even if a dish looks unfamiliar, take one bite. Miyeok-julgi is a good example. It looks strange to many foreigners, but the texture often becomes a favorite.
4. Take one dish at a time. Don’t mix everything into the rice bowl. Let each dish keep its own flavor.

Final Thoughts

Banchan is simple: small dishes, big flavor, and a bowl of rice in the middle. But in Korean homes it is also a quiet kind of care, the thing a parent puts on the table for a child after a long day.

In my next posts, I’ll go deeper into specific dishes, how to store them, and the questions customers asked me most. If there is a banchan you’ve always wondered about, leave a comment and I’ll answer it.