This Korean hot sauce could be the new Sriracha

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Gochujang is a Korean hot sauce made from sticky rice, fermented soybeans, salt and red chili paste.

It's mostly used to marinade and cook food, but it can also be thinned out by adding water, making it a close competitor to Sriracha. 

Now, Gochujang is showing up more and more on restaurant menus around the US, and it may overtake Sriracha as the hot sauce of choice.

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California-based burger chain Umami Burger uses the ingredient in its restaurants; their popular K-BBQ burger is glazed with Gochujang sauce.

"When you have Gochujang on a burger, it brings about a smoky intenseness you can only get from that Korean funk," Ted Hopson, executive chef of Umami Burger, told Bon Appetit,

Oiji, a "refined authentic Korean" restaurant in the East Village, serves a braised chicken dish with a Gochujang marinade. 

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Even vegetarians are into the sauce. Dirt Candy, a vegetarian restaurant in NYC, serves a popular Korean fried broccoli dish that is tossed in Gochujang sauce. 

People have also started using Gochujang to cook dishes at home, and it's blowing up on Instagram. 

People use it in everything from spicy veggie burgers...

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...to Bloody Marys.

 And if you can't handle the heat, use Sriracha. 

 

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