What should you buy at a Korean supermarket or convenience store, and what do the different chilli and soy products do?

The three chilli and bean staples

Gochujang is the thick red fermented chilli-and-soybean paste. It is sweet, savoury and only moderately hot. Use it for marinades, stews and the sauce in bibimbap.

Doenjang is fermented soybean paste, the Korean answer to miso but stronger and chunkier. It is the base of doenjang-jjigae and appears in soups and vegetable dishes.

Gochugaru is dried chilli flakes, and it is not the same as the chilli powder used elsewhere: coarser, fruitier, less bitter. It is what makes kimchi red.

Two more worth knowing: sesame oil (toasted, used as a finishing oil and never for frying) and soup soy — a lighter soy sauce sold specifically for soups rather than for dipping.

The banchan counter is the point

Supermarkets such as E-Mart, Homeplus and Lotte Mart, and the big department-store food halls, run long counters of prepared side dishes sold by weight. You point, they weigh, you take it home in a plastic tray.

This is not a tourist novelty — it is how the week gets fed. Buying three or four banchan and a bag of rice is a complete meal for two people.

Kimchi is sold in large bags and tubs, not small jars. Refrigerated kimchi cabinets are a standard fixture, and the volume tells you what a staple it is.

Convenience stores and the gift-set culture

CU, GS25 and 7-Eleven run 24 hours and are genuinely good: triangle kimbap, ramyeon with hot water at the counter, boiled eggs, and in summer a freezer of naengmyeon broth.

The thing that confuses visitors is the gift sets. Stacked near the entrance you will find elaborate boxes of Spam, cooking oil, tuna and processed meat, tied with ribbon. These are real, standard gifts for the lunar new year (Seollal) and harvest festival (Chuseok). They are not a joke and they are not discounted tourist goods.

Alcohol is cheap and sold in supermarkets: soju in green bottles sold singly, and makgeolli in plastic bottles.

What is in season, and when kimjang happens

Spring is namul — wild and cultivated greens — and strawberries, which Korea treats as a seasonal event.

Summer is naengmyeon, cold noodles, and watermelon; convenience stores lean hard into anything iced.

Autumn brings kimjang, the communal making of winter kimchi, usually in late autumn. Cabbage prices move sharply in that window and supermarkets sell cabbage in bulk with the other kimjang ingredients grouped together. Chuseok falls in autumn and songpyeon, the half-moon rice cake, appears everywhere.

Winter is tangerines from Jeju, which arrive by the box.

For the cooked versions rather than the shopping list, our South Korea guide covers where to eat them.

Practical notes

Cards work almost everywhere, including tiny shops — Korea is one of the most card-friendly countries there is.

Produce is often sold pre-packed rather than loose, so you may not need to weigh anything. Where there is a scale, it prints a sticker you stick on the bag before the till.

No tipping, anywhere.

Trash separation is taken seriously. Convenience stores and supermarkets sell the correct bags, and recycling bins are separated by material.

Frequently asked questions