The Tangy Topping That Improves Your Italian Subs (Hint, It's Not Pickles)

The Italian sub is an iconic blend of fatty meats and cheese, plus tangy toppings like red wine vinegar and onions. How you build your own comes down to personal preference, but if you're looking for a way to add a little zest to this dish, try topping the sandwich with a pile of kimchi.

Kimchi is a vegetable dish native to Korea. A classic kimchi is most often made by marinating and fermenting napa cabbage with plenty of high-flavor ingredients like ginger, scallions, and fish sauce. For spice, gochugaru is added, which is a type of Korean chili flake; this spice also gives kimchi a reddish hue. Between the fermentation process and the addition of spice, kimchi has a nice bite to it that contrasts perfectly with the rich meats on an Italian sub. While kimchi can be made with other vegetables instead of cabbage, such as radishes or cucumbers, the cabbage version is likely the best for this sandwich because it's somewhat texturally similar to lettuce, making it a good swap for the crisp and crunchy leaves.

Besides replacing the lettuce, the tang from the kimchi means you can omit the red wine vinegar, too. For ease, purchase kimchi at your local grocery store; look for it near other fermented foods, like sauerkraut. But if you have the time, it's best to make it on your own, so you can control the tang and spice level yourself.

In some ways, kimchi resembles giardiniera, a pickled medley made with various types of peppers and other vegetables that's popular in Italian cooking. The main difference is the process — giardiniera is pickled, meaning the veggies are soaked in an acid like vinegar, while kimchi is fermented, so the cabbage is soaked in salty brine without any added acid. Making kimchi at home is a matter of massaging salt into the cabbage, then soaking it in salty water before adding other seasonings and flavors, then soaking it some more. If you're making homemade kimchi, it can take up to five days at room temperature to properly ferment, while pickled foods like giardiniera take around two days. Once it is ready, you can store homemade kimchi in the refrigerator and layer it onto your next Italian sub.