Best Gochujang Brand? CJ Haechandle vs Chung Jung One vs Wang
Grab three tubs of gochujang off three different shelves and you'll get three different pastes. America's Test Kitchen ran a blind panel on supermarket gochujang, and the brand that actually won isn't the one sitting in almost every Asian grocery store in the US. That's CJ Haechandle. The panel's favorite was Wang. That result says something real about what these brands are actually built for. Being the easiest one to find on a shelf isn't the same as being the best one in the jar. CJ Haechandle Is the Default for a Reason CJ Haechandle is what shows up first at H Mart, at most Walmarts that carry a Korean sauce section, and on Amazon, usually in mild, medium, and hot (sometimes labeled "very hot") versions of the same 500g tub. On the ATK panel it read as complex and fermented, with heat described as slow-building but hitting hard once it does. Sodium came in at 383mg per serving, on the lower end of the brands tested. A separate taste test from ...