Every winter morning, before the coffee, I open a jar and eat one spoonful of something dark, sticky, and faintly bitter. It is red ginseng, stirred with honey into a thick paste, and it tastes like a forest floor that someone has sweetened on purpose. By four in the afternoon, when the light goes thin and my shoulders start to feel the cold, I put the kettle on for something else entirely: ginger, sharp enough to make my eyes water on the first sip.
Those two jars are, for me and for a great many Koreans, what flu season looks like at home. Korean flu season foods start with two roots — red ginseng, taken a little every day, and ginger, reached for the moment a chill arrives. One is a habit. The other is a reflex. Ask almost any Korean friend what they do when the weather turns, and you will hear some version of the same two jars.
In Korea the flu comes in with the cold. Somewhere between the first sharp mornings of autumn and the Lunar New Year it makes its rounds through offices and classrooms, and everyone knows someone who is out for the week. So the jars come out when the air turns, and every Korean kitchen I know has its own version of this pair. Here is why these two roots, and not something else.
Two Roots for Flu Season
Let me say the plain part first, because it matters. In Korea, the flu is the doctor's business. People get the yearly shot — free for children, pregnant women, and older adults — and when they do get sick, they go to the neighborhood clinic the same day. Nobody here thinks a jar of anything replaces that.
But Koreans have never simply waited for winter to happen to them. For centuries the calendar itself was a kind of defense. On the morning of the Lunar New Year, families drank dosoju, a medicinal wine made from a pouch of herbs that had been soaked overnight in the well; they drank it facing east, and one old record says the youngest drank first. There was a saying that went with it: if one person drinks it, the house has no illness, and if one house drinks it, the whole village has none. It was hope, poured into a cup, at the start of the coldest months.
That instinct never left. It just moved into jars. The idea underneath it is one you will hear in any Korean kitchen, usually from someone's mother: keep the body warm, and keep it strong before you need it. Mothers push cold drinks away in winter (not always successfully, in a country that loves its iced americano), soup gets served hot, and a warming root goes into almost everything. Red ginseng and ginger are the two roots that carry that idea best — one slowly, one quickly.
A Korean winter table has a third ally, too, though it is so ordinary nobody thinks of it as one. Late November is kimjang, the season of making the winter's kimchi, and by December almost every refrigerator is full of it. Scientists have started paying attention to what that kind of eating does: in a small Stanford study, adults who ate more fermented foods, kimchi among them, for ten weeks showed more varied gut bacteria and lower signs of inflammation. It is early work, not a flu cure. But it is a nice thought to have while reaching for the jar anyway.
The Root That Was Steamed Red
Red ginseng begins as ordinary Korean ginseng, the pale, forked root that has grown wild in the mountains here for as long as anyone has written things down. What turns it red is steam. In the late 1700s, Korean makers began steaming whole roots and drying them slowly, and the roots came out amber-red, hard as wood, and able to keep for years without spoiling. That was the trick that changed everything.
Suddenly ginseng could travel. By the end of that century the Joseon court had made red ginseng an official export, and merchants from the city of Kaesong carried it by the chestful to Beijing, where it fetched remarkable prices. For a long stretch of the 1800s, a steamed root was one of the most valuable things leaving the country. In modern Korea it became something closer to a family tradition: for years red ginseng was the country's best-selling health supplement, and a box of it is still one of the most familiar holiday gifts you can carry to an older relative.
Here is where I want to be careful, because I write for a shop that sells it. Red ginseng is one of the very few foods that Korea's food safety ministry officially recognizes for supporting immune function — but only in regulated health products that meet a set standard, not in every jar with the word on it. A handful of small clinical studies, including one in Korea in 2012, found that people taking red ginseng extract for several months caught fewer respiratory illnesses than those taking a placebo. The researchers themselves said larger studies are needed. That is honestly where the science stands: interesting, encouraging, and not a promise.
So I will tell you my own reason instead. I take a spoonful every winter morning because my mother did, and because it is one small thing I can do for myself before the day starts asking things of me. It tastes like effort, and I like that it does. I cannot tell you it is why I did not catch the flu last year, and I will not pretend to. I can tell you that I notice the mornings I skip it.
The Root the Palace Handed Out
Ginger is the other root, and it plays a completely different part. Red ginseng is a slow habit. Ginger is what you reach for when the chill is already in your shoulders.
Korea's ginger story starts in a small place called Bongdong, near the southwestern city of Jeonju, where local legend says a man brought the first ginger seed over from China during the Goryeo dynasty, around a thousand years ago. Whether or not that story is exactly true, ginger was valuable enough by then that the court sent tea and ginger as gifts to the families of soldiers killed in battle. Today Bongdong still grows it, and the other great ginger region is Seosan, on the west coast, which now grows a large share of the country's crop.
My favorite ginger story, though, happens on the longest night of the year. On dongji, the winter solstice, the palace clinic of the Joseon kings made a dish called jeonyak — a dark, spiced jelly of dried ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and honey, set with a gelatin boiled down from ox legs until it was chewier than any jelly. The king handed it out to his officials as a winter gift, meant to keep out the cold and fortify the body through the dark months. Imagine it: a court full of scholars in silk, each holding a small, warm-smelling square of ginger as the year turned.
That is the ginger idea in Korea, and it has not changed much. Korean herbal tradition counts ginger among the warming foods, and the modern habit is simple: at the first shiver, the kettle goes on. It has moved out of the home kitchen, too: when the weather turns, Korean cafés bring ginger back onto their seasonal winter menus, from honeyed ginger tea to foamy ginger lattes. There is no scientific claim I can make for ginger and the flu — the research just is not there — but I do not need one to recommend a cup that makes your eyes water on a cold afternoon. Warmth, in a Korean kitchen, is its own reason.
One Spoon, One Cup
Try it the way a Korean winter day actually runs. In the morning, before anything else, take one spoonful of red ginseng preserve, straight or stirred into a mug of warm water. Let it sit on your tongue a moment. It is bitter first, then earthy, then the honey arrives late, like an afterthought.
Around four o'clock, when you start pulling your sleeves down over your hands, boil water. Stir in a spoonful of ginger. Hold the mug with both hands before you drink, and breathe the steam for a few seconds. The first sip bites. The second one warms your chest from the inside, and for a quarter of an hour the chill simply stops being the thing you notice.
That is the whole ritual, and every piece of it is easy to keep at home. For red ginseng, there are two ways I would start, depending on your day. At home, a honeyed red ginseng preserve that stirs straight into water → Hongsam Cheonha red ginseng cheong, from a family business that grew ginseng for two generations and, in the third, turned to making it into red ginseng. For the busy days, a small, individually wrapped herbal bite inspired by the old gongjindan idea, from Song Kang Dang, a house that traces itself to a Korean medicine clinic founded in 1920 — red ginseng with angelica root, deer antler, rehmannia, honey, and agarwood, sold as a food rather than a medicine, that you chew slowly and follow with water → Daemyung Gongjinbo.
For ginger, it is the same pairing of quick and slow. When you want a cup in one minute, honey-sweetened ginger granules made with Seosan ginger dissolve straight into hot water, and a splash of milk turns them into a ginger latte → Ssanghwa Dabang ginger tea. When you have a slower morning, a thick preserve of finely cut Korean ginger and apple, which the maker, Seoga, says it cooks for a hundred hours, works in hot water and just as well spooned over yogurt or buttered toast → Seoga apple ginger extract. Keep the preserves in the refrigerator once opened, and the granules in a dry cupboard, and they will see you through the whole season.
My own winter adds a few small rules around those two cups. I keep a thermos of warm barley tea on my desk instead of iced coffee, and on the coldest nights I drink mugwort tea, grassy and a little bitter, the way my mother still does. None of it is science. It is simply how a Korean winter is kept.
Before the Fever
Most of us think about the flu only once it has already arrived. Korea has always thought about it a little earlier. A cup of herbal wine at New Year, a square of ginger jelly on the longest night, a spoonful of red ginseng before breakfast — none of it was ever meant to replace a doctor, and it still is not. It is the other half of taking care of yourself: the part you do every day, on purpose, while you are still well. Get your shot, then keep two roots in the kitchen, one for the mornings and one for the first chill, and let the season find you ready.
And if the chill wins anyway? The Korean kitchen has a gentler answer for that, too, and it starts with almost nothing in the bowl.
FAQ
What do Koreans eat to stay well during flu season?
Korean flu season foods center on warm, simple habits rather than any single remedy. Many Koreans take red ginseng daily through winter, reach for ginger tea at the first chill, and eat plenty of kimchi from the late-autumn kimjang season. Soups are served hot, and many families try to keep cold drinks to a minimum. Koreans also get a yearly flu shot, which the WHO and CDC recommend as the first protection.
Is Korean red ginseng good for immunity?
Korean red ginseng is one of the few foods Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety recognizes for supporting immune function, but only in regulated health functional foods that meet a set standard. Several small clinical studies have reported fewer respiratory illnesses among people taking red ginseng extract, though researchers say larger studies are still needed. It is not a treatment for the flu. Many Koreans take it simply as a winter habit.
What is the difference between ginseng and red ginseng?
Red ginseng is Korean ginseng that has been steamed and slowly dried, which turns the root amber-red and lets it keep for years. Fresh or white ginseng is simply dried without steaming. Red ginseng tastes deeper and more bitter, with an earthy sweetness. It became Korea's great export in the late 1700s precisely because steaming made it travel well.
What is gongjindan?
Gongjindan is a traditional East Asian herbal pill, recorded in a Yuan-dynasty medical text, made from deer antler, angelica root, cornus fruit, and musk bound with honey. It is said to have been prepared as a tonic for the emperor, and in Korea it is known as one of the most expensive traditional tonics. Many modern versions replace the costly musk with other aromatics such as agarwood. Today's gongjin-style bites often add red ginseng and are sold as foods, not medicines.
How do I make Korean ginger tea at home?
Korean ginger tea is made by steeping sliced fresh ginger in hot water or, more often, by stirring a spoonful of ginger preserve into a mug of boiling water. For fresh ginger, simmer a thumb-sized piece, thinly sliced, in about three cups of water for fifteen minutes, then sweeten with honey. Jujubes or a cinnamon stick are common additions. Kim'C Market also carries ginger tea granules and a ginger preserve for a one-minute cup.
Does ginger tea help with a cold or the flu?
Ginger tea is a traditional Korean warming drink, not a proven cold or flu treatment. Korean herbal tradition counts ginger among warming foods, and a hot cup is comforting when you feel a chill, but there is no solid evidence that it prevents or cures illness. Its real value is warmth and keeping you drinking something hot. Many ginger preserves contain honey, which should never be given to babies under 12 months.