Korean American astronaut Jonny Kim shares gochujang burger recipe from space

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, the first Korean American to fly to space, recently shared a video of himself preparing and eating a burger made with Taeyang gochujang aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

In an Instagram post dated April 30, the 41-year-old introduced his “ranger burger,” writing, “If you’ve lived on MREs (military-issued meals ready to eat), you’ve probably tried some creative field recipes.”

The ranger burger is a simple hamburger that U.S. soldiers make as instant food, similar to Korea’s “gundaria.” Kim’s version featured steak, cheese and potato gratin stacked on wheat snack bread, topped generously with gochujang. “I miss my family’s cooking, and this was quite fitting,” he wrote.

He took a photo of the floating meal inside the Unity module, which connects the U.S. and Russian segments of the station. The module contains a shared table where astronauts and cosmonauts often gather for group meals.

Kim was selected as one of 12 astronaut candidates from a pool of about 18,000 applicants in 2017 and officially joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 2020. He arrived at the ISS on April 8 aboard the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft and is scheduled to spend about seven more months conducting scientific research and technology demonstrations.