I washed all the sesame leaves and dry them in my salad spinner. I put the sesame leaves in a gallon jar 3 or 4 leaves together, rotating the jar and placing the bunches of leaves like a stair case.
Salt solution: 8 cups water 1/2 cup salt
Pickling liquid: 1 cup salt solution, 1 cup water, 1 cup vinegar, sugar to taste. I used a 5 cup ratio, and added 1 cup sugar. The sugar helps time down the sharpness of the vinegar. Not necessary but helpful (hint for those who don’t like added sugar).
Bring pickling liquid to a boil. I added wooden chopsticks to my jar to keep the peppers and leaves down. You can also use clean stones to weigh them down.
To pickle with soy sauce, replace the salt solution with salt. Pickling with soy sauce is more traditional, but I like the salt/vinegar pickled kkaennip for ssam (wraps) and Korean BBQ.
Pickled peppers go great with gimbap, especially during a road trip.
Tink's Table 