“The Korean Vegan” Joanne Molinaro Shows Us How to Pivot and Go After What Brings Us Joy

Joanne Molinaro never set out to become The Korean Vegan. In fact, for many years she built her life around a very different identity as a partner at a prestigious law firm in Chicago. But beneath the surface was a quiet longing to be a storyteller.

Today, millions know Joanne as the soulful voice behind deeply personal cooking videos that marry Korean vegan recipes with stories of resilience, identity, and love. She talks about being in a bad relationship and learning to love her own company again while teaching us how to make black bean noodles and fermented soybean stew. She’s opened up about learning to set boundaries while making Korean dumplings. 

Through her stories, she’s become a mirror for so many of us who are learning how to honor where we come from while also charting a path forward. And her close-ups of the ingredients and steps she goes through to make her Korean-inspired vegan dishes feed her followers—not just through food, but through connection.

This week, The Sunday Paper sat down with Molinaro to talk about her career pivot from attorney to content creator, how that identity shift helped her claim more joy in her life, and how she’s become the woman her younger self would be proud to know.

A CONVERSATION WITH JOANNE MOLINARO

In I Am Maria, Maria Shriver explores her evolving identity. Who is Joanne? Fill in the blank: I Am _____.

I am a woman born in Chicago, Illinois, whose parents were born in what is now known as North Korea. I am also a wife, a daughter, a sister, a writer, storyteller, and a runner. And also, I cook. 

Thinking through that answer reveals a lot in terms of what aspects of myself are most important to me, and it always begins with my family. From there, it branches out into what I do. To me, my most important thing will always be family. 

You left a successful law career to pursue a creative path. What did that identity shift from “lawyer” to “artist” feel like?

The transition from being a full-time lawyer to being a full-time writer, storyteller, and recipe developer revealed to me that what I do for my career is not dispositive when it comes to who I am. I had to really relinquish the value that I placed in my legal career when I left it. I had to ask, If I’m not a lawyer, who am I? I had placed so much value in that title as a representation of who I am. And I realized, well, that’s just not true. You’re still Joanne, even if you’re not a lawyer. 

Then, that made me grapple with the question, Well, what does that mean? Who is Joanne? Now that you’ve gotten rid of that part of your life, you have to answer those questions. And what it boils down to is another question: What are my values? 

I value compassion. I value intelligence. I value loyalty. These are the things that are important to me, and having a job that affords me the opportunity to live those values inside my family and as part of my career is a dream job. 

Your family’s immigrant story is woven into so much of your work. How has your identity as Korean American evolved over the years?

When I was younger, my understanding of what it meant to be a Korean American was based almost exclusively on my personal experience. Which is not to say it’s illegitimate or invalid—it’s just not a great sample of what it means from a more macro level. And I didn’t feel any urgency to layer on top of that any type of objective, broader experience until college. 

When I started to veganize Korean food, I wanted to do that in a very defendable way—which, as a lawyer, is important to me—and so I needed to take a much more analytical approach. So, I started asking: What does Korean food actually mean? How do we arrive at these flavors and these methodologies? Why is that important to Korean culture and history? I was forced to do a lot of research, and part of that involved talking to my mom and dad. What ended up happening is a much more honest and deeper understanding of my place in the Korean diaspora. When I started to then become a more public person in that sphere, I felt I had a responsibility to not just provide adequate representation of the Korean American identity, but to provide fair representation. 

It’s one thing to be in your face all the time with Korean food, but it’s also important to do an honest and fair job of that.

How has cooking—and sharing your cooking with millions—helped you reimagine yourself?

I never thought of myself as a cook. I was a professional, and so 90 percent of my meals came from delivery or the restaurant downstairs. But I always loved the Food Network. I grew up watching it. It was my comfort TV when I was in law school and preparing for the bar exam—I always had it on in the background. So, I had all this information in my brain that I never actually used.

Then, when I went plant based, I was like, Okay! Now I really have to start learning and putting some of this into action!And I realized I actually really love cooking. I love seeing the fruits of my labor at the end of the process and then getting to consume what I made. I love the inventiveness that’s required to veganize Korean foods. I also love teaching, and I think I have a gift for doing that in a way that’s very understandable and even fun. 

I never expected cooking to be a part of my life, and now it’s a huge part of my life.

Is there any aspect of who you are today that would surprise your younger self? And who are you curious about becoming?

I read this great quote on the Instagram that has been on my mind so much this year, which has become the banner quote for 2025 for me: “Become the woman that your younger self would run to for protection.” 

That quote has been on my mind, because I will tell you, as a child of immigrants, particularly of Asian immigrants, one thing I learned at a very young age was that I cannot rely on my parents to protect me. They do not speak the language. They are going to have to deal with racism. They are counting on me to speak English better than them, to translate things for them, to deal with very adult things for them at a very young age. 

Given that I couldn’t rely on my mom and dad to protect me, I never would have guessed that I would be the woman that makes people like me feel safer. I thought I would be afraid for the rest of my life, and that I would always be the helpless young person who had nobody to help her.

It’s a constant challenge to continue to live up to that—to be the woman who younger Joanne would run to for protection. What does that woman look like? It is not the woman who has an eating disorder. It is not the woman telling her that her body is too fat. It is not the woman who says that she is not worthy of a job that she loves. It is not the woman who suffers from continuous imposter syndrome. If I am not the woman that little girl would run to for protection, then I need to change that. 

I want to constantly endeavor to be that person.

With over 5 million fans spread across her social media platforms, New York Times best-selling author Joanne Molinaro, a.k.a The Korean Vegan, has appeared on The Food Network, CBS Saturday Morning, ABC’s Live with Kelly and Ryan, The Today Show, PBS, and The Rich Roll Podcast. To learn more, visit thekoreanvegan.com.