A Korean American born in Chicago, Illinois, Joanne Molinaro is the daughter of parents who emigrated from North Korea. They were refugees in South Korea before they immigrated to the United States in the mid to early 70s. She launched The Korean Vegan blog in 2016 after transitioning to a plant-based diet, exploring ways to reimagine the dishes she grew up eating.
In July 2020, amid the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, she began posting on TikTok (@thekoreanvegan). At the time, Molinaro was practicing full-time as an attorney and occasionally sharing content about politics and life in the legal profession. However, it was her deeply personal videos paired with intimate family stories with vegan Korean cooking that quickly resonated, propelling her TikTok and social media presence to more than five million followers.
Molinaro’s debut cookbook, The Korean Vegan Cookbook, features traditional Korean flavors reinterpreted through a plant-based lens, with dishes such as Kimchi Mac ‘n’ Cheese and Firecracker Broccoli enriched with gochujang, soy, and garlic. The book became a New York Times bestseller and earned the James Beard Award for Best Vegetable-Focused Cookbook. It was also named one of the “Best Cookbooks of 2021” by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and numerous other outlets.
Expanding her creative footprint, Molinaro has since launched the vegan skincare line Korean Vegan Beauty and published her second cookbook, The Korean Vegan Homemade: Recipes and Stories From My Kitchen. Her latest work embraces a more exploratory culinary style, offering Korean-inflected interpretations of global comfort foods.
Molinaro 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. Her work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, CNN, and other major media outlets.
