You might think it’s tough trying to whip up a meal from whatever odds you have in the kitchen, but imagine how much harder that is to do in space. A NASA astronaut recently showed off his culinary chops, sharing his recipe for a make-do “ranger burger” created out of items available to him on the International Space Station (ISS).
When NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, who has been on board the space station since last month, was in the mood for a burger, he turned to the improvisation skills that had served him as a former Navy SEAL. Comparing his approach to that taken by many service members when confronted with not-famously-appetizing Meals Ready to Eat (MRE), he got inventive with his cooking.
“If you’ve lived on MREs, you’ve probably tried some creative field recipes,” Kim wrote on X. “Here is a twist on the ranger burger, one of my favorites: beef steak, wheat snack bread, cheese spread as both topping and glue, potatoes au gratin layered in the middle, and a generous slather of gochujang red pepper paste from a care package on the SpX-32 Cargo Dragon.”
Kim also shared a photo of him enjoying his creation, with a special shoutout to the gochujang Korean chili paste which has recently exploded in popularity around the world. As the pre-packaged food that astronauts usually eat can be quite bland, and because traveling to space seems to change some people’s sense of taste, condiments and spicy sauces some of the most popular and fought-over items among space crews. Items like ketchup, Tabasco, and now gochujang are among those which astronauts swear by.
The matter of providing astronauts with tasty food is a serious challenge, and a topic which has seen a lot of research in recent decades. In early space missions, the food was often described as barely edible, and an illicitly smuggled corn beef sandwich was even the topic of a heated clash between NASA and Congress in the 1960s.
Today, there is an emphasis on providing astronauts with fresh foods whenever possible, and on sending crew members treat items on cargo resupply missions including fresh fruit, cheese, and gummy sweets. Providing appealing, tasty food is thought to help not only astronauts’ physical health, but also their mental well-being.
As for Kim, he said there were parts of life on Earth that he was missing, but he still enjoyed his burger: “I miss cooking for my family, but this hits the spot in its own way.”