It’s the Vietnamese staple you can’t live without: nuoc cham. This thrilling combination of fish sauce, garlic, sugar, chilli and lime juice is a perfectly balanced dipping sauce or dressing and elevates everything it touches. I personally also like to add some white vinegar (a true pantry staple, if ever there was one) for extra tang. Drizzle it on salads and vermicelli noodles, dip spring and rice paper rolls into it, dunk slices of grilled meat… it’s so addictive, quite honestly I’ve even considered bathing in it.
Try rustling up a large batch of it, then storing it in your fridge to drink, I mean, use throughout the week…
Nuoc cham recipe
Wondering how to make nuoc cham? Wonder no more…
Ingredients
To make nuoc cham Vietnamese dipping sauce, you’ll need:
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 long red chilli, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
What to do
It’s pretty easy… just whisk all the ingredients together until the sugar has dissolved! You can also store this dressing in the fridge for up to a week.
While nuoc cham recipes can vary from region to region (some people swear by pounding the garlic and chilli in a pestle and mortar first, others like to add a little ginger to the mix), this is definitely a good basic start.
Now get ready to dip, drizzle and dunk. Enjoy!
