Nuoc Cham Recipe – Vietnamese Dipping Sauce

This easy but delicious nuoc cham recipe is hugely popular in restaurants and homes around Vietnam. It is so good and is great with meats and fish.

Working ahead…

You can make this nuoc cham recipe a few days ahead of time. I suggest doing that to let the flavours develop but it isn’t necessary.

There will be lots of amazing flavours even if you make this nuoc cham recipe on a whim!

If you want to work ahead though, to save you time on the day of serving, this is a good one to make in advance.

Getting the flavour right…

Balance is key when making nuoc cham! You want to get the right balance of flavours for your personal taste preferences.

In this case, you get a savoury flavour from the fish sauce, a sour flavour from the lime juice and rice wine vinegar, sweetness from the palm sugar and a spicy hit from the chillies.

Remember, fish sauce brands to vary in saltiness so it is essential that you taste as you go. Do that and this sauce will be perfect.

As with most South Asian recipes, this nuoc cham recipe needs to be used as a guide.

Substitute ingredients…

Not everyone likes really spicy food. You could deseed your chillies and/or just us spur chillies which are much milder than bird’s eye chillies.

Palm sugar might be difficult to come by depending on where you live. This is an authentic ingredient for the sauce but it is just to add sweetness.

You could substitute another sugar to taste such as white caster sugar or even honey. Your nuoc cham will still be delicious.

Are you ready to get started?

Nuoc cham only take you minutes to make so why not give it a try? It is served simply in a bowl at the table for you to dip your meat, fish, spring rolls or whatever sounds good in.

I think you’re going to love this.

Note: Remember to use this recipe as a guide. The end result is down to you and your personal taste preferences.

If you like this recipe, you might like to try some of these too…

Thai nam jim jaew sauce
Thai grilled chicken – gai yang

Nuoc Cham Recipe - Vietnamese Dipping Sauce

Yield: 3/4 cup

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

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Ingredients

• ¼ cup (70ml) water
• ¼ cup (70ml) fish sauce
• 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 2 tsp palm sugar (grated finely)
• 1 lemongrass stalk – white part only – finely chopped
• 2 red bird’s eye chillies – finely chopped
• 1 long red spur chilli – finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic – finely chopped

Instructions

1. Mix the water and fish sauce. Then add the rice wine vinegar and lime juice. If you want, you can check for flavour at this point for balance.
2. Stir in the sugar using more or less to taste. Whisk well until the sugar has dissolved into the liquid.
3. Now add the remaining ingredients and stir well. Give it one last check for seasoning and store in the fridge, covered until ready to serve.
4. If you are serving soon, you could just leave store it out of the fridge at room temperature.

Raw oysters with chipotle and lime sauce
I hope you enjoy making and serving this nuoc cham recipe. If you do try it, please let me know in the comments. I would love to hear from you.