Nuoc mam cham is a simple Vietnamese dipping sauce made with rice vinegar, fish sauce, and sweetened with sugar that does double duty as a tasty salad dressing. Pair it with vermicelli noodles, spring rolls, and more!
My Fave Multi-Purpose Vietnamese Dipping Sauce & Dressing
Just as Italy is known for its olive oil with balsamic vinegar, and Greece for its tzatziki, every culture has a dipping sauce that makes its signature mark. Vietnam is no exception.
This easy recipe for nuoc cham turns a bowl of rice noodles with raw veggies into a spectacularly slurpable flavor bomb and it’s the last touch of zest when Vietnamese spring rolls pass your lips.
It may take a minute to figure out nuoc cham’s pronunciation when ordering at a restaurant, but once you make it at home, you’ll see this sauce is easy to master.
Enjoy! Heidi
The Key Ingredient: Fish Sauce
Now, don’t get all freaked out about one of the main ingredient of nuoc cham … fish sauce.
What is fish sauce? Fish sauce is simply fermented fish that has broken down to become a tangy, funky sauce. Its flavor is salty, earthy, a little bit caramel-y sweet, and totally distinct. A good-quality fish sauce hardly tastes fishy at all, and adds the unique salty bite that can’t be imitated by substituted ingredients in Vietnamese and Thai cooking.
When choosing fish sauce, always choose a high quality fish sauce that hasn’t been left opened in your cupboard for too long (the fishy flavor will become more pronounced.) And know that smaller quantities of the sauce goes a long way.
This is my favorite brand of quality fish sauce. It can be found online or at many Asian grocery stores.
Just Whisk These Ingredients Together!
This Vietnamese dipping sauce is a simple, whisk-together number made with:
- Fish sauce
- Seasoned rice vinegar (not the same as rice WINE vinegar!)
- Granulated sugar
- Minced garlic
- Crushed red pepper flakes
Once the sugar has fully dissolved into the vinaigrette, it’s good to go!
Heidi’s Tip: You can also add grated carrot or onion to the sauce for presentation or a squeeze of lime for more acid.
If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating below, leave a comment to tell us what you think, and tag me on Instagram @foodiecrush.
Vietnamese Salad Dressing and Dipping Sauce Recipe (Nuoc Cham)
PrintIngredients
- ½ cup fish sauce*
- ½ cup seasoned rice vinegar**
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 cloves garlic , pressed or minced
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
Instructions
- In a bowl or a glass jar fitted with a lid, whisk the fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, garlic and crushed red pepper until the sugar dissolves. Use as a dipping sauce for spring rolls or as a dressing for Vietnamese noodle salads. Refrigerate for up to 3 months.½ cup fish sauce*, ½ cup seasoned rice vinegar**, 3 tablespoons granulated sugar, 2 cloves garlic, ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
Notes
Nutrition
What to Serve With This Vietnamese Sauce
- Fresh And Easy Vietnamese Noodle Salad
- Grilled Shrimp Vietnamese Spring Rolls
- Vietnamese Curry Chicken And Rice Noodle Salad Bowl
- Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad Bowls with Berries
- Chicken Satay
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Kat
turned out very sour, it’s way too much vinegar. I had to water it down and it was still not tasty. :(
Hayley
We’re sorry to hear you didn’t care for this, Kat!
Sara
Heidi, I found your recipe as a top hit when searching for a fish sauce based sauce.
It’s unfortunate that you are centering western cultures, and ultimately whiteness, through the way in which you speak of this Vietnamese condiment. Fish sauce and other more “ethnic” ingredients are not scary and framing them this way only perpetuates discourses in which non white cultural foods are second class, or disgusting.
I assume that your audience is largely white and middle upper class, so you may not get much constructive criticism. But I hope that moving forward you will consider the care taken in how you speak about ingredients and foods that don’t belong to your experience. The more we normalize honouring the story of foreign foods we enjoy, without mocking pronunciation and comparing them to Italian sauces, the more we can connect to a wider audience through enjoying and sharing food.
Thanks for reading
S
Adam
Your comment is the dumbest thing I have ever seen. 1)Why are you searching for a recipe when it seems you know everything about this culture and 2)the author literally spends the entire time explaining how amazing the ingredients are and why – a complete contradiction of your opinion-which is nothing more than self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, arrogant, ignorant, self-absorbed garbage.
Author-thank you for the recipe.
Hofterzielbeek
Thanks for this simple recipe. It is an awesome sauce.