Enjoy the delicious salty-sweet-sour flavour of Nuoc Mam Cham as an easy Vietnamese dipping sauce or salad dressing. This flavour-packed condiment is ready in less than two minutes!
Why We Love This
This sauce is super easy to make with ingredients you’re likely to have on hand if you love cooking Asian cuisine. Tweak the amount of any ingredient to get the flavour just how you like it.
It’s the perfect pairing with fried spring rolls or as a salad dressing for a chicken noodle bowl.
Related: Vietnamese Noodle Salad with Spring Rolls
What is Nuoc Mam Cham?
Vietnamese Nuoc Mam Cham, also known as simply Nuoc Cham / Nuoc Mam, is traditionally used as a dipping sauce or salad dressing, but you can also use it bring extra oomph to other Asian dishes that would benefit from its sweet-salty-sour flavour profile.
What You’ll Need
All you need for this Vietnamese dipping sauce is water, fish sauce, rice vinegar, lime juice, sugar, garlic and fresh chilli. We’ve made this recipe perfect for one serving or on a share platter, but it’s also very easy to scale it up to store for later or serve more people.
Fish Sauce
Fish sauce is a powerful, intensely flavoured ingredient ready to add a savoury flavour boost to your cooking. We usually have Squid Brand or Three Crabs fish sauce in the cupboard. You should be able to find fish sauce in the Asian aisle of your local supermarket, or at an Asian supermarket. Otherwise, it’s also available online.
If you need to substitute, we recommend using soy sauce, which is made from soybeans and wheat. It’s also a great alternative for vegans.
Rice Vinegar
Like the name implies, this vinegar is made from rice through fermentation. Unlike regular white vinegar, it’s sweeter and less acidic. The varieties found at Asian supermarkets are usually Chinese or Japanese in origin and are fine to use for this recipe, or you can purchase online.
If you can’t find rice vinegar, you can substitute with apple cider vinegar. If you’re in a real pinch, you can use lemon juice or regular vinegar but both will alter the taste slightly.
How to make Nuoc Mam Cham:
Place all ingredients for the dipping sauce in a small bowl.
Serve immediately.
Wandercook’s Tips
- For the best flavour, serve immediately and at room temperature. You can also add more of any ingredient to suit your flavour preferences.
- Use this sauce for dipping spring rolls, cold rolls, pork, chicken or seafood, as well as drizzling over rice dishes or noodle salads.
- You can use hot water to help dissolve the sugar faster. Then allow to cool before serving.
- Finely chop the chilli and garlic, so you don’t end up crunching on a large chunk!
FAQs
It should last up to around for a week when stored in the fridge.
To keep it fresher for longer, always store nuoc mam cham in the fridge in an airtight container or bottle.
Yes, this dipping sauce is completely gluten free.
Variations & Substitutes
- We love using the fiery small Thai red chillies in this recipe, but any hot chillies you have on hand will work perfectly. Just make sure to adjust the amount until you have the perfect spicy heat to suit your tastebuds.
- For a vegan version, swap the fish sauce for soy sauce. (Optionally, make sure the soy sauce has no gluten to keep this recipe gluten free.)
- You can use lemon instead of lime juice, this will only slightly change the flavour while still giving the sauce its classic sour flavour. You can also use bottle lime or lemon juice if that’s easier to source than the fresh fruit, although the flavour won’t be quite as zingy.
- Some versions of this recipe are made with soda like lemonade or 7Up instead of still water.
When it’s this easy to make and tastes sooo good, you’ll never want to buy store-bought dipping sauce again!
What to serve with this dipping sauce:
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tsp lime juice
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp garlic finely chopped
- 1 fresh chilli birds eye, finely chopped
Instructions
- In a bowl, add in the water, fish sauce, rice vinegar, lime juice, sugar, chopped garlic and finely chopped chilli.2 tbsp water, 1 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tsp lime juice, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp garlic, 1 fresh chilli
- Stir gently and serve.
Video
Recipe Notes
- For the best flavour, serve immediately and at room temperature. You can also add more of any ingredient to suit your flavour preferences.
- Use this sauce for dipping spring rolls, cold rolls, pork, chicken or seafood, as well as drizzling over rice dishes or noodle salads.
- You can use hot water to help dissolve the sugar faster. Then allow to cool before serving.
- Finely chop the chilli and garlic, so you don’t end up crunching on a large chunk!
- How long does Vietnamese dipping sauce last? It should last up to around for a week when stored in the fridge.
- How should you store it? To keep it fresher for longer, always store nuoc mam cham in the fridge in an airtight container or bottle.
- Is nuoc mam cham gluten free? Yes, this dipping sauce is completely gluten free.
- We love using the fiery small Thai red chillies in this recipe, but any hot chillies you have on hand will work perfectly. Just make sure to adjust the amount until you have the perfect spicy heat to suit your tastebuds.
- For a vegan version, swap the fish sauce for soy sauce. (Optionally, make sure the soy sauce has no gluten to keep this recipe gluten free.)
- You can use lemon instead of lime juice, this will only slightly change the flavour while still giving the sauce its classic sour flavour. You can also use bottle lime or lemon juice if that’s easier to source than the fresh fruit, although the flavour won’t be quite as zingy.
- Some versions of this recipe are made with soda like lemonade or 7Up instead of still water.
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