10 Popular Vietnamese Dipping Sauces

Posted on Mar 29, 2022

What makes Vietnamese cuisine so unique and delicious is the smorgasbord of dipping sauces we have just for about everything. From the mild peanut sauce to the more exotic pungent fermented fish dipping sauce, there’s always a sauce that complements a dish.

Below are 10 popular Vietnamese sauces that we simply can’t go without. 

Thai-Style Chili, Lime, Garlic and Cilantro Dipping Sauce for Seafood (Nước Chấm Hải Sản Kiểu Thái)

This Thai-style dipping sauce is very similar to the Vietnamese dipping sauce (Nước Mắm Chấm). It contains the five S’s: sweet, spicy, sour, savory, and sexy. The main difference is the use of cilantro.

The cilantro’s bold flavor and aroma pairs perfectly with seafood. I particularly enjoy it with clams, mussels, and other shellfish. I love using the clam as a scoop to throw back the sauce and clam like the shellfish aficionado that I am.

You can also have this sauce with other food that needs a Southeast Asian flair. Think of fried chicken, fried pork ribs, and even fried tofu. The acidity of the sauce complements the fatty fried taste. It’s absolutely delicious!

Vietnamese Fermented Shrimp Sauce (Mam Tom)

This Vietnamese fermented shrimp sauce (Mam Tom) is the traditional dipping sauce for Hanoi Fried Fish with Turmeric and Dill (Cha Ca La Vong).

Mam Tom is not for the faint of heart. It has a strong and pungent smell. It’s made from a mixture of fermented shrimp paste, fresh crushed garlic, water and lemon juice.

Four Popular Vietnamese Unripe Green Mango Dipping Sauces

In Vietnam, mangoes are rarely eaten when ripe. It’s the tart and crunchy unripe green mangoes that is highly sought after. When unripe green mangoes are paired with a sweet, spicy and savory dipping sauce or powder, it becomes a popular Southeast Asian snack. Here are the four popular dipping sauces that you can eat with unripe green mangoes.

Vietnamese Green Seafood Sauce with Condensed Milk (Muoi Ot Xanh Sua Dac Cham Hai San)

This Vietnamese green seafood sauce has one ingredient that you wouldn’t expect: sweetened condensed milk. I was a bit skeptical at first when a few readers reached out and asked me to replicate “the green seafood sauce with condensed milk” that is currently making the rounds in Vietnam. After a bit of research and tweaking, I came up with the recipe below.

The taste is surprisingly delicious with so many different flavors: sweet, sour, spicy savory and the newest of them all, rich from the condensed milk. This sauce is perfect for any seafood lover. Simply boil, grill, or steam your seafood and serve this sauce on the side.

The original sauce uses A LOT of green Thai green chili peppers. Since I don’t have a very high tolerance for spicy food, I replace some of the green chili peppers with green bell peppers, mainly for color. However, if you cook this sauce in a saucepan (for longer storage and a thicker consistency), the bell peppers cooks down to add a natural sweetness to the sauce.

Vietnamese Ginger Fish Sauce (Nuoc Mam Gung)

Vietnamese ginger fish sauce (Nuoc Mam Gung) is made from mixing together fish sauce, sugar, lemon/lime juice, garlic and ginger. It’s sweet, sour and spicy with a nice zing from freshly grated ginger, making it the perfect dipping sauce for poached chicken, duck and grilled seafood.

Vietnamese Fish Sauce Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Mam Cham)

Vietnamese fish sauce dipping sauce, or Nuoc Mam Cham or Nuoc Mam Ot, is used in many Vietnamese dishes:

• Cha gio (egg rolls)
• Goi cuon (spring rolls)
• Banh xeo (Vietnamese crepes)
• Banh cuon (Vietnamese rice rolls)
• Vietnamese mini pancakes (banh khot)
• Grilled meats

and many, many more.

If these dishes do not come with Nuoc Mam Cham, there's no point in eating! Nuoc Mam Cham is such a major component of Vietnamese cooking that it should be a prerequisite for being Vietnamese.

Vietnamese Peanut Dipping Sauce for Spring Rolls (Tương Chấm Gỏi Cuốn)

Creamy, sweet, and spicy Vietnamese peanut sauce that’s perfect for Vietnamese spring rolls with shrimp and pork (Goi Cuon Tom Thit) and Vietnamese jicama and carrot spring rolls (Goi Cuon Bo Bia).

You can make this peanut dipping sauce ahead of time. Put it in a covered container and store it in your fridge. Bring it to room temperature or reheat it on the stove before serving.

Vietnamese Vegetable Dipping Sauce with Caramelized Fish Sauce (Mắm Kho Quẹt)

Mam Kho Quet is a sauce and vegetable dish derived from poverty when Vietnamese farmers had plentiful vegetables but very little protein. The dipping sauce is made by caramelizing fish sauce and sugar in a small clay pot with a small amount of pork, dried shrimp, dried fish, and/or pork fat. The sauce is then served in the clay pot alongside a platter of fresh and boiled vegetables, such as cucumbers, carrots, broccoli, daikon, okra and squash. Mam Kho Quet is all about stretching a small amount of protein to add calories, as well as flavor, to an otherwise meager meal of mostly vegetables.

Although, Mam Kho Quet is a Vietnamese peasant dish, you can find it nowadays in many high-end restaurants all over Saigon. It's a taste of the past that is making its way back to mainstream Vietnam. Plus, it’s a great way to eat your vegetables!

Pot Sticker Soy Dipping Sauce

The other day I spent a good chunk of my afternoon prepping left over vegetables to do a stir fry with leftover ramen. I ran out of my regular stir fry egg noodles so I decided to use left over fresh Japanese ramen. I learned an important lesson that day. You can't use fresh Japanese ramen, that is meant for soup, in a asdf@#$! stir-fry. The ramen clumped together as I added the liquid marinade and attempted to toss everything together. What I had was an unappetizing ball of ramen. A ramen lollipop if you will. I chucked everything in the trash and cooked up some store-bought pot stickers instead. Hey, if you don't fail, you will never learn. And luckily for me, I fail all the time.

Vietnamese Fermented Anchovy Dipping Sauce (Mam Nem)

Mắm Nêm is a very pungent Vietnamese sauce made with fermented anchovy, crushed pineapples, sugar, lemon juice, Thai chili pepper, lemongrass and garlic. It is a hard-core alternative to wherever the more widely known Vietnamese Fish Sauce Dipping Sauce (Nuoc Mam Cham) is used, and best alongside beef dishes as in Vietnamese Lemongrass Grilled Beef (Bo Nuong Vi).

Mam Nem is an acquired taste, but once you are used to it, it's oh so so so good.

Original post: https://www.vickypham.com/blog/10-popular-vietnamese-dipping-sauces