EASY Nuoc Cham Chay (Vietnamese Vegan Dipping Sauce)
Try this sweet & tangy classic Vegan Vietnamese dipping sauce known as Nước chấm Chay. This recipe is the vegan version of the iconic Vietnamese Dipping Sauce. Made with soy sauce, fresh lime juice, vinegar, Thai Chili, garlic & sugar. A delicious spring roll dipping sauce or vermicelli sauce!
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp soy sauce use light soy sauce
- 4-5 tbsp sugar adjust to your preference
- ½ cup hot water
- 2 tbsp vinegar
- 1/2 lime or 1/4 lemon
- 1 Thai red chili pepper, finely chopped 1 tsp chili paste
- 1 garlic finely chopped
Instructions
- Dissolve the sugar in the hot water. Add the vinegar and lime or lemon juice. Mix until well combined.
- Let the mixture cool for 15-20 minutes. Once the mixture is cooled add the soy sauce, thai red chili and garlic. Stir to mix.
Notes
Use fresh lemon/lime juice. Fresh juice makes the sour jump. Only a little bit is needed since there is already vinegar.
Let the water and sugar mixture cool. This is an important step to ensure you don’t cook Thai chili and garlic. I let the sugar and hot water cool down before adding the rest of the ingredients. If you add them too early it will draw out the flavors too much and overpower the dipping sauce.
Adjust ingredients. There is no right or wrong recipe. Everyone makes their nuoc cham chay differently and this can easily be adjusted to your preference by adding more or less of he ingredients. If you would like it more sweet add more sugar, if you would like it salty add more soy sauce, more sour or tangy add more vinegar or lemon/lime juice. You can play around with the ratio.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!