Silky, Spicy, Sweet Vietnamese Dipping Sauces to up Your Grilling Game
Green seafood sauce + Red seafood sauce + 4 grilled dishes to serve with your sauce(s!)
By now, you know Vietnamese nuoc cham dipping sauce, well yes? I shared all my tips and recipes for how to make the versatile sauce in a March PTFS dispatch. I hope you’ve made good use of the recipes👇!
Let’s boost your Viet cooking game with dipping sauces that are sort of an insider’s secret. They’re popular in Vietnam, where people buy them and make them at home too. They require few ingredients and in 2 minutes, you can conjure up a spicy, sweet, tangy, creamy condiment that goes with practically anything!
Originally from Nha Trang, a coastal city in the southern part of central Vietnam with lots of fresh seafood, these sauces involve an unusual combination of ingredients that includes sweetened condensed milk. You can make either a green or reddish-orange sauce depending on your chile preference. The more popular one is green and called Muối Ớt Xanh — literally green chile salt, but in English, it’s often called “Green Seafood Sauce”.
Indeed, there’s truth in advertising — Green Seafood Sauce goes well with seafood. However, it also goes with other animal proteins and veggies too. Ditto for the red version.
I experimented with the sauces by trying both with a mixed grill this week that included shrimp, squid, veggies, and Viet restaurant-style lemongrass pork (thịt heo nướng sả), a free 🆓 recipe on my website.
The well-seasoned pork has layered flavors and this sauce amplified them, rather than overwhelm. Remarkably, the sauces punched up the flavors of everything. The shrimp was briny sweet, the squid was delicate, and the veggies each had their personal flavor characteristics. (All those items cook up fast so along with cooked rice that was heated up in the microwave, we had dinner in little time.)
So, you should have my versatile formulas for these sauces in your back pocket for grilling season and beyond (they go well with steamed seafood, and roast chicken and steamed chicken, I’ve heard!). While you’re at it, try brushing these sauces on food while they’re grilling. Why not?
Translation note: The green sauce is often translated into English as “Green Seafood Sauce” but the red one is awkwardly called “Red Chile Salt Sauce”. They both go well with seafood so I’m just calling them Green and Red Seafood Sauce. If you want to be 100 percent correct, call them by their Vietnamese names:
❇️ Muối Ớt Xanh (“moo-ee uht sann”)
🅾️ Muối Ớt Đỏ (“moo-ee uht daw”)
Below you’ll find this suite of information for you to enjoy what I prepared and to riff on it!
5 recipes: Green Seafood Sauce + Red Seafood Sauce recipes + guidance on how to make simple Grilled Shrimp + Grilled Squid + Grilled Veggies
Recipes are in text and as a downloadable PDF
A techniques video on how to trim shell-on, head-on shrimp like a pro
Ingredient explainers and strategies for dialing in a heat level to match your taste buds
I’m keeping jars of these sauces in my fridge this summer and so should you!
