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Simple Dipping Sauce

Not every meal requires assembling a nuanced tart-sweet-salty-spicy dipping sauce. Sometimes, the food just needs a light dip in something straightforward. This sauce is basically diluted fish sauce emboldened by thin rings of fiery chiles. With only three ingredients, it is important to use high-quality fish sauce and chiles with fragrance and heat.

Recipe information

  • Yield

    makes about 1/3 cup

Ingredients

2

tablespoons fish sauce

3

tablespoons water

1 or 2

Thai or serrano chiles, thinly sliced

Need to make a substitution?

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    In a small bowl, combine the fish sauce and water. Taste and adjust the level of saltiness with more fish sauce or water as needed. Add the chiles and set aside for at least 15 minutes for the flavors to develop.

    Step 2

    Put the sauce on the table so that diners can serve themselves, or divide among individual dipping sauce bowls.

Image may contain: Food, Noodle, Meal, Pasta, Vermicelli, Ketchup, Dish, and Lunch
Adapted with permission from ‘Into the Vietnamese Kitchen’ by Andrea Nguyen, copyright © 2006. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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