Dip, Toss, Marinate, and More with Nuoc Cham, An Essential Vietnamese Sauce

The words "hassle-free holiday trick" are music to our ears. We partnered with Delta® Faucet to announce their newest addition to the kitchen, ShieldSpray™ Technology. It makes holiday cleanup easy by keeping the splashing contained, so we're free to entertain more. And we're celebrating by sharing our favorite make-ahead sauces that'll add that something extra to all your holiday dinner parties.

Sweet, sour, salty, savory, spicy: Nuoc Cham embodies just about every aspect of flavor that our tongues are capable of tasting. This essential Vietnamese fish sauce employs lime juice, sugar, chiles, and sometimes garlic to make a multi-use, multi-dimensional sauce that you can add to so many dishes. We repeat: So. Many. Dishes.

From vegetables, crepes, and noodles to fish and meat, it's as versatile as they come. Nuoc Cham's main function is for dipping and condiment use, but it also works for tossing, sautéing, marinating, swirling, and just plain flavoring. (Seriously, you name it!)

You can prepare it early in the day (always a win) and let it sit at room temperature (no extra fridge space required).

While Vietnamese in origin, Nuoc Cham's sweet, sour, and salty flavor works well with other cuisines from around Asia. Here are a few menus—the dishes, you could mix and match—that'll get you using Nuoc Cham regularly.

How to use Nuoc Cham:

• Use Nuoc Cham in a suite of dipping sauces for the spicy noodle cake.
• Then get to tossing: The cucumber salad and the spicy Thai steak salad would be very happy to marinate in it.

How to use Nuoc Cham:

• Repeat after us: Dipping and dressing, dipping and dressing. Spring rolls are a classic pair with Nuoc Cham, and the rice salad wouldn't be sad to have it as an extra dressing.
• Serve it up for dipping with the grilled chicken, and you could even add it to the chicken's marinade.

How to use Nuoc Cham:

• Dip dumplings into Nuoc Cham over and over.
• Then, add it to your salad and go back to dipping for the main course of simple, succulent chicken.

We partnered with Delta® Faucet to celebrate their newest addition to the kitchen, ShieldSpray™ Technology. It allows hosts seamless cleanup (be gone, stubborn food specks) without making an even bigger mess (thanks to an innovative shield of water that surrounds the water jet). And all that means more time with guests—plus less time soaking, scrubbing, and shirt swapping.