Peanut dipping sauce is elite! It makes almost anything taste better. Take a bland vegetable and dip it in some peanut sauce and it’s the best thing you’ve had all day. 

This Vietnamese peanut dipping sauce is creamy, tangy, a little sweet and a little spicy. It’s seven ingredients and only a couple of steps to make it, so it’s an easy sauce to make and add to your table. It's made from smooth peanut butter loosened with hot water, then seasoned with hoisin sauce, fish sauce and lime juice.

It’s generally served with grilled skewers like chicken or pork as well as recipe paper rolls. I also like dipping veggies into it or putting it on some rice noodles. 

Ingredient Notes

Peanut butter:

Use smooth peanut butter for this sauce. Crunchy works but gives a rougher texture that doesn’t suit dipping as well. For flavour, standard commercial peanut butter emulsifies more easily and gives a slightly sweeter, more consistent result. Natural peanut butter gives a more pronounced peanut flavour but can be oilier and sometimes takes more whisking to come together smoothly.

Hoisin sauce:

Hoisin is a thick, sweet Chinese fermented soybean sauce with a deep, slightly smoky flavour. It’s the main seasoning base of this sauce, providing sweetness and depth. Hoisin varies in sweetness between brands, so taste as you go and adjust with extra lime juice if yours is on the sweeter side.

Fish sauce:

Just a dash here. The fish sauce isn’t meant to be detectable on its own. It adds a background savoury note that rounds the sweetness of the hoisin and lifts the overall flavour of the sauce. If you need to make this vegetarian, leave it out or use a small splash of soy sauce instead. The sauce still works without it.