It’s a an excellent and traditional choice of dipping your Vietnamese freshly made spring rolls, also known as goi cuon into the diverse sauce made from fish sauce. You may also be used to a classic sauce that has established its place as the most well-known dipping condiment for the rolls. It is an the United States-Vietnamese peanut sauce.

The sauce is delicious and, luckily for you that it’s easy to prepare.

The ingredients in Vietnamese peanut sauce

If you cook regularly Asian meals at home, you probably have the ingredients to prepare this sauce already in your pantry. Perhaps the roasted peanuts are the only option however, I happen to have an Costco size bag of this that I’ve been working on for a couple of months.

Here are the essential ingredients we’ll need:

A cooking oil that is neutral – like the vegetable oil, or even canola.
Hoisin sauce is interesting because the recipe is commonly known as peanut dip sauce, however in this particular recipe, the hoisin is twice the proportion of peanut.
Peanut butter is a great choice. You can make chunky peanut butter as well, however using the smooth variety will make it melt in the sauce more easily.
Sambal chile paste is not required and you can add as much as would like. It is the classic chilli sauce that was used in Vietnam to dip the fresh Spring Rolls.
Sriracha – Sriracha is the not the usual method to spice up sauce, but it is effective in the event that you only have it because it contains similar ingredients to garlic, vinegar and chiles.
Crushed, roasted peanuts This adds texture and visual appeal for the condiment. This is known as peanut dip sauce, after all.

How about you can do with some fish sauce to flavor this? If you’d like to make the full-on fish sauce sauce as a dipping sauce as well, it’s an option that is traditional from Vietnam that is served along with these rolls. But, using bottled fish sauce to flavor this hoisin-peanut-butter-based sauce isn’t the traditional Vietnamese method.

How do you modify this recipe to suit your preferences

This proportion of peanut butter to hoisin is the most important ingredient of this dish. This is the ratio I prefer to taste and the thickness of the sauce – the coating it gives the rolls is what appeals for me. There are alternatives to doing it, and you can alter the ratio to find one that you like more!

Hoisin sauce is extremely powerful So should you increase the amount take care and taste when you’re done.

I’ve also seen some other dishes that people prefer using a high proportion to peanut butter. It’s like you’re dropping the rolls into plain peanut butter. It’s not a bad thing, I am a huge fan of peanut butter so this could work for you if you’re looking for a different way to enjoy it. This means that you’ll require more water in order to dilute the flavor during cooking, since peanut butter is quite thick.

How can I keep this sauce in the refrigerator?

Since we’re boiling the sauce, it’s clean and will last in the refrigerator for around one week. Be sure to make use of the cleanest utensils (ones that you haven’t had a meal with or touched other food items with) when scooping out some so that the main sauce container lasts longer and doesn’t spoil.

The sauce will get thicker after it is refrigerated, so ensure that you microwave the portion that you scooped out to loosen and warm the sauce prior to serving.