5 Essentials to Unlock Vietnamese Cooking at Home

Vietnamese cooking is easy-peasy when you master the essentials! Today, I’m teaching you the 5 foundational building blocks that show up in almost every iconic Vietnamese dish: 1) Pickled carrots & daikon (Đồ Chua) 2) Nước mắm chấm (Vietnamese (fish sauce) dipping sauce) 3) Scallion oil (Mỡ Hành) 4) Annatto seed oil (Dầu Điều) 5) Fresh roasted crushed peanuts These are the quiet MVPs of Vietnamese cuisine — the heroes that make everything taste brighter, fresher, and legit Vietnamese. Once you have these ready, you can assemble so many dishes effortlessly. You’ll see these essentials used throughout my Vietnamese recipes, including: 👉 Broken Rice with Lemongrass Pork Chops (Cơm Tấm):    • Vietnamese Pork Chops with Broken Rice (Cơ...   👉 Grilled Pork Vermicelli Bowl (Bún Thịt Nướng) - (coming next week) 👉 Grilled Chicken Vermicelli Bowl (Bún Gà Nướng) - (coming later this month) If you want the printable recipe cards for my dishes, you can grab them for free on my page: ✨ https://beacons.ai/nomsbynancy If you want bold flavour with minimal effort throughout the week… start here. 💛