The Bold Ingredient Your Soups Have Been Missing

Soups are delicious comfort foods that exist across almost every cuisine in some form. They can be the simplest of dishes, made with whatever you happen to have on hand (like the hearty Italian ribollita soup), or complex bowls of delicately balanced flavors. And that's essentially what great soup comes down to — the balance of flavors. That it's often considered a simple dish, making satisfying soup can be challenging. The need to add deep flavors and a rich mouthfeel is important and can be achieved via multiple ingredients. One such ingredient that you may have heard of but never considered a soup savior is nước chấm, also known as nước mắm chấm. The latter term refers to fish sauce, but is used interchangeably by those in the know.

Originating from Vietnam where it is so common that its name simply translates to "dipping sauce," nước chấm epitomizes what many popular Southeast Asian dishes achieve with aplomb — balancing spicy, sweet, tangy, salty, and umami flavors. Made with a base of fish sauce, this sauce can round out the flavors of all kinds of soups, and simultaneously become the most passed-around condiment on the dinner table. It has few ingredients, is simple to make at home, and comes together in a jiffy.

Nước chấm starts with a simple mixture of fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, and water. The proportions can be flexible depending on which flavors you want to be more prominent. However, a good place to start is using one part each of lime juice and sugar, half a part of fish sauce, and two parts warm water. Whisk everything together and the base of your nước chấm is ready.

Then, you can add extra seasonings like minced garlic, fresh red chili, and ginger. When doing this, consider where you'll use the condiment. While some dishes benefit from a hint of raw ginger and garlic, others may not. If you plan on using nước chấm to boost tomato soup, skip the ginger and go easy on the raw garlic. Fish sauce's umami notes complement tomato sauce well and can do the same in your tomato soup. Stews also love a touch of nước chấm, as the sauce's acidity helps cut through the meat's richness and highlights the vegetables. And if you've used slurry to thicken the stew, this flavorful condiment can help counter any dilution of flavors that may have occurred.

With nước chấm, a little goes a long way. Start with a small amount and sample before adding more. If something doesn't taste right, first check that the flavors in the nu'oc cham are properly balanced and only then add more to your soup.