I have an extensive collection of fish sauces but it hasn't included fish-less fish sauce simply because vegetarian fish sauce has always disappointed me. However, I recently came across two brands of pineapple-based vegetarian fish sauce that looked promising. They were about $4 each at the Green Farm market in Orange County’s Little Saigon in Southern California. I’ve since seen them at other Viet markets such as Shun Fat (Thuan Phat).
The relatively high price point signaled a potentially good product. Maybe these brands would be better than the bland, insipid vegetarian fish sauce that I’d sampled in the past? I bought them both and here are my thoughts, plus a vegetarian fish sauce recipe for you to experiment with making your own since you may not live near a Viet market.
Regular vs. Vegetarian Fish Sauce
I usually rate fish sauce by considering many factors, including color (a rich reddish brown marks high quality nuoc mam), smell (a dried porcini-like briny aroma with a hint of the sea is good) and taste (ultimately, I’m looking for a deep flavor that’s not fishy but salty and savory).
How did the vegetarian fish sauces compare to regular fish sauce? The vegetarian nuoc mam had a nice brown color, little aroma, and a faintly sweet, savory flavor. It’s not salty and definitely not fishy.
Most Viet vegetarian dishes tend to be delicate in flavor so I can see the vegetarian fish sauces working well in those kinds of dishes. The sodium levels are slightly lower than most regular fish sauce (around 1500 mg sodium per tablespoon), which explains the lighter flavor of the vegetarian fish sauce.
Fish sauce magic lies in how you can use it to imbue umami in food. Among the umami boosters in the vegetarian fish sauces I bought are yeast extract and monosodium glutamate. Without animal protein involved, you need something to push the umami-ness and to unite the ingredients to produce a desirable nuoc mam-like flavor.
Regular vs irregular vegetarians
If you’re a vegetarian, why would you want to eat fake fish sauce? Vietnam has always had a large Buddhist population and having a decent alternative to fish sauce helps people to remain on their religious path. Some Buddhists are hardcore, 100 percent vegetarians while other practice intermittent vegetarianism. On one of the vegetarian fish sauce labels, full-time vegetarians are referred to as ‘regular’ while the later are called ‘irregular’ vegetarians.
The terms are religious in nature, not meant to slight anyone’s personal character or digestive health.
In addition to a vegetarian audience, I suppose vegan fish sauce would be good for people with seafood allergies. If the ingredients were kosher, it would work for those keeping kosher. See the recipe at the end of this article, if you want to make your own!
Using Vegetarian Fish Sauce
I first tried sprinkling the vegetarian fish sauce onto hot cooked rice and it was fine. But what if I mixed it with other ingredients? I have a vegetarian nuoc cham recipe in Vietnamese Food Any Day, but being curious, I used the vegetarian fish sauce to make nuoc cham chay (chay is the Viet term for anything that’s vegetarian). The result was a little lighter than regular nuoc cham made with actual nuoc mam.
The two kinds of fish sauces are cousins of different mothers rather than siblings. Regular and vegetarian/vegan fish sauce are similar but not the same.
Making Vegetarian Fish Sauce
I know most of you don’t have a Viet market nearby so I wondered if I could make vegetarian fish sauce that was better than the one I made a few years ago. I started combining canned Trader Joe’s pineapple juice (a very good product that tastes fresh, despite being in a can), my favorite light soy sauce (light in color, not low sodium; see the soy sauce buying guide if you need an assist), fine sea salt (it tastes good and comes from the ocean, since the idea is to mimic something from the sea), and cassava syrup (sugar that delivers a round mouthfeel plus a delicate sweetness).
After playing with the proportions of salty-savory (soy sauce adds umami but too much and the result is too dark but too much salt created a sharp finish) and sweetness (pineapple has a natural sweet tang that needed to be curbed by the cassava syrup), my homemade vegetarian fish sauce was surprisingly serviceable. Appearance wise, the pineapple juice’s cloudiness could be dealt with by decanting and/or filtering. But the nuoc mam chay needed an umami boost, which is why I reached for a bit of MSG. (For a discussion on MSG, see this post on MSG in pho or you may try mushroom powder, which will turn the vegetarian fish sauce a bit cloudy.)
Once the MSG crystals dissolved, the vegetarian fish sauce tasted good. It was a close facsimile to the commercial condiment I purchased in Little Saigon.
Next up, I’m going to cook with the commercial and homemade vegetarian fish sauce and see what happens. For now, you can look to buying Viet vegetarian fish sauces or make your own!
Related articles
- One Bottle of Fish Sauce Is Not Enough (my pan-Asian nuoc mam collection, on Taste.com)
- How to Buy and Use Fish Sauce
- Fish Sauce Worth Seeking: Son, Megachef, 3 Mien
Print Recipe
Vegan Fish Sauce
Cassava syrup is sold at health food stores. It’s thick like corn syrup but sweeter. As a substitute, try agave syrup, but it’ll be thinner in consistency, and you’ll have to adjust quantities. A light-colored soy sauce is great for creating umami and slowly controlling the color. If you don't have it, just use Kikkoman.
This is a work in progress so experiment and please provide your feedback and insights! As of this writing, 7/25/19, I just made the sauce so I don’t know how long it will keep. However, I venture, it will be fine for a 2 weeks.
Servings: 1 cup
Ingredients
- 1 cup pineapple juice such as Trader Joe's canned
- 2 tablespoons cassava syrup
- 1 ½ tablespoons light soy sauce such as Pearl River Bridge Premium Label
- 1 ½ tablespoons fine sea salt
- ½ teaspoon monosodium glutamate or rounded ¾ teaspoon mushroom seasoning powder
Instructions
In a measuring cup, stir together the juice, cassava syrup, soy sauce, salt, and MSG. Let sit for about 10 minutes to meld flavors. Then taste and adjust things to arrive at a savory-salty-very-lightly sweet finish. You want to make the condiment a little uncomfortably too salty because when you use it, you'll likely be diluting it with water, lime juice, etc. Push it a bit, then jot down your proportions for the future.
Or, hedge by keeping the vegetarian fish sauce moderately salty and remember to add salt when you use the condiment in dishes.
If you want a clear liquid, let the condiment sit for a few hours then decant to a jar or bottle. Use a coffee filter for super clear results. Store in the fridge and bring to room temperature before using.
