Cuisine · Vietnam

Vietnamese cooking

Herbs by the fistful, pho broth that takes 12 hours, fish sauce instead of salt. Cooking that feels bright even at its richest.

All ⏱Under 30 min ⏱Under 60 min 🥬Vegetarian 🌱Vegan

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🇻🇳VietnamAdvanced

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Bánh Mì

The famous Vietnamese sandwich that fuses French baguette with Southeast Asian fillings — spiced pork, quick-pickled vegetables, fresh herbs and chili sauce. Two cultures in one loud, crunchy, deeply satisfying bite.

25 min460 kcal2 serves

⚡Quick💪High protein🌶️Spicy

★4.8

🇻🇳VietnamAdvanced

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Bánh Xèo (Vietnamese Sizzling Crêpes)

Golden turmeric crêpes fried until shatteringly crisp, filled with pork belly, shrimp, mung bean, and bean sprouts — then folded and eaten wrapped in lettuce with mint and cilantro, dipped in nước chấm. The name means 'sizzling cake': the xèo is the sound the rice flour batter makes the instant it hits the smoking-hot oil. Without that sound, the pan is not hot enough. Getting the crêpe genuinely crisp rather than soft and chewy requires three things: a thin batter, very hot oil, and patience — the crêpe needs 4 to 5 minutes undisturbed before it is ready to fold.

50 min380 kcal4 serves

🌶️Spicy

★4.8

🇻🇳VietnamAdvanced

Soups

Bún Bò Huế (Spicy Vietnamese Beef and Lemongrass Noodle Soup)

Bún bò Huế is a fiery red Vietnamese noodle soup from the central city of Huế, the former imperial capital. The broth is built on a long simmer of beef shank, pork ribs, beef bones, lemongrass, charred aromatics, and pineapple, then finished with mắm ruốc (Huế-style fermented shrimp paste) and a separate annatto-lemongrass sate sauce that gives the soup its signature crimson colour and heat. Thick round rice noodles, sliced beef shank, and herbs (Thai basil, Vietnamese coriander, mung bean sprouts, banana blossom) finish the bowl. Compared to phở, bún bò Huế is bolder, spicier, and more aromatic — phở's louder cousin from central Vietnam. Active work 30 minutes, simmer 3.5 hours. Serves 8 generous bowls.

240 min580 kcal8 serves

💪High protein🌶️Spicy🌾Gluten-free

★4.4

🇻🇳VietnamAdvanced

Meat Dishes

Bún Chả

Hanoi's most iconic street-food dish: smoky grilled pork patties (chả băm) and caramelized pork belly slices (chả miếng) submerged in a warm, sweet-sour dipping broth, served alongside cool rice vermicelli, pickled carrot and daikon, and a heap of fresh Vietnamese herbs. The components arrive separately and each diner builds their own bite — a tangle of noodles and herbs dipped into the broth with a piece of pork and pickle, all in one mouthful. Gained international fame when Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain ate it at a Hanoi street stall in 2016. The version that gained that fame is a Hanoi recipe, distinct from the southern bún thịt nướng: no lemongrass in the pork, the sauce served warm not cold, patties alongside sliced belly.

60 min480 kcal4 serves

💪High protein

★4.8

🇻🇳VietnamAdvanced

Soups

Canh Chua (Vietnamese Sour Soup)

A southern Vietnamese sour soup from the Mekong Delta: a tamarind-based broth balanced with pineapple sweetness and fish sauce umami, filled with fish steaks or shrimp, tomatoes, okra, bean sprouts, and taro stem, finished with crispy fried garlic and a crown of fresh herbs. The soup's defining quality is the precise calibration of four tastes — sour (tamarind), sweet (pineapple), salty (fish sauce), and savory (the fish) — in a broth that is light but deeply flavoured. Catfish is traditional; salmon, snapper, or tilapia all work. Canh chua is eaten at every meal of the day in southern Vietnamese homes, almost always alongside cá kho tộ (caramelized fish in clay pot) and steamed white rice.

40 min280 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

★4.6

🇻🇳VietnamAdvanced

Meat Dishes

Cơm Tấm (Vietnamese Broken Rice)

Saigon's signature plate: broken rice — the fractured grains discarded during milling, now prized — topped with a lemongrass and fish sauce-marinated pork chop grilled until caramelized, a sunny-side-up fried egg, cool sliced cucumber and tomato, pickled carrot and daikon, and a drizzle of hot scallion oil. Served with nước chấm on the side, spooned over the plate as you eat. Broken rice absorbs the fish sauce dipping sauce more readily than whole grains and has a slightly firmer, more interesting texture. In Saigon this plate is eaten at any hour — a food stall with a 'Cơm Tấm' sign is open from before dawn until after midnight. 'Saigon people eat cơm tấm like Hanoi people eat phở.'

60 min560 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free💪High protein

★4.6

Gỏi Cuốn (Vietnamese Fresh Spring Rolls)

🇻🇳VietnamAdvanced

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Gỏi Cuốn (Vietnamese Fresh Spring Rolls)

Translucent rice paper rolled around poached pork belly, boiled shrimp split lengthwise, rice vermicelli, soft lettuce, fresh mint and Thai basil, with garlic chives trailing from one end. The shrimp is placed at the top before rolling so it shows through the paper like a window — pink, curved, vivid. Everything inside is cooked, cooled, and assembled cold. The roll is eaten with a rich peanut-hoisin dipping sauce. Gỏi cuốn translates literally as 'salad rolls' (gỏi = salad, cuốn = to roll), not spring rolls — the name reflects the herb-forward lightness of the filling rather than the season. They are served fresh, at room temperature, within minutes of rolling; the rice paper hardens and the roll becomes difficult to eat if it sits more than 20 to 30 minutes.

50 min220 kcal4 serves

🌶️Spicy

★4.5

🇻🇳VietnamEasy

Sauces and Dips

Nuoc Cham

Nuoc cham is the essential Vietnamese dipping sauce — a bright, balanced mix of fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, garlic, and chili that ties together spring rolls, grilled meats, rice bowls, and noodle salads with sweet, sour, salty, and spicy notes in every drop.

5 min35 kcal4 serves

⚡Quick🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

★4.7

🇻🇳VietnamAdvanced

Soups

Pho Bo (Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup)

Vietnam's most iconic dish — a crystal-clear, deeply aromatic beef broth simmered for hours with charred onion, ginger, and whole spices, served over rice noodles with paper-thin beef, fresh herbs, lime, and chili. The broth is everything.

210 min400 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy💪High protein

★4.9

🇻🇳VietnamEasy

Beverages

Vietnamese Iced Coffee (Cà Phê Sữa Đá)

Cà phê sữa đá — coffee, milk, ice — is what happens when French colonial drip culture meets Vietnamese pragmatism. Fresh milk was scarce, so sweetened condensed milk became the standard. Robusta beans, grown abundantly in the Central Highlands, gave the coffee its distinctive strength and slight bitterness. The phin filter slows the brew to a deliberate drip, concentrating the flavor. The result: a drink that is simultaneously very strong and very sweet, poured over ice so the heat of the day doesn't stand a chance. You can replicate it at home without a phin — a strong espresso or French press shot works — but the ritual of watching it drip is worth the five minutes.

15 min165 kcal1 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free⚡Quick

★4.4

Nearby flavors

Four kitchens with overlapping ingredients and similar rhythms to Vietnamese cooking.

Thai15 recipes Chinese15 recipes Japanese25 recipes Korean15 recipes