Fish Sauce substitutes

Per 1 tbsp fish sauce: 1 tbsp soy sauce + 1 mashed anchovy fillet, warmed until it dissolves

Keeps the umami, flavour and liquid roles.

Very close on the fermented-fish depth. Mash the anchovy completely or you get salty lumps. Use tamari if you need it gluten-free.

1:1, then taste for salt

Keeps the umami, flavour and liquid roles.

Usually built from seaweed and dried mushroom. Convincingly briny and savoury but generally less salty, so adjust at the end.

1:1, then taste and add salt

Keeps the umami, flavour and liquid roles.

Also anchovy-based, so it lands closer than plain soy, but it is sweeter, much more vinegary and considerably less salty.

Per 1 tbsp: 2 tsp soy sauce + 1 tsp lime juice + a pinch of sugar

Keeps the umami, flavour and liquid roles.

Salty and bright, but with none of the fermented funk that makes a nuoc cham taste right. Best where fish sauce is a background note rather than the point.

Simmer 1/2 cup water with 2 tbsp soy sauce, a 5cm piece of kombu and 3 dried shiitake for 15 min, then strain; use 1:1

Keeps the umami, flavour and liquid roles.

Genuinely savoury and vegan, but thinner and far less pungent, so a punchy dipping sauce ends up tasting tame.

1:1, and cut the sugar in the recipe

Keeps the umami and flavour roles; loses liquid.

Thicker and sweeter, so it changes the body of a thin dipping sauce as well as the flavour. Better in a stir-fry than in a dressing.

Per 1 tbsp: 1 tsp shrimp paste dissolved in 2 tsp water

Keeps the umami, flavour and liquid roles.

Far more intense and much funkier, and it has to be cooked to mellow. Never use it raw in a dressing.