Pork with Nuoc Cham – This all-purpose sauce will go with any grilled protein and doubles as an excellent dressing for dinner salads. Grilled pork chops—are a staple in Vietnamese restaurants. But they’re so easy to make that there’s no reason they shouldn’t be a staple at home, too, especially during grilling season.

Slicing the pork at the end is a traditional Vietnamese approach to eating meat as the pieces are easier to pick up with chopsticks. Enjoy with rice, a stir-fried or grilled vegetable and a quick soup.

As for the vegetables, we like fresh sliced cucumber and quick-pickled carrot and daikon. You can pickle them up to a week ahead of time, but you can also use them right away—they’re cut into a thin julienne, so the pickling brine does its work very quickly. And if you’re making your own nuoc cham, a sauce made from fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, garlic, and chilies, you can get that out of the way in advance, too.