Vietnamese desserts
Vietnamese desserts fall broadly into two families: chè, the sweet soups and layered drinks served warm or over ice, and bánh, the steamed and baked cakes. This guide covers the Vietnamese sweets on DessertCat, from the three-colour chè ba màu to the striped bánh da lợn.
All 3 Vietnamese desserts
ii. The Vietnamese dessert tradition
Desserts in Vietnam are mostly eaten as snacks, in the afternoon or evening, from street stalls and specialist chè shops rather than at the end of a meal. The range is enormous, but most sweets share the Southeast Asian pantry of coconut, beans, rice and tapioca, arranged with real care for texture and colour.
Key ingredients
The essentials are coconut milk, mung beans, red and black beans, glutinous rice, tapioca starch and pearls, pandan, palm or cane sugar and bananas. Agar jelly, taro, sweet potato and lotus seeds appear in many chè, and condensed milk — a staple since the French colonial period — sweetens drinks and some cakes.
Chè: sweet soups and layered glasses
Chè is a whole category rather than one dish. It can be a warm pudding of mung beans or glutinous rice, a light sweet soup, or a tall glass of layered beans, jellies and coconut milk over crushed ice. Chè ba màu, the "three-colour" dessert, is the best-known layered version: red beans, mung bean paste and green pandan jelly, topped with coconut milk and ice.
Bánh: steamed and baked cakes
Bánh covers breads, cakes and dumplings, sweet and savoury. Bánh da lợn is a steamed tapioca cake built in alternating layers of pandan and mung bean, prized for its bouncy texture and neat stripes. Bánh chuối is banana cake, made either steamed with tapioca and coconut or baked like a bread pudding. Steaming is the defining technique, and many of these cakes are made in thin, separately set layers.
Regional styles and occasions
The south, around Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta, favours richer coconut-heavy sweets; Huế in central Vietnam is famous for its dozens of refined chè; the north tends toward simpler bean and rice sweets. At Tết, the Lunar New Year, families prepare candied fruit (mứt) and sticky-rice cakes, and chè is offered at ancestral altars and festivals throughout the year.
iii. Common questions
What is the most popular Vietnamese dessert?
Chè, the family of sweet soups, puddings and layered drinks, is the most popular Vietnamese dessert category, and chè ba màu is its best-known example abroad. Bánh flan (caramel custard) and steamed cakes such as bánh da lợn are also widely loved.
What is chè?
Chè is the Vietnamese name for sweet soups, puddings and dessert drinks made from beans, glutinous rice, tapioca, jellies, fruit and coconut milk. It can be served warm or cold over crushed ice, and there are hundreds of regional versions.
What is bánh da lợn?
Bánh da lợn is a Vietnamese steamed layer cake made from tapioca starch, rice flour and coconut milk, with alternating layers usually flavoured with pandan and mung bean. The name means "pig skin cake", a reference to its bouncy, slightly chewy texture.
What does chè ba màu mean?
Chè ba màu means "three-colour sweet soup", after its layers of red beans, yellow mung bean paste and green pandan jelly. It is topped with coconut milk and crushed ice; see our chè ba màu recipe.
Are Vietnamese desserts vegan?
Many traditional Vietnamese desserts are naturally vegan, since they rely on beans, rice, tapioca, fruit and coconut milk rather than dairy or eggs. Exceptions include bánh flan and sweets finished with condensed milk.