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Fruit from Vietnam

Chanh muối (Vietnamese salted limes for drinks)chanh muối

Chanh muối is whole thin-skinned limes rubbed with salt, blanched, soaked in alum water and kept in a jar under a brine strong enough to float a grain of cooked rice. The salted limes are mixed with sugar and water to make a salty lemonade, served over ice or hot.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Chanh muối itself.

Short entryFruit2 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceA household recipe from an encyclopedia article, itself based on a recipe blog; there is no tested or standard recipe.
Thin-skinned limes (chanh ta) of even size, wilted for 3 days2 kg[viwiki]
Coarse salt (muối hột)1.3 kg[viwiki]
Granulated sugar200 g[viwiki]
Vinegar1 spoon[viwiki]
Alum (phèn chua)2 spoons in 3 L of cold water[viwiki]

Total time across the recorded steps: 2 h

Start
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What changes: Salt scratches the lime skins and draws out their oils, then they are rinsed

Step 1 of 3
Rub limes with salt to score the skin and release the oils; rinse
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Chanh muối is whole thin-skinned limes rubbed with salt, blanched, soaked in alum water and kept in a jar under a brine strong enough to float a grain of cooked rice. The salted limes are mixed with sugar and water to make a salty lemonade, served over ice or hot. Made in 3 steps over 2 h. The longest step, blanch, then soak in alum water, takes 2 h (Vietnamese Wikipedia 2026).

Key numbers
Main step2 hReported[viwiki]Blanch, then soak in alum water

What makes this one different

Chanh muối is made mainly for drinks, not as a relish. Unlike the dry-salted South Asian lime pickle, which FAO describes as packed in 1 kg of salt to 4 kg of limes and fermented in the sun for one to four weeks, the limes are blanched, soaked in alum and kept under brine.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Preserved lemons and South Asian salt-only lime pickleClose relatives salted whole or quartered; see the preserved-lemons and dry-salted lime pickle entries.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

  1. [viwiki] Vietnamese Wikipedia, Chanh muối (recipe and uses), read 2026-10-23wiki
  2. [fao134] Battcock M., Azam-Ali S. 1998, Fermented fruits and vegetables, a global perspective, FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 134, chapter 6, 6.1.1 Dry salted lime picklegov