Smoked Salmon Chowder

  4.7 – 65 reviews  • Fish Chowder Recipes

The flavor in this chowder is out of this world! It is both balanced and powerful.

Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 1 hr
Total Time: 1 hr 20 mins
Servings: 6
Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  1. 10 slices bacon, chopped
  2. 2 large onions, finely chopped
  3. 4 stalks celery, finely chopped
  4. 3 carrots, finely chopped
  5. 5 green onions, finely chopped
  6. ⅓ cup chopped fresh parsley
  7. ½ cup water
  8. 6 cups fish stock
  9. salt to taste
  10. 1 ½ tablespoons ground black pepper
  11. 1 ½ tablespoons dried dill weed
  12. 8 red potatoes, cubed
  13. 1 cup butter
  14. 1 cup all-purpose flour
  15. 5 cups milk
  16. ¾ cup white wine (Optional)
  17. ¼ cup lemon juice
  18. 1 ½ pounds flaked or chopped smoked salmon
  19. 1 ½ cups frozen corn kernels

Instructions

  1. Place the bacon into a large pot set over medium heat. Cook for a few minutes to release some of the drippings, then add the onions and celery. Cook and stir until bacon is crisp and onions and celery are tender.
  2. Put in the carrots, green onions, and parsley and then pour in the water and fish stock. Season the soup with salt, pepper and dill. Cover and simmer over low heat until carrots are tender, about 15 minutes. Add the potatoes and simmer for another 20 minutes, or until tender.
  3. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Stir in the flour until smooth. Continue to cook and stir until the mixture is light brown. Pour in a little bit of the milk to thin the roux, then pour it into the pot with the vegetables. Pour the rest of the milk into the pot and heat through, stirring constantly.
  4. When the soup has thickened slightly, stir in the white wine if using. Mix in the lemon juice, smoked salmon and corn. Cook over medium heat until hot but not boiling. Ladle into soup bowls to serve.

Nutrition Facts

Calories 1144 kcal
Carbohydrate 93 g
Cholesterol 155 mg
Dietary Fiber 10 g
Protein 48 g
Saturated Fat 31 g
Sodium 2405 mg
Sugars 19 g
Fat 63 g
Unsaturated Fat 0 g

Reviews

Maria Castro
Loved it! Made it as written except used half evaporated milk and half regular milk for more richness. I made 1/2 recipe the first time based on the reviews and it disappeared too fast. It’s a lot of chopping so I now make a full recipe and freeze the rest. It comes out of the freezer as good as fresh.
John Hansen
Easily the best chowder I’ve ever made. Or eaten. Everyone in my family gobbled it up. Not fishy at all. My secret: this Japanese stock.
Derek Avila
I made this exactly as written. It’s not just good, it’s REALLY good. I halved it for my small household and it was pronounced the best meal I’ve ever made for them! We had it for dinner last night, brunch this morning, and it will be dinner again tonight. Yes, it’s that good!
Jamie Schmidt
I loved the blend of tastes, it was very good. Just didn’t like the color of it, more muddy brown rather than creamy beige. I didn’t over brown the roux so I’m not sure why it happened. I added a leek to it and used chicken broth. I’d definitely make it again!
Sarah Alexander
I have not been able to find fish stock so I use homemade chicken and veggie broth. The bacon turns so soggy even it I crisp it before so I will leave it out next time. It makes a lot of soup!
Darren Wolf
Made this just as directed and I’m glad I did. It’s a keeper. Like many of the other reviewers, I found it to make much more than the 6 servings it claimed. Like over twice that. But, that’s okay with me. I like to share. Like most recipes, it can be tweaked to satisfy personal taste, but excellent as is.
Jose Hooper
This turned out to be a delicious and well balanced chowder. I followed the recipe as is for the most part, aside from a few changes. I used a whole package of bacon because- who doesn’t love bacon. I did not have fish stock so I ended up using chicken broth like some other people mentioned. I also majorly cut down the amount of pepper that is called for the recipe. I ended up doing 1.5 tsp, instead of 1.5 tbsp as the recipe lists. I definitely recommend giving this one a shot!
Steven Watts
Delicious flavor. Easy to make. Lots of left overs!
Benjamin Branch
I used a combination of crab and smoked salmon and only made half a batch. I really enjoyed this with the dill and pops of corn, but my BF didn’t care for it too much. It’s a bit fishy for his tastes even with using a smaller portion of salmon. Mine didn’t really have the consistency I associate with chowders either.
Dawn Jacobson
Even the non chowder, non fish loving members of the family loved this recipe. I did have my own homemade fish stock, so not sure how supermarket stock would affect the flavor… oh, did replace the milk with coconut milk to make it a bit less uncomfortable for the non dairy members of the family. They still got the full butter treatment… lol
Wesley Gibson
This was just excellent. Quite smokey and delicious. I smoked my own salmon for 45min @ 250F with cherry. Changes: I used half the bacon and less than half the butter. Made up the difference with olive and canola oil. I just can’t add 2 sticks of butter to something I plan to eat. Also omitted lemon juice since I felt it would curdle the milk.
Kathleen Barton DVM
I’ve made this around 7 times so far. It’s one of my families favorites. I normally don’t like salmon but this recipe is really really good. Beware it does make a pretty large batch of chowder. I usually double the amount of bacon. Thank you for sharing this awesome recipe!
Eric Townsend
This recipe has much too much flour and butter in it. Next time, I will thicken it like I do clam chowder…with flour (but less) whipped with a little water to make a thin sauce. Add this to the chowder and boil until thickened. Only add the milk at the end, with the salmon, and heat through but do not boil
Matthew Edwards
This is a wonderful recipe but misleading in some respects. Just how big is each of the 6 servings this recipe supposedly makes? By my count, the recipe includes 13-1/2 cups of liquid (water, stock, milk, wine and lemon juice). Then there’s the cup of butter, not to mention the bacon, the fine-chopped veggies, the 8 potatoes, the salmon and the frozen corn. When one reviewer commented that the recipe filled a 5-quart Dutch oven, I wasn’t surprised, and that reviewer must have used very small red potatoes. That’s 20 cups, so are we talking 3-plus cups per serving. I also agree that the black pepper can be cut back considerably. You may want to add the optional wine with the milk to kill any residual alcohol taste, if that bothers you. I also cut the lemon juice back by half. It makes a wonderful chowder, and I was lucky enough to do the math before I started the recipe. Otherwise, I’d have been swimming in the soup for days. I halved the recipe for 6 people, and still had some left.
Jennifer Fritz
This was a hit with all ages. As did others, I used chicken stock. Also used dried parsley, forgot the white wine and lemon juice, but it was still great. Instead of smoked salmon, I had some teriyaki marinated salmon that needed to be used, and it worked well. Will definitely make again.
Amanda Young
This is a super delicious chowder. I did make a few modifications to it because I didn’t want all the added fat and calories. I will definitely make this again…and again. Hands down a five star recipe in my opinion.
Rachel Freeman
This is an amazing dish! I used fresh salmon instead of smoked salmon but used 2.5 lbs because my husband likes a lot of fish in his chowder. I cooked the salmon before putting it in the chowder (baked at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes). I also only used 6 potatoes because 8 would have been way too much. I cooked the bacon separately because I found that it was taking a long time to crisp up when mixed with the other ingredients. Once it was nice and crispy, I threw it and the drippings into the pot. Also, the lemon was a bit overpowering at first, but after a day, it seemed to mix well with everything.
Lisa Moreno
I couldn’t find any store/restaurant bought smoked salmon chowder without tomato (which I can’t have) so I decided to try this! Made half recipe and it was delicious! I couldn’t find fish stock, so I used better than bullion’s fish base- I found on Amazon but it’s also in some supermarkets. Omitted the lemon juice because of food intolerance, and did use wine (actually, dry vermouth- it’s a great substitute for cooking wine in small amounts). I only used half a tablespoon of pepper and I thought that was plenty. You can always grind in some fresh bowl by bowel but hard to fix it if you overdo pepper! Be sure if your smoked salmon comes in big chunks to pull out all the fish bones while you’re flaking it. I found TONS of them, only 2 made it in the soup though but thankfully were spotted on the spoon instead of felt in the throat 😉 Leftovers were gone quickly- so yummy!
Judy Copeland
I made it exactly like the recipe calls for and it was so good! yes it makes a lot but we shared with our neighbors and freezed some for later. The wine and lemon change up the taste and I think for the better, however it tasted good prior to adding it as well. I portioned part of the chowder out and added cayenne pepper to give it a kick for my husband.
Diane Smith
My non-fish loving family loved this chowder
Jason Padilla
I made half of the recipe and this is restaurant quality chowder. I had smoked salmon left over from Xmas and wanted to use it up. The only item I left out was corn as I forgot to buy it and the only tip I would give is to chop the bacon small and let it fry until almost crisp before adding the onion and celery. Otherwise it won’t cook thoroughly. Will make this for Company and try not to eat it all myself.

 

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