Anyone have a salmon chowder recipe they like?

Josh

Josh

Dead in the water
Staff member
Admin
I've got some salmon in the freezer that needs to get used up. So I was thinking of seeing how it would work in some salmon chowder. Never made a single bowl of that before, though.

Anyone have a recipe they particularly like?

Absent any other suggestions, I was going to riff off of the Serious Eats version. Cooks Illustrated only has a haddock-based New England "Fish" Chowder in their otherwise great "The Best Soups & Stews" book.

Open to idea/suggestions. Especially around the "add raw fish" vs "cook fish separately, then add in to chowder at the end" decision.
 
I have a great clam chowder recipe at home. We went clamming as a kid and mom would bring everything along to make it on the beach!

No corn, but bacon, cream, clam juice, potatoes, fresh clams, etc. You could add or substitute salmon or a nice white fish in it. I'll find it tonight and post it for you. A classic recipe! Salt and pepper and I would check the salmon for pin bones and pull them out with pliers to not have to worry about the bones. Remove the skin, if you haven't already.

A good clam chowder search should bring up something delicious! Which you've already done. I haven't made it in a while, but might this week with a nice sourdough loaf!
 
Brute said:
Click to expand...

That's actually the same recipe as the Serious Eats one I linked above.

Well, to be fair, I have no idea if they are the SAME. Kenji (guy on the video) also wrote the Serious Eats article. Maybe the more recent video version is updated or different? Probably worth a watch to check.
 
Josh said:
That's actually the same recipe as the Serious Eats one I linked above.

Well, to be fair, I have no idea if they are the SAME. Kenji (guy on the video) also wrote the Serious Eats article. Maybe the more recent video version is updated or different? Probably worth a watch to check.
Click to expand...
Same guy (how many chefs named J. Kenji Lopez-Alt can there be :))

He's good - the wife follows him religiously.

Enjoy your chowder.
 
Canuck from Kansas said:
Same guy (how many chefs named J. Kenji Lopez-Alt can there be :))
Click to expand...
I meant that I didn't know if the recipe was the same between Serious Eats and Kenji's own YT channel. Same Kenji, for sure.

That said, I just noticed that the Serious Eats version has "Updated 12/21/25" on it. So it seems likely to be the same recipe both places.
 
You could add salmon or almost any other fish into it. I'll add leeks, only because I have some left from another soup made earlier this week.20260328_160847.jpg20260328_160902.jpg
 
Last edited:
UPDATE:

I gave the Serious Eats Kenji recipe a shot this evening. Overall, it was pretty good. I used about half the bacon to keep the grease/sodium down and used chicken stock instead of clam juice (family preferences, but also keeps sodium down). Other than that, stuck to the recipe. I let it get a bit too thick, but that's mostly a matter of preference.

The one thing I let Kenji's video talk me into was to give it a squeeze of lemon juice at the end. And before I did it, I thought to myself "won't this just curdle the dairy?". But it didn't seem to in his video. Sure as shit, it curdled in mine. Really a visual thing more than a taste thing, but it annoyed me. And the lemon didn't add enough flavor improvement to be worth the annoyance, so I will skip it next time.

End of the day, seems to be a solid and fairly easy way to make use of freezer salmon that's getting long in the tooth. I'll make it again in the near future.
 
Those recipes look very interesting. I had fish soup once or twice and can't say that I liked it. But I do like clam chowder. And the only way I ever prepare salmon is to BBQ it over an alder-charcoal fire. I think it would be nice to have another tool in the toolbox.
 
Josh said:
The one thing I let Kenji's video talk me into was to give it a squeeze of lemon juice at the end. And before I did it, I thought to myself "won't this just curdle the dairy?". But it didn't seem to in his video. Sure as shit, it curdled in mine. Really a visual thing more than a taste thing, but it annoyed me. And the lemon didn't add enough flavor improvement to be worth the annoyance, so I will skip it next time.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the update. BTW, the lemon is probably for the acid, not the flavor. You could sub some kind of vinegar, etc.
 
tkww said:
Thank you for the update. BTW, the lemon is probably for the acid, not the flavor. You could sub some kind of vinegar, etc.
Click to expand...
True. But I suspect any acid would cause the same curdling of the dairy. Unless there's some magic method that I'm not aware of to avoid that.
 
Josh said:
True. But I suspect any acid would cause the same curdling of the dairy. Unless there's some magic method that I'm not aware of to avoid that.
Click to expand...
I think by cutting the fat you made it more prone to curdling.
You could try tempering the lemon juice by adding a little warm broth or maybe some warm chicken stock and then add that to the chowder.
 
Use heavy cream instead of milk. High fat content helps stabilize proteins, preventing them from separating. 2% milk curdles much more readily than heavy cream.

You can also mix the acid w/ a starch to help...
 
Mossback said:
Use heavy cream instead of milk. High fat content helps stabilize proteins, preventing them from separating. 2% milk curdles much more readily than heavy cream.

You can also mix the acid w/ a starch to help...
Click to expand...
There was supposed to be twice as much bacon in the recipe, including for “roux” development at the beginning.
 
Well much like cowbell...
;)
It needs more bacon.

Full fat dairy is preferred for sauces in restaurants as it is less prone to separation.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top