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This creamy salmon chowder recipe is incredibly flavorful and easy to make with everyday ingredients! It’s loaded with crispy bacon, fresh dill, corn, and potatoes.

You may also like my Creamy Corn Chowder, this Ham and Corn Chowder, or Easy Chicken and Corn Chowder.

a bowl of salmon chowder with a spoon

Why you’ll love it

My favorite thing about this chowder with salmon is the delicate and super flavorful broth. It’s a delicious summer soup (think fresh corn and dill from the garden), but you could certainly make it year-round. It’s pure comfort on a rainy day!

This simple salmon chowder recipe has all the tasty, easy-to-find ingredients you crave in a good seafood chowder: savory, smoky bacon, chunks of flaky salmon, fresh dill, and plenty of bright corn for a burst of natural sweetness in every bite.

What you’ll need

  • Bacon – it makes everything better!
  • Salmon – we’re using a pound of fresh salmon, but you can definitely go a bit over a pound of salmon. Up to 1.5 pounds is totally fine.
  • Onion, carrots, celery, garlic – the base of any good soup. I like sweet onions.
  • Flour – to thicken it up
  • Chicken broth and clam juice – this combo gives the chowder better and richer flavor than just using chicken broth alone. If you have access to a good fish stock, then by all means use it!
  • Heavy cream – to make it silky and luscious
  • Potatoes – we’re using Russets
  • Corn – use either fresh or frozen
  • Dill – this herb goes so well with salmon
ingredients for salmon chowder in prep bowls

Pro tip

  • I like to prep while I go along to save time, but you can prep everything ahead of time if that’s more your style!

How to make salmon chowder

This is an overview with step-by-step photos. Full ingredients & instructions are in the recipe card below.

cooking bacon in a soup pot then pan searing salmon for chowder

Chop the bacon, and cook it in a soup pot. Meanwhile, prep the veggies. Transfer the bacon to a plate, and don’t discard the fat. Sear the salmon for 2 minutes per side, then transfer to a plate.

cooking mirepoix, adding flour, and then pouring chicken broth into a soup pot

Spoon out some of the fat, and sauté the onions, carrots, and celery. Stir in the garlic, followed by the flour, and stir for about a minute. Pour in the broth and clam juice, and scrape up any browned bits from the pot. Add the cream, corn, potatoes, and most of the bacon.

adding salmon and fresh dill to a soup pot with salmon chowder

Cook until the potatoes are tender, stirring occasionally. Break up the salmon using a fork, and discard the skin. Remove the chowder from the heat, and add in the salmon and dill. Season with salt & pepper, and top with the remaining bacon.

Tools for this recipe

Check out Natasha’s favorite kitchen essentials, gadgets, and cookware!

  • I use this Le Creuset Dutch oven.
  • This is my favorite cooking spoon. It won’t scratch your cookware.
  • I like this sturdy ladle for serving it up with less mess.

Substitutions and variations

  • I don’t recommend subbing the heavy cream for half-and-half or milk because it could curdle since we do boil it. It’s happened to other readers.
  • It’s fantastic as-is, but if you want a lemony note, feel free to add in a splash of lemon juice or some lemon zest.
  • I recommend using fresh dill, but if you want to use dried, I’d start with 1 teaspoon and work your way up from there to taste.

What to serve with salmon chowder

Leftovers and storage

  • Store this chowder in the fridge for up to 3 days in an airtight container.
  • You can freeze it, but there’s a chance that it might change texture a little bit due to the dairy, and the fish could dry out a little. It should still taste good. Thaw in the fridge overnight, and then reheat it slowly over a low heat.
a ladle with salmon chowder

If you made this salmon chowder recipe, please leave a star rating and review below! You can also tag me #saltandlavender on Instagram if you made any of my recipes.

a bowl of salmon chowder with a spoon
4.88 from 33 votes

Salmon Chowder

This creamy salmon chowder recipe is incredibly flavorful and easy to make with everyday ingredients! It's loaded with crispy bacon, fresh dill, corn, and potatoes.
Prep: 10 minutes
Cook: 40 minutes
Total: 50 minutes
Servings: 6

Ingredients 

  • 4 strips bacon cut into small pieces
  • 1 pound fresh salmon
  • 1/2 medium onion chopped small
  • 2 medium carrots peeled & chopped small
  • 2 sticks celery chopped small
  • 1 large clove garlic minced
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 3 cups chicken broth or stock
  • 1 cup clam juice see note
  • 1 cup heavy/whipping cream
  • 2 large Russet potatoes peeled & diced
  • 3/4 cup corn (frozen or fresh)
  • 1 tablespoon fresh dill chopped
  • Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions 

  • Prep your bacon (I use kitchen shears to make it easy) and add it to a large pot over medium-high heat. Cook until crispy (about 10 minutes).
  • Meanwhile, prep your onion, celery, carrots, and potatoes. 
  • Once the bacon is crispy, take it out of the pot and transfer it to a paper towel lined plate. Leave the bacon fat in the pot. 
  • Add the salmon to the pot and cook for 2 minutes/side and then it transfer to a plate (salmon probably won't be fully cooked and that's fine. This step is just to add some extra flavor and to avoid having to cut up raw salmon since that's more tedious). The salmon skin may stick to the pot a bit, but that's ok, just use your spoon to get most of it off.
  • Leave about 1 tablespoon of the fat in the pot, and then add the onion, carrots, and celery. Sauté for 5 minutes.
  • Stir in the garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
  • Add in the flour and cook for about a minute, stirring nearly constantly.
  • Add in the chicken broth and clam juice. Give it a good stir to ensure the flour has dissolved and the flavorful brown bits are scraped up from the bottom of the pot. 
  • Add in the cream, potatoes, corn, and most of the bacon (I reserve the rest for garnishing the bowls later on). Increase the heat to high and bring the soup to a boil. Once it's boiling, reduce the heat to a rapid simmer so it's gently boiling. 
  • Cook, uncovered, until the potatoes are tender (about 15-20 minutes). Stir occasionally.
  • Use a fork to break the salmon into smaller pieces. The skin should slide off easily (don't add the skin to the soup unless you want to). Take the soup off the heat. Add the salmon and dill to the soup. It should only take a few minutes for the salmon to finish cooking through.
  • Season the soup with salt & pepper as needed. Garnish with the rest of the bacon.

Notes

  • Serves 4-6 depending on portion size.
  • I don’t recommend subbing the cream for milk or half-and-half as the boiling may curdle the soup.
  • The clam juice can easily be found in most grocery stores (I found it the same place as canned fish like tuna etc.). If you can’t easily find a good fish stock, clam juice is a great way to use chicken broth and have this soup still have that well-rounded seafood chowder taste.

Nutrition

Calories: 470kcal, Carbohydrates: 38g, Protein: 22g, Fat: 26g, Saturated Fat: 12g, Cholesterol: 106mg, Sodium: 750mg, Potassium: 1226mg, Fiber: 3g, Sugar: 5g, Vitamin A: 4179IU, Vitamin C: 21mg, Calcium: 75mg, Iron: 2mg

Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.

© Salt & Lavender Inc. Content and photographs are copyrighted. Sharing this blog post is much appreciated, but copying and pasting full recipes without authorization to social media is strictly prohibited.

Leave a star rating and comment below!

This recipe was originally published on July 13, 2020. It’s been updated with new photos and better instructions but is the same great recipe!


Hi! I’m Natasha.

Salt & Lavender is a recipe blog with a focus on delicious comfort food using everyday ingredients. Beat the weekday grind with hundreds of easy-to-follow and hassle-free recipes!

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95 Comments

  1. Hi Natasha,
    I just discovered you via Pinterest today. Your recipes look wonderful! I just printed off a bunch of them to try. I have a question though. Any chance you could make some seafood recipes with cod? I am thawing some now and have an entire Costco size box to use. Thank you. I look forward to trying a bunch of your recipes.

    1. Hi Teri!! I’m so happy you found me!! My fish tacos use cod – did you see that one? It’s so funny you mention that as I have actually been planning on testing some more cod recipes. I’ve been working on one with a creamy garlic sauce recently and hope to publish it in the coming weeks. Let me know what recipes you end up trying! 😀

  2. 5 stars
    Loved this recipe! The flavor combination is fantastic. Your recipes are always my go to. One thing that I would like is for the chowder to thicken just a bit. This probably was my error because I added a little extra chicken broth (just dumped the rest of the box in). I tried adding potato starch at the end to thicken, but it wasn’t that effective. Any tips?

    Also I’m open to the possibility that this is just how chowder is supposed to be lol

    1. Hi Colleen! I’m so glad you liked the flavors. So this one isn’t super thick even without extra broth. I’d say adding a cornstarch slurry at the end could work if you do want an easy way to make it thicker. Otherwise, you could probably play with the flour quantity. 🙂

  3. Nice recipe. Pet peeve: when talking about substitutions you should say “ don’t substitute milk or half and half FOR the cream”

  4. 5 stars
    The structure and method of this recipe is incredible. I made it with the fish I had (red trout).

    I sought it out because I was looking for a recipe to use the delicious fish boullion that my aunt from Norway sent 🙂 I also added a pinch of saffron like she often doesm

    So for the broth, I used the fish stock from the boullion.

    Consequently the method of cooking the bacon, then fish, then mirepoix, then roux/broth/cream gives a deeply flavorful soup that is truly hard to mess up. The changes I made were only successful because of the excellent recipe structure. Thank you so much. Goes so well with crusty sourdough bread and some nice white wine.

  5. 5 stars
    I made a pot of this chowder for dinner tonight and it is delicious! Thank you so much for giving me another way to use fresh caught salmon from my freezer. It is tasty, hardy and perfect for cooler weather. I hope to share your recipe with friends who have benefitted from our large catch of fish. I used silver salmon in the recipe and it is perfect for this recipe.

  6. 5 stars
    It is. Yummy! I had some salmon patties left over from some fresh salmon my son canned in Alaska. It turned out very good!

  7. Love, love, love your recipes, but I find the posted prep times to be very unrealistic. It takes me 10 minutes just to pull everything out of the refrigerator! Ha! My prep time was closer to 30-35 minutes. 😊

    1. Hi Denise! I’m so glad you’re a fan! 😀 So, for this recipe in particular, 10 minutes prep isn’t all the prep, but I count the rest of the prep time within the cook time since the cooking has already started. I think 10 minutes is realistic to get the bacon out of the fridge and cut it up. I realize everyone goes at a different pace, though, and some people prefer to prep everything ahead of time. There really is no way to completely accurately estimate prep times. I do go faster than many people, so I always tack on extra time knowing that many people will go at a different pace than me. I try to aim for what the average person can do it in knowing that it’s just an estimate and there will be many people who are a bit slower or faster and that’s fine. I hope this helps you see where I am coming from, but it’s also fair to look at my prep times and build in some extra time for yourself… I totally get it if they don’t work for you.