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Salmon Chowder is a recipe that is near and dear to my heart. The creamy chowder base, the hearty salmon and potatoes and the fresh hint of dill are flavors that I look forward to every Christmas Eve. This is my take on my grandmother’s favorite recipe, and I hope it becomes a family tradition of your own this year!
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Le Creuset! As always, all opinions and recipe are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that support Cake ‘n Knife!
Sitting down to write this post, particularly at Christmastime is surprisingly a little harder than I imagined it would be.
I suppose I should start at the beginning…
As some of you may know from my About Me, my grandmother was my family’s own Julia Child. She was a masterful cook who was passionate about making the best food for friends and family any day of the year. Of course, Christmas was (and still is) my favorite time of year, so it’s the recipes from the holiday that have a permanent place in my memory as December 25th draws closer and closer.
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Salmon chowder is what officially marks the start of Christmas for us as a family.
Every Christmas Eve, my grandmother would serve up fish chowder. Some years it was a white fish, but I remember the first time she served a salmon chowder and OMG everyone lost their MINDS over it.
Since then, it’s been the family’s favorite so for our big Christmas Eve gathering every year, that’s exactly what we serve.
A handful of years ago, I cooked my grandmother’s classic recipe for the first time for the family (with a few little changes of my own, of course), and ever since then, I’ve been asked time and time again to make it.
I don’t know if it’s the magic of my grandmother’s original recipe, the magic of Christmas or the magic of working with my grandmother’s original Le Creuset stock pot that makes it come out so perfectly, but somehow it does.
My grandmother LOVED using Le Creuset. I remember her bringing out the skillets and dutch ovens, the big blue stockpot I use today and the various kitchen tools with the famed “Le Creuset” logo adorning them.
She always told me Le Creuset was the best you could buy for your kitchen, and once I started actively cooking at home, I discovered exactly why.
Not only does this company have incredible colors and design to bring your kitchen to life, they have the quality that cooks dream of. I mean, take my grandmother’s giant stock pot. I don’t even know how many years she had it before I was gifted it about 8 years ago, but it still is just like new.
That’s exactly why I will always ALWAYS stick with Le Creuset for the rest of my life. It’s not just about quality and design, it’s also about having something that I can cook in now and also with my family years from now. It’s about handing down that tradition, just like my grandmother handed down her recipes to the entire family.
Le Creuset is tradition in my family, and that’s exactly why I wanted to partner with them for this chowder recipe.
It means the world to have this creamy, hearty, and savory chowder come together in stunning Le Creuset cookware. I’m pretty sure my grandmother would be proud 😉
The chowder itself, while being hearty, is also light and fresh with a burst of fresh dill in every spoonful. My adaptation of the recipe include a little extra fennel for a bite and a dash of cayenne pepper for just the right amount of heat.
Pair it with some crusty bread (or oyster crackers!) and you have a dinner that is truly rich and memorable.
I’ll be serving this soup up on Christmas Eve with plenty of both, plus Christmas Sangria, salad, and a hefty meat and cheese platter to kick off cocktail hour before dinner.
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.
I can’t believe I am saying this, but it is the FINAL WEEK of the 12 Days of Jolly Giveaways!! Thank you so much to all of you who have been keeping up with the posts all month long and entering to win. This is honestly my biggest giveaway EVERRRRR. Thanks to Le Creuset (the primary sponsor of my 12 Days of Jolly Giveaways), we have come together to give one lucky ready a Le Creuset 5-Piece Signature Set that includes a 5 1/2 qt. round Dutch oven, 1 3/4 qt. Signature saucepan, AND 9″ Signature skillet! It’s just the right set you need to hit all your cooking goals in 2018.
Just head below the recipe and enter the giveaway for a chance to win!
Don’t forget to check out the other holiday recipes I’ve shared for the 12 Days of Jolly Giveaways (Day 9’s giveaway is still open!)!
Day One – Red Wine Slow Cooker Short Rib Ragu
Day Two – Gingerbread Challah Bread
Day Three – Mini Beef Wellingtons
Day Four – Bourbon Gingerbread Punch
Day Five – Twice-Baked Chicken Shawarma Stuffed Potatoes
Day Six – Head Country BBQ Prize Pack
Day Seven – White Chocolate Dipped Dark Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
Day Eight – Red Christmas Single Serve Sangria
Day Nine – How to Make Craft Beer Cocktails, Part One
Day Ten – Salmon Chowder
This Recipe’s Must Haves
Grab everything you need (and everything you see in this post!) to make this chowder!
- Le Creuset Signature Enameled Cast-Iron 5-1/2-Quart Round Dutch
- Le Creuset Signature Cast Iron Saucepan
- Le Creuset Signature Iron Handle Skillet
- Ginkgo International Stainless Steel Ladle
Pin this Salmon Chowder recipe for later!
Salmon Chowder
ingredients
- 1 1/2 Tbsp butter
- 1 white onion minced
- 1 leek minced
- 1/2 bulb fennel minced
- 1 1/2 quarts fish stock when I can't find it freshly made, I use this Better Than Bouillon Fish Base
- 2 cups russet potatoes cut into 1/2-inch cubes (approximately 2 potatoes)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 lb boneless skinless salmon, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
- 3/4 cup milk
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 Tbsp freshly chopped dill
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
instructions
- In a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add onion, leek and fennel, cooking until softened, approximately 5 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add fish stock and potatoes. Season with salt and pepper, then bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the potatoes are tender, approximately 20 minutes.
- Add the salmon and simmer until just cooked, approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
- Stir in milk, cream, dill, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper. Cook until warmed through but don't bring the mixture to a boil. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as desired.
- Serve warm with crusty bread and white wine.
Lisa Babs says
My favorite holiday cooking memory is helping my mom make secret recipe stuffing. Its a French-Canadian pork stuffing that my grandparents made for Christmas eve dinner. We call it secret recipe stuffing because know one knew the recipe…. Not even my grandparents. My grandma would start it and then my grandpa would sneak into the kitchen and add spices. Plus it was slightly different each time. So after my grandfather past I remember helping my mom recreate the recipe. After lots of tasting and tweaking… We got it!!!
Melissa Storms says
I make several types of cookies my family begs me to make the rest of the year. I won’t do it I could, but it wouldn’t be as special when I make them for the holidays,
Kelly D says
My family has a feast of the 12 fishes dinner for Christmas eve every year. Your salmon chowder would be a great addition to this meal. Besides soup, we have shrimp, baked fish and seafood pasta. My favorite memory is enjoying this meal with my family and then opening gifts.
Lisa Walker says
We decide on a Christmas menu and then draw out of a hat to decide who makes each dish for dinner!
Michelle Hudson says
My family when I was younger always came together for soup on Christmas Eve and then traditional Czech menu on Christmas day. Then come New Year’s Eve which was my father’s birthday, we’d go to teh local team’s hockey game, then come home and have a living room appetizer picnic to watch the ball drop on television. As us kids have grown up we have tried to keep at least part of this tradition alive. We still do soup on Christmas Eve. Our Christmas Day menu changes from time to time now as I developed a pork allergy and can no longer eat the traditional pork roast we did. But on New Year’s we still make our way back and go to the hockey game with my mom to remember my father (whom we lost 11 years ago right before christmas) and after the hockey game we toast him as we have the appetizer spread he always loved.
crystal allen says
My grandmother once helped me (21 years ago) to make a sweet potato pie for my now husband. Later I found out that he just wanted what we call candied sweet potatoes! The pie was really good and the laugh later was even better!
Denise M says
We always do breakfast burritos on Christmas morning – with tater tots
Susannah // Feast + West says
We always buy Moravian Sugar Cakes to enjoy on Christmas morning. They are made at a bakery in a nearby town and are basically the cinnamon sugar coffee cakes of your dreams. I dream of it all year long…
Jeffrey says
I’ve always made cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning for my wife and kids. We usually have a very non-traditional dinner, I make pizza! Something that has always been on the dinner table is my grandmother’s green jello. It’s a very simple dish that everybody loves, so I make it in her honor!
Denise E. says
We don’t currently have any traditions. It’s difficult to have consistency when everyone lives so far away and has other family members they need to see during the holidays. Sad, but true. I guess our only tradition would be that each holiday season is unplanned until the last minute!
Steph says
We love making doughnuts
Madonna says
My grandmother would always make mincemeat cookies. I have used her recipe but it just isn’t the same without her.
Jennifer S. says
I always bake tons of holiday cookies (multiple recipes). I’ve been known to bake until 5 am, get a few hours of sleep, and then go to work. Of course, this only works when I’m not on deadline, but it has happened more than once. Usually I knock off the baking at a sane hour! Needless to say, my office mates don’t mind one bit when I show up with the goods….
karen says
My favorite memory is waking up early to make a warm apple pie!
Jenny Skidmore says
For holiday meals, my grandmother always use to make this recipe that included cottage cheese, crushed pineapple, lime jello and cool whip. Its not my favorite thing in the world but I feel compelled to make it every holiday now as well.
alana says
My family makes fried rice every Christmas using my grandmother’s recipe. We don’t have any other traditions aside from that.
Kayley says
I don’t have current cooking traditions, but I’d like to start one for baking holiday desserts/cookies!
Jessica To says
My son and I like to make cookies together but we like to sample the batter a little too much!
Samantha says
We don’t do any cooking traditions but I started last year a tablecloth that everyone signs each year, then I go over each pen in short stitch. I’m hoping that it will last a long time and start some interesting conversations many years from now about who was with us each Christmas.
Rebecca says
We always love making cream cheese and jelly cookies at my parents’ house each year – my sister and I always loved them because the dough does not contain eggs so our mom would let us eat some as we made the cookies!
Rust says
I grew up in a pecan orchard in the south, and every year starting in September when the pecans began falling, my parents would assign each of us, myself and my brothers and sisters, a 4′ tall sack that we were responsible for filling after school and on weekends. We’d let then dry for weeks, and then start shelling ….mama would bag them up and give lots away and use huge amounts of them in our Christmas baking. One of my favorite treats that they were used in was my grandma’s date nut roll, which is to this day a super special treat for me, as she made it only at Christmas and everyone in the family got a huge boxful of it, sliced very thin and loaded with pecans we’d picked.
Tim says
When I was a kid each of us got to decorate our own sugar cookie to leave out for Santa. I think it was my parents way of having an activity associated with Christmas Eve, the same way we decorate eggs on Easter eve. We do the same thing with our kids.
miranda says
We always have seafood on NYE
Gary says
one of our traditions is making Raclette on Christmas
bill says
I always loved my moms cinnamon buns on Christmas morning
Will says
Every year my Mom would always give me a pair of socks for Christmas, and I vividly remember the year that i did not open a present that included a pair of socks and being stunned. Now every year, she makes a BIG deal when she gives them to me to make sure that I know she remembered. 🙂
Heather B says
We always make sugar cookies pancakes on Christmas morning.
Elena says
My tradition is to bake Christmas cookies with my kids
Kim Henrichs says
When I was young my Mom’s side of the family got together on Christmas Eve and she would make chili as well as chicken and noodles. BEST night!! I miss that.
kesha says
I always have to make my two brothers peanut butter balls, my daddy peanut brittle and my mom granola! After all of these years, these things are always requested!
Michele Cupp says
We cook a seafood dish each year on Christmas eve and all of us look forward to that. In recent years we are often joined by friends, as well.
Cindy A. says
I actually don’t have any holiday cooking traditions with my family. I was never allowed in the kitchen. Haha!
Elle says
I bake homemade pies each year which I learned from my mother and grandmother.
Margot C says
I don’t know if twice in twenty years counts as a tradition, but once my mother made my brother a Beef Wellington on Christmas. He talked about how wonderful it was for a decade. So, in the tiny East Village New York apartment that I once had I made it for him again in an oven that might have originally been designed for a doll house it was so small. It was extremely hard to accomplish, but he was suitably thrilled.
Laura S says
My family bakes spritz cookies every year along with pecan buns! And then we pretty much go the traditional ham dinner route for the main feast! My husband’s family always heads out for a Chinese Christmas dinner! Haha, I love it!
Kristen says
I never had any baking traditions growing up, but now that I am married on Christmas Eve my husband’s family makes 7 types of fish and I always enjoy helping them cook!
Karen D says
Making figgy pudding (steamed) with hard sauce for Christmas dessert.
manda says
Tradition of baking and cooking lots of good foods.
Jillian Too says
We always recreate my grandmother’s recipes too. My favorite is her classic stuffing recipe. It wouldn’t be the holidays without it.
Karrie Millheim says
I like to bake so that there are Christmas cookies for everyone during the holidays
shelly peterson says
We bake lots of cookies that we have been making since I was a kid. I loved baking with my grandma.
Lauren says
I remember baking cookies with my mom.
Ellie Wright says
Every year mu husband and I bake rum cakes for family and friends and deliver them together.
Brenda Haines says
We always make Christmas treats for family and friends. Yesterday we made cranberry, apricot and almond bark. It’s a new recipe and so good!
Kelly @ No Thanks To Cake says
What an awesome giveaway!!!
In our family, we host a full thanksgiving feast around the holidays. Since we’re not usually together for turkey day, we always do it around Christmas!
Jenna Owens says
This sounds so yummy! I’ve had my eye on a Le Creuset Dutch oven for awhile now. My family’s tradition for the holidays is baking and decorating cookies together!
Jessica Gipson says
My mother, daughter and me always prepare Christmas dinner while laughing and sharing memories. PRICELESS!
Tina W says
For the past 30 years I’ve spent a weekend after Thanksgiving with my sister and her mother-in-law (who was my babysitter during elementary school) to make tamales. Its a day full of fun, food and family.
Laura m says
My family gets together and makes delicious sugar cookies! Always great memories!
Casey Hoffman says
We always make red velvet cake and bbq ham for Christmas. I have no idea were the tradition came from, but I happily continue it!
Ancilla Jagdeo says
I love baking with my mom. We make traditional recipes from my country and the memories it creates is wonderful.
Chely frantzen says
Looks so creamy and delicious! We make pozole for the holidays and other delicious goodies
Sydney says
We always make chili and cinnamon rolls on Christmas eve.
Saundra Bowers says
I bake cookies with the grandchildren and have had some pretty funny experiences with what has gone into the dough when they were younger. Literally, cars, snacks, sneezes, etc.
Susan Christy says
My grandma would do all of the baking and cooking before we got to her house, except for the fudge, which she saved till the end so I could help. She taught me to make the BEST fudge.