Finnish Salmon Soup- Lohikeitto
This soup is a traditional and very common Finnish lunch, appetizer or dinner. It’s sold everywhere and it’s honestly one of the best foods that comes from Finland, in my opinion. Serve with a piece of rye bread and you are basically going to start speaking Finnish (except JK ’cause it’s way hard!). I joined a Facebook page for Finnish cooking and someone in the group sent this recipe to me when I asked for a traditional salmon soup recipe. I just had to turn it from metric measurements to America measurements. Story of my life in Finland. If you want to, say a prayer of gratitude for the nice cubes of butter so nicely measured out for you. I miss those beauties that make it so you don’t have to get out a kitchen scale every time you need butter. I’m so over 500-gram blocks of butter, let me tell you. Hashtag first world problems.
I hope you enjoy this soup as much as we have. It’s definitely a recipe I will continue to make after moving back to America.
PrintFinnish Salmon Soup- Lohikeitto
This soup is a traditional and very common Finnish lunch, appetizer or dinner and in my opinion, the best food to come from Finland.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: Feeds about 6 1x
Ingredients
1 lb salmon filet, skinned and cut into apx 1 inch chunks, reserve the skin. (or use 1 pound of a whole salmon so you can use the head and skeleton to make the broth)
4 Tablespoons butter
1 large leek, washed and white and light green parts sliced thinly
5 cups of fish stock (or chicken or vegetable stock work great too)
1 lb potatoes, diced into bite-sized pieces (I never peel mine, but you can if you’d like)
4–5 carrots, peeled and sliced into 1/4– 1/3 inch slices
1/2 cup fresh, finely chopped dill (or about 1 tablespoon of dried dill)
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon pepper
salt to taste
Instructions
Melt butter in a 4-quart soup pot and sauté the leeks until soft, about 10 minutes
While the leeks are cooking, put 5 cups of water and the reserved fish skin (and head and skeleton if using) in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes. If you buy a skinless filet or don’t want to bother making a fish broth, skip this step and just add 5 cups of chicken or vegetable stock in it’s place when leeks are done cooking.
Strain the broth into the pot with the leeks and throw away the solids from making the fish stock. Add in the potatoes, carrots, dill, and pepper and cook till vegetables are tender, about another 10 minutes.
Add the salmon chunks to the soup along with the cream and remove from the heat. The salmon cooks in just a few minutes in the hot soup off the heat. If you simmer it on the stove till the salmon is cooked then it will become over-cooked while sitting in the hot soup before it’s served. Add salt and pepper to taste
Notes
This soup makes great leftovers. The flavors will mature and be even more wonderful the next day, though be careful not to overheat the soup or you will over cook the salmon.
Here in Finland you can buy fish stock and fish bouillon to make a stock at every grocery store. I have never looked for this in America so let me know if this is available in normal grocery stores!
Keywords: Salmon Soup
Why is this not a soup that Americans make?! This is delicious! Like a salmon chowder!
This soup is absolutely delicious. My whole family loved it and asked for it to be on “the list”! The richness of the broth is something you’ll crave over and over again. I did use chicken stock instead of fish stock because I couldn’t find it in my grocery store. I loved how quickly this came together – dinner on the table in less than 45 min! So so good!
This soup is seriously so so so delicious and it’s easy to make. My husband is not a soup person and he LOVED this soup.
This soup was absolutely delicious!! It was so easy to make, and felt so healthy and good going down. I loved it with salmon, but I also love that it’s such a good and versatile soup base, and you could do so many things with it! But wow, I found this recipe and made it on a whim, and I have zero regrets. Plus, my 8 month old little boy and husband loveedddd it too, so this is full-family approved Thank you for the incredible recipe!!