Slow Cooker Salmon Chowder

This salmon chowder recipe is a lightened and brightened version of a classic food that gets a real lift in flavour from chilli and lime.

Easy Slow Cooker Salmon Chowder.

Chowder recipes have a long association with seafaring and seafood, arguably the most famous is the New England Clam Chowder. Often thickened with crackers or biscuits they are a classic winter warmer, but my chowder recipe aims to be lighter and brighter.

I am not talking about a “skinny” chowder, I go heavy with cream and butter, no, my aim is to make a lighter summer chowder.

My site is littered with summer soups like my tomato consomme it is definitely not only a winter dish!

I love a good bowl of soup and this aims to give the chowder a sprinkle of sunshine.

Of course not thickening the dish with a roux or ‘crackers’ goes some way to achieve that. 

But the primary tool to achieve this is a big whack of chili and lime. Two ingredients that when combined, scream summer to me.

How to Cook Soup in a Slow Cooker.

We start this chowder recipe in a pretty common way, by softening carrot, celery, onion and in this case potatoes.

You can not just throw these in the slow cooker, they will not soften down enough in the crockpot alone.

Then we chuck them in the slow cooker for a couple of hours with some fish stock to build the base flavour. It is really important to season well now, then go do something less boring instead.

Then half an hour before serving we add our cream and butter, salmon, chili and lime zest.

It is important to add the salmon in as a whole piece, it helps keep the salmon from overcooking.

I would advise you to use skin on salmon, it helps impart a little more flavour, however, discard the skin when shredding the fish.

All that is left to do is add the lime zest and loads of parsley. Make sure you use lots of parsley, this is an ingredient, not a garnish!

Alternative Cooking Methods.

I am a firm believer that there is no best or single way to achieve anything in a kitchen. 

This recipe is cooked in my slow cooker because it is convenient and uses less power than running my stove.

It is easy to change this up and cook it on the stove top, it will not save any time and the methodology is pretty identical.

Simply don’t transfer to the slow cooker and keep in a pan. Then add a lid and cook as per my instructions.

Add all of the other ingredients as I mention in my methodology. The only thing you need to be careful of is keeping that temperature low enough.

You can also do this in a low oven at 110°C or 225°F. Although that makes your kitchen a wee bit warmer and again uses a lot more power!