Winter Solstice Recipes: Savory Seafood Soups

A Fisherman’s Favorite – Seafood Soup

At the Wild for Salmon headquarters in central Pennsylvania, the days are getting shorter, the nights longer, and the temperatures cooler. We don’t know about you all, but these seasonal changes can really zap our energy. Our bodies are craving hot, comforting meals, which, for us, mean seafood soups and stews!

At this time of year we make several soups available for purchase to those who live local to the Wild for Salmon store (in Bloomsburg, PA). It’s one of the ways we make life easier for our customers while ensuring  good quality and nutritious seafood is still an easy option. 

Not everyone lives near our brick and mortar location. As a result we want to virtually offer the same nourishment to all of you - wherever you may live - with some seafood soup recipes you can easily prepare at home . Read on for a special selection - hand-picked for you by our customer service staff.

Wild for Salmon’s Office Manager Kourtney shares, “These recipes were selected by our staff because they are a hearty and comforting way to enjoy the health benefits of salmon and other fish in the cold dark months of the year. Their simple preparation allows for a variety of ingredients customers often have on hand to be used.” 

Tip: You can enjoy these soups when they are freshly made (like our in-store soup offerings), but we also love that soup can easily be frozen for future quick dinners. 

We wish we could make these soups for all of you and drop them off on your front steps! Since we can’t, we’re doing the next best thing by giving you recipes that are simple to prepare! Trust that you can make these with very little effort at your own home! 

On the first day of winter - and the shortest day of the year! - we hope these seafood “solstice” soups bring you and your family warm nourishment and comfort! 

First Things First - The Stock

Like most whole foods, fish are full of goodness through and through - including the bones. 

When we have the opportunity to use the whole fish at Wild for Salmon, we take advantage of the bones and use them to make a soup base that is rich in flavor and nutrition. The stock itself can be a simple warming drink or a light dinner all by itself. Which is handy if your pantry is low on veggies this time of year. Stock can also be the basis of a true culinary adventure! 

Did you know that you can purchase halibut bones and salmon heads in the speciality section of our online store for this exact purpose? 

This recipe for seafood soup stock made with halibut bones is very similar to your typical homemade chicken stock and can substitute in any recipe calling for a flavorful stock or liquid. If you have spent time in Vietnam, Southeast Asia or even the Pacific Northwest of the United States, chances are you are still craving the delicious Pho soup you enjoyed in that region. Some chef friends we admire wrote up a recipe for this soup at Bristol Bay Sockeye Salmon Pho Soup. 

A salmon head can act as the bones for flavoring a stock, or this soup can stand alone as a hearty full meal. Salmon head soup is a traditional meal for many Alaska Natives in the Bristol Bay watershed. I was taught that whoever ended up with an eyeball in their bowl was the lucky one! But don’t be intimidated! The salmon head is full of fatty cheeks of meat and cartilage that really enrich the flavors of a soup or stock. To learn more, watch salmon warrior and Bristol Bay advocate Melanie Brown make her version of this dish with Slow Food International on YouTube. 

Wild Pacific Cod Stew 

This cod stew, developed in-house at Wild for Salmon, is a clear-broth, tomato-y chowder made with our delicious wild Pacific cod. The recipe calls for chicken stock, because most of our customers usually have that on hand, but it’s also great with seafood stock (in case you tried the recipe above)! 

This stew was a hit at one of our spring tasting events; there was still a chill in the air that year so we went with seafood soup to keep our customers warm and for easy serving. The recipe is also one of those beloved one-pot meals that comes together quickly so it is perfect for a fast weeknight winter meal. 

We wanted to include a whitefish on our list of favorite soups but please note that this recipe could be made with just about any of the fish in our store. It would be delicious with lingcod or rockfish too. 

Wild Salmon Chowder

Most folks enjoy  the clam chowders of New England fame, thus we are excited to take you one step further, expanding your horizons with this Wild Salmon Chowder recipe. Our version includes both a fillet of our sockeye salmon and some of our traditional smoked salmon, which we think really brings the flavor up a notch. This is a thick seafood soup that, if you’re feeling indulgent or especially hungry, can even be served in a bread bowl! If this version sounds too rich -  skip the flour and substitute coconut milk for the cream. 

Creamy Smoked Salmon Leek and Potato Soup 

Creamy Smoked Salmon Leek and Potato Soup is one of the most popular soups offered at our Bloomsburg, PA brick and mortar store. Deliciously highlighting our Traditional Smoked Salmon, this is not your traditional Potato Leek! This is a Potato Leek with high-quality and delicious seafood. The leeks are cooked down until they are sweet and tender, while the smoked fish keeps the taste dynamic. This smokin’ good, one-pot wonder is a perfect seafood soup for this solstice season. 

Tip: Set aside about one-third of your smoked salmon for a delicious, crumbly topping for the soup. 

The Local Experience

For our customers that are also our neighbors, we provide the convenience of prepackaged individual serving size soups, available at our Bloomsburg, PA store in microwaveable containers so they can be enjoyed at work or at home. 

We can’t offer the same small-batch convenience in our online store, so we hope the recipes in this post will tide you over. If they still feel like too much work, remember that you can always order our smoked products, which are all ready-to-eat. They just need to be thawed and served - including our full-meal Smoked Salmon or Captains Blend Ravioli. Any of our canned products can be enjoyed right out of the cans with no prep needed! 

To our local Pennsylvania customers, thank you for coming in to get your favorites regularly and for supporting us since the Farmer’s Market days. We love taking care of our high-quality product from boat to plate - or bowl, in the case of seafood soups! 

If you haven’t been in yet, now is the time! Come visit us - we’re easy to find, located right off Rt 11 in Bloomsburg, PA. We’ll be packing up orders and making lunch! 

To  all of our customers - near and far - we hope that delicious  seafood soups and our full line of cared-about salmon and seafood products warms you and your family down to your toes this chilly season. Thank you for buying wild caught salmon to support Bristol Bay, with a quality you can trust from Wild for Salmon.