How to Make Smoked Salmon Spread: A Quick and Simple Recipe (2024)

Smoked Salmon spread is a quick and easy recipe with only a handful of ingredients. Put this tasty spread on crackers, bread or use it as a dip. Perfect for any appetizer platter!

The first time David and I had salmon spread was at Nana’s Irish Pub in Middletown, Virginia. It was a family-owned restaurant and pub, filled with the tastes, sounds, and experiences of our Irish heritage. The food there was excellent, and it was a great place to visit. However, it has since closed, so we had to figure out their recipe for ourselves.

I looked up recipes online. What I found was that many of the recipes called for more cream cheese than salmon, making the spread too thick and creamy for our liking. I adapted a recipe to equal the ratio of cream cheese to salmon, allowing the salmon’s smokiness to come through the heavy thick cheese.

Fresh herbs and lemon juice brighten up the spread, while the addition of Worcestershire and hot sauce bring it all together with a hint of spice.

What is Smoked Salmon Spread?

Salmon spread is a delicious and flavorful blend of salmon, cream cheese, capers, onions, capers, lemon juice, and dill, served with crackers, toasted bread, and fresh vegetables such as cucumbers. It’s a great hors d’oeuvre for an appetizer platter. Perfect for parties because it can be made ahead of time.

Ingredients Needed to Make This Recipe

• Cream Cheese: Use regular cream cheese. For best results allow the cheese to soften before use. (see tips for when in a time crunch)
• Salmon: Smoked salmon is the best! If you cannot find smoked salmon, substitute with fresh salmon, frozen, or canned salmontorn into bite-sized pieces.
• Capers: Add tang and texture.
• Onion: Chopped green onion,or red onions diced finely. Fresh chives or shallots provide a milder onion flavor.
• Dill: fresh dill chopped finely is hard to beat. If you don’t have fresh dill, use ½ teaspoon of dried dill.
• Cream: heavy whipping cream helps thin the spread. Can use milk or half and half.
• Worcestershire Sauce: adds unami to the spread that really balances out the flavors of the spread.
• Hot sauce: hot sauce is optional but highly recommended.
• Lemon: fresh lemon juice brightens the spread and gives it tang.

How to Make Smoked Salmon Spread

1. Take the cream cheese out of the fridge and let it soften overnight. (See tips for when you’re in a time crunch)
2. In a medium bowl, stir the capers, green onion, dill, cream, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and lemon juice into the softened cheese until smooth and creamy.
3. Add in the salmon and carefully fold it in until well combined, trying not to tear it or make it any smaller than bite-size pieces.
4. Serve with crusty bread, crackers,bagel crispsor cucumber slices.

Tips for Making Smoked Salmon Spread

• This quick creamy and delicious spread is so easy to make. However, the cream cheese needs to be at room temperature so that it is easier to combine with the other ingredients.
  • Allowing the cream cheese to come up to room temperature is the hardest part of this recipe. You may not have the time or you may have forgotten to take the cheese out of the refrigerator.
  • If you forget to soften the cream cheese (or you are in need of a quick appetizer for unexpected guests) you can blend the cream cheese with a food processor. Thiswill warm it up and it will combine with the other ingredients a little easier.
  • You can also use cream cheese spread (as shown int the picture above). The spread is thinner and is already soft right out of the fridge.
• Some recipes actually say to blend all of the ingredients in the food processor. I do not recommend that. I feel the presentation is better when you can actually identify the ingredients in the spread.
• It’s kind of like eye candy. To combine the salmon spread, stir all of the ingredients together with a large spoon or spatula. Once the ingredients are well incorporated, gently fold in the smoked salmon. If the spread is too stiff, add a little more cream or lemon juice to help thin it up.

Serving Salmon Spread:

Crackers are the obvious choice when serving salmon spread, but you could also serve the spread with bread. My favorite pairing for this salmon spread is bagel crisps, a playoff of the iconic bagels and lox combination.

Low-Carb Serving Option:

If you are looking for a low-carb solution, cucumber slices will pair with the salmon spread beautifully!

Storage:

Refrigerate any uneaten spread for 1 to 2 days. After that, the dill and green onion start to take over the flavor of the salmon.

The next time you need a delicious appetizer, I sure hope you will share this creamy and delicious smoked salmon dip at your next party or gathering of friends or family.

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