Salmon Chowder {Dairy-Free, Grain and Gluten-free, AIP and Whole30 compliant!}

OH SNAP, everyone! Every so often you really hit the nail on the head and make a recipe that addresses the vast majority of people's diet sensitivities or allergies. I mean, you focus on grain-free and people can't eat it because of the nuts; or, you focus solely on gluten and people can't eat it because they're actually allergic to ALL grains; and, don't even get me started on autoimmune protocol folks! They have to cut out so many obscure ingredients to tame the inflammation in their bodies! But, I think I've done it here. The one exception for AIP folks is that I use Bay Seasoning in this chowder, and I know they aren't very transparent about their ingredients due to "proprietary" information. But, I know there are lots of seafood blends out there that would work just as good if you need to limit spices due to AIP restrictions.

I am always looking for some interesting new ways to cook and eat salmon. It is so incredibly good for our bodies to eat ample, wild seafood a couple times a week. It fills me with great regret that I never really seized the opportunity to eat local wild salmon to my full capabilities when I lived in BC. I mean, I ate it and loved it, but I should have been eating it 24/7 to make up for the fact that I'd spend a few years landlocked in the USA.

Brant and me indulging in some freshly shucked oysters in Tofino, BC on our wedding day

One of the good parts about our current food system is how we can accommodate shipping things like fresh seafood or vegetables, thanks to things like flash freezing and freezer trucks! If you are landlocked, or in a place that doesn't have great fresh food accessibility, or even if you want to stretch your budget, frozen foods are a great place to start. Most seafood is frozen fresh, in individual portions, and you can access high quality seafood at a better price. For instance, you can buy 4 lbs of wild sock eye salmon at Costco for roughly $30. It really helps give some of us a chance at quality seafood, even if we don't live near a body of water!

This soup would also be fantastic with a seafood medley, which I've also seen in the frozen seafood section. If you can do shellfish, I saw a medley that had oysters, mussels, shrimp, and scallops that looked heavenly! The rest of the soup is made with turnips, parsnips, carrots, a standard mirepoix mix and some spices like dill and Old Bay seasoning.

I loved incorporating some other root vegetables as the base here, potatoes are so easy and delicious that they're often a go-to... I like to offer myself nutritional diversity whenever possible! Also, turnips and parsnips last so long in the fridge and can really pack in the vitamins compared to the old potato. Check out below my blender hack at prepping turnips and parsnips for this soup!

I start by chopping my veggies into roughly 1-2 inch chunks. I do the same with the parsnips and turnips once they're peeled. Then, I set my blender to a medium low speed (level 3 on my vitamix) and I drop the chunks into the moving blender. The result is that wonderful "riced" texture! Super easy. You probably will have to empty your blender once in between veggie batches, if the blender gets too full it doesn't shred as well. Check the video below:

It really is super easy, and you can grate almost anything this way! Medium/hard cheese (like parmesan!), brussel sprouts, root veggies, mushrooms. It's incredible.

It looks like this when you're done:

Perfect and easy!

I sauteed the Mirepoix (a french way of saying onion, celery, carrot blend) and garlic. Just until it started to smell fragrant and got a little soft.

Then I added the rest of my vegetables, and all my spices. I used a full tablespoon of salt because my homemade broth isn't salted at all. Start small here and add more to taste.

Then it's as simple as adding your broth, letting that get to a simmer, then adding your salmon.

You'll need to remove the salmon skin before cubing and adding to your simmering broth. I don't have technical advice here, I am not great with processing fish. I once used my own eyebrow tweezers to debone a fish and it didn't go well to say the least! What I did here was take my carving knife, or you could use whichever knife has the longest blade, and I slowly separated the skin from the flesh. Try not to lose too much of the flesh in this process.

Then cube and add to your soup until your salmon turns nice and pink. Then you'll stir in your coconut cream.

To get coconut cream you simply place a can of full-fat coconut milk in the fridge to cool for an hour or so. Then when you open it the cream will have risen, and you can scrape off the solid white cream and discard the liquid. This trick is a fabulous way to add creaminess to soups without dairy. The coconut cream doesn't taste like anything, so when you're avoiding that coconut flavor try it this way!

Here is the full recipe! Let me know below if you'll be enjoying this during soup season!

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