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Photo by Holly A. Heyser
This is a soup with a more gruesome name than the dish actually is. Yes, you use salmon heads to made the broth, and yes, the meat in the soup is from the head, but there are no eyeballs, bones or jaws floating around.
It is actually a refined, Japanese-style miso soup with noodles. It doesn’t even take very long to make, and this soup is so, so satisfying. You’ll never toss those fish heads again.
Salmon heads make this a luxurious broth — it’s the fat — and while you can use the heads of other fish like striped bass or lingcod, it would be more austere. Feel free to fool around with it.
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
Salmon Head Soup
You will need some Japanese ingredients to make this dish, but they are not terribly hard to find. Easy, actually, if you have an Asian community near you.
Serves 4-6.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
- 4 salmon heads (gills removed)
- 1 small onion, chopped, about 1 cup
- A 2-inch piece of dried kombu seaweed (optional)
- A 3-inch piece of peeled and slivered ginger
- Salt
- 1/4 cup mirin (sweet wine)
- Asian noodles (somen, udon or rice noodles)
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 3 tablespoons white miso paste
- Chives and sliced chiles for garnish
- Wash the salmon heads well to remove any blood or gills. Gills will ruin the broth by making it bitter and cloudy. Cover the heads with water in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add the onion, kombu and ginger and bring to a bare simmer. Do not let this boil. Simmer gently for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Strain the broth and save the heads. Pick out all the meat from the heads, especially the cheek meat. Reserve in a bowl.
- Return the broth to a clean pot and add the mirin. Heat but do not let boil. Add the soy sauce. If the broth still needs salt, add salt — not more soy sauce, as that will make the broth too dark.
- Bring another pot of salted water to a boil: This is for the noodles. Cook the noodles according to the directions on the package.
- Ladle out some broth into soup bowls. Add a heaping teaspoon of miso (or more) to each bowl and stir to combine. Portion out the noodles to each bowl. Add the salmon meat on top of the noodles. Each person should get at least one cheek. Cover with more broth, garnish with chives and sliced chiles and serve at once.
This sounds awesome! I’d definitely like to try it.
However, at the risk of sounding far too demanding of someone freely sharing such amazing recipes, I do have a request: Photos during the process of cooking would be much appreciated from the perspective of someone who, like me, has never eaten (let alone prepared) fish heads as part of a meal.
Just an idea, anyway. Thanks for all the work you do on this site, it’s a regular destination for me.
I made abalone chowder last night and I used a salmon head to make the fish stock. It came out great!! I am not sure why everywhere I read online says this was a mistake. Any ideas?
Peter: I do method photos once in a while, but only when I think the technique is especially difficult. There’s nothing really hard about simmering a fish head and then taking it out and picking out the meat, so I skipped it for this one. I am not a fan of those websites with 25 pictures for every recipe; just a style thing, I guess.
Dan: Everyone says not to use salmon for stock because salmon has a strong flavor — anything you make with salmon heads and bones will always taste like salmon. This is not a bad thing, but salmon broths are limited in this way, where, say, a stock made from sole or striped bass will not be.
Is the mirin boiled first, as other wines are?
The only salmon I have caught this year had the head taken by the science folk for the tag inside it.
I sure enjoy your site and all the lovely things you put forth.
Thank you.
Hank,
Why add the Miso into the bowls at the end? My guess is that you would end up with a cloudy broth. If that is the, any reason you couldn’t add it prior to dishing out?
I know it won’t be the same, but I’ve got a pond that’s full of stunted 10″ LM Bass that have a date with the soup pot…
Jean: No, the mirin is not boiled. If you are worried about alcohol, then you can boil it, but the taste is fine as it is. And yeah, I’ve been hearing that the scientists are taking salmon heads. Glad they did not get mine!
Brady: You add the miso at the end because that’s what you do with miso: It is supposed to be cloudy, just like any other miso soup. Just following tradition, I guess. I’ve never tried adding it earlier, but if you do, let me know how it goes!
Hello Henk,
It is so good to know YOU DO NOT WASTE any part of a fish. And it is so good of you to demonstrate how to prepare the soup/dish.
I normally would buy salmon heads (other fish heads too but salmon tastes the best IMHO), plus the bones if the fish-stall has any. Boiled, picked the meat out for my cats (and myself TOO), use the stock for soups. AND if you are in Malaysia or Singapore, do go and try our famous Fish-heads curry. Absoulte wonderful.
I am not a really fish heads person. I think we should not waste any part of an anmial if it can be eaten.
Hi Hank,
Question: Can the broth be made ahead of time, or will that ruin the dish. Not more than a day ahead, but breaking it up over a few days might simplify it a bit for me.
Thanks!
P.S. I’ve made your green curry with fish now twice, both times with gifted rockfish and it was excellent.
Hank,
Sounds great! How big are the heads? I’m asking because my buddy caught some 25 pounders yesterday. Pretty big heads
Andy: Yes, you could make this and store it for a few days ahead of time. Probably not more than 3-5 days, though.
Ed: Depends. I last made this with one really big head (from a 20 pounder) and a couple of smaller ones. I’d use only 2-3 large salmon heads.
I actually made this yesterday, after finding wild salmon heads at the market!
First, the cheek meat was amazing! I didn’t much care for the rest of the meat, so I just used the broth.
The reason why “recipes” say to not to use salmon heads for long simmered stock is that the fats can oxidize. But, it is fine for a short simmer.
Also, adding the miso after the broth has cooled slightly preserves more of the probiotics in traditionally fermented miso.
This looks awesome. My Dad always made fish head soups growing up, particularly when he commercial fished for a few years.
I always buy smoked salmon collars and wingtips. Way better than the filet…
Hank,
I’m trying this recipe with a grouper head. I removed the gills and cleaned the fish pretty well, but my broth is still cloudy. Could this from using grouper? or am I doing something else wrong?
Thanks
Walt: Did it boil? If so, then it will be cloudy. Regardless, you are making broth, not consomme, so a little cloudiness is not a problem. Besides, you will be putting miso in it, so that will cloud up the broth even more. You just want to avoid two things: Boiling the stock for more than a moment, and cooking it too long – when that happens, calcium leaches out of the bones and can make the broth bitter.
[...] soup ingredients will be based on the recipe I found online here. The salmon flavor of the broth should be balanced out from adding mirin, miso, and ginger. [...]
[...] soup ingredients will be based on the recipe I found online here. The salmon flavor of the broth should be balanced out from adding mirin, miso, and ginger. [...]
My daughter loved this recipe! She’s an extremely picky eater but she loved this salmon+udon combo which I had never tried before! Thank you, I was able to add one more item to my repertoire of things she really enjoys!