A classic recipe for whitefish salad with sour cream, capers, celery and sweet onions. Smoked whitefish is the traditional fish to use, but most fish works. My secret? Mix both smoked and cooked, flaked fish in your salad.

I have a long history with whitefish salad. I grew up in New Jersey, and smoked whitefish and chubs were and are a staple at most Jewish delis. As a kid, I loved buying a chub and some good mustard and saltines and chowing down on that for lunch.

Whitefish salad was for sandwiches. It’s basically a tuna salad, which is why this recipe works even if you don’t have smoked whitefish. Many traditional versions are heavy on the mayo and kinda “wet,” which I don’t love.

This recipe is chunkier, and crunchier, and I split the mayo with sour cream. For the pictures, I used a combination of poached, flaked lake trout and smoked whitefish. A few tips to make your salad shine:

• Use a combination of smoked fish and either leftover fish, or, poach some fish, flake it out, and add to the bowl.
• For a serious pro tip, mix smoked fish with flaked crabmeat. It’s mad crazy good.
• Only use sweet onions, like vidalia or maui or walla walla sweets. It’s important. Skip the onion and go with chives or scallions if you can’t get sweet onions.
• If you don’t like capers, skip them. But use only the little ones, or chop the bigger ones.
• If you feel like it, add a tablespoon of mustard to the mix. It is a nice touch. If you do this, skip the horseradish.
• If you have an undying hatred of celery, or just want to mix it up, use a few tablespoons of pickle relish, or mince some pickles for that tang and crunch.

Serving and Storing Whitefish Salad

Whitefish salad is best eaten right after it’s made, but you can store it in a closed container in the fridge for a few days. It does not freeze well — although both smoked fish and cooked, flaked fish do freeze nicely.

I prefer serving whitefish salad as an open-faced sandwich on rye bread with something like thinly sliced radishes on top, as you see in the picture. It’s also amazing on a toasted bagel; “everything” bagel, for me.

A regular “tunafish sandwich” style sandwich works great, too, as does a “tuna melt” with cheese, if that’s your thing (it’s not mine). It’s also good just spread on Saltines or other crackers — Swedish crispbreads, like those made by Wasa, are an excellent option. I suppose you could make a whitefish salad wrap, too.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below; I’d love to hear how everything went. If you’re on Instagram, share a picture and tag me at huntgathercook.