Finnish Lohikeitto – Creamy Salmon Soup

Name: Finnish Lohikeitto – Creamy Salmon Soup
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients: 500 g skinless salmon fillet, cut into large cubes; 4 medium potatoes, diced; 1 leek, white part only, thinly sliced; 1 carrot, thinly sliced; 1.2 litres fish or vegetable stock; 200 ml milk + 100 ml cream; 2 tbsp butter; 3 allspice berries, 2 bay leaves; 1 large bunch fresh dill, chopped; Salt, white pepper; rye bread to serve

Finland's classic salmon soup with potato, leek and plenty of dill, ready in 25 minutes. 32 g of protein a serving and rich in omega-3.

Total: 40 min
Servings: 4 servings
Difficulty: Easy
Calories · per serving: 410 kcal

Written by

Ecem Akkaba · Dietitian

Dietitian, graduate of İstanbul Medipol University. She develops the recipes and nutrition values on FitZen.

Updated: August 3, 2026

In short

Finnish Lohikeitto – Creamy Salmon Soup contains 410 calories per serving: 32 g protein, 26 g carbohydrate and 20 g fat. It takes 40 minutes in total and makes 4 servings.

About this recipe

Lohikeitto is the soup Finns cook most often in winter, and it appears on the weekly menu of nearly every lunch restaurant. It is not complicated: salmon, potato, leek and a great deal of dill. The whole question is when the salmon goes in.

The salmon is added at the very end, with the heat almost off, and never boiled. Fish protein begins to set around 60°C; held in boiling liquid it both dries out and loses omega-3 fatty acids.

The traditional recipe leans on cream. Here milk takes over half that job — the texture is almost identical and it saves roughly 90 calories per serving.

Method

1
Melt the butter in a pot and soften the leek over low heat for 5 minutes without letting it colour.
2
Add the potato, carrot, allspice and bay leaves. Pour in the stock and cook for 12-15 minutes until the potatoes are tender.
3
Crush a few pieces of potato against the pot with the back of a ladle — it gives the soup a light body without any flour.
4
Add the milk and cream and lower the heat. From this point on the soup must NOT boil.
5
Slide in the salmon cubes, cover and leave for 4-5 minutes. You can turn the hob off entirely; the residual heat is enough to cook the fish.
6
Season with salt and white pepper. Add most of the dill and stir gently — do not break up the salmon.
7
Ladle into bowls, scatter over the remaining dill and serve hot with rye bread.

Tips

Adding the salmon last, off the heat, is the one critical point in this soup. Boiled salmon falls into dry fibres.
No fish stock? Simmer the salmon skin and bones for 20 minutes and strain for a quick homemade version.
Dill does not survive heat well. Always add it after the pot leaves the hob to keep its aroma — dried dill does not work in this recipe.

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