Cullen Skink Recipe: Delicious & Hearty Smoked Fish Soup

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If you’re craving Cullen skink, and can’t make it to Scotland soon enough, this is my easy Cullen skink recipe to try at home!

My Cullen skink recipe is a low-sodium hearty soup perfect to warm up on a cold fall or winter day (and I even have a recipe for making your own smoked haddock!).

Psst! This blog post contains affiliate links in it which sends me a bit of extra money if you use them… at no extra cost to you!

Recipe Highlights

This Cullen skink recipe is made with smoked haddock, potatoes, and cream
It is a “low sodium” recipe with no added salt
Smoked white fish might be hard to find, I provide a recipe to make your own smoked haddock on the smoker
This recipe makes 8 portions of soup, but it can easily be scaled up for more
The soup can be frozen for up to 3 months for quick leftovers!

cullen skink Scottish soup ingredients on a cheese board to add a little bit of height from the counter top. Out of focus in the foreground is a carton of cooking cream, a pinch bowl filled with bright green chives. Just behind, in focus on the cheese board are several dried bay leaves, a punch bowl filled with black pepper, and a smoked haddock fillet.

Filling Cullen Skink Recipe

Cullen skink is a creamy soup with smoked white fish (usually haddock), onions, and potatoes.

Prep Time: ~30 minutes

Total Time: ~1h30 minutes

Yield: 12 cups (~ 8 portions)

an overhead photo of a red bowl of hearty cullen skink soup. It's a cream colours, with green herbs, and potato chunks. There's extra pieces of smoked white fish pieces added on top and chopped green onions next to it. It's resting on a light brown and cream patterned oven mitt to protect the marble patterned countertops below.

Kitchen Equipment

Ingredients Smoked Fish & Potato Soup

3 smoked haddock fillets (jump to recipe)
5 medium russet or yellow potatoes (more if you want a thicker soup)
2 red onions
Green onions (optional for garnish)
Butter
600 ml water

475 ml cooking cream (but you can also use milk)
300 ml milk
Chives
1-2 bay leaves
Course black pepper
Optional: salt

Instructions

For some recipe tips continue reading below or jump to them now.

Wash, peel & cut 5-7 potatoes. Cut about 1-inch thick.
Dice 2 red onions.
Add butter to large saucepan (enough to cover the bottom). Once it’s hot, add onions and sauté until golden.
Once onions are cooked, add potatoes.
Add 600 ml of water and bring it to a boil (or enough to cover the potatoes).
Once water is boiling, let it simmer uncovered until potatoes are soft.
At the same time, in the medium saucepan, add 750 ml of milk (or 475 ml cooking cream and 300 ml of milk), a bunch of chives to taste, 1-2 bay leaves, pepper to taste, and 3 smoked haddock fillets. Make sure the milk covers the fish.
Bring milk to a boil then simmer for around 3 minutes – stirring occasionally.
Taste milk, when the milk tastes smoky, remove the haddock from the milk (it might an extra few minutes).
When the potatoes are soft, add the milk broth to the potatoes and bring it to a boil.
Break the haddock into pieces (double checking for bones at the same time).
Once the broth is boiling and it’s well combined, add the haddock. Mix it around, gently to combine fish in the soup, and it’s ready to eat!
Add green onions for garnish.

an overhead photo of an open vintage recipe book with a handwritten recipe on both pages. The first page you can see it's written Cullen skink, you can't really read the actual recipe. On the right page is a recipe for Smoke haddock. There's a vintage bright blue border design on the top and bottom of each page. Around the recipe book are 4 gold potatoes, a punch bowl of chives, where some have fallen onto the countertop, a wooden spoon, and a potato peeler.

Traditional Scottish Soup Recipe Tips

Here are some general tips for making Cullen skink that I’ve noticed after making this recipe.

Low-Sodium Cullen Skink Recipe

This is a low sodium Cullen skink recipe. I don’t cook with a lot of salt in general, and this soup is already salty because when you smoke fish, you brine it first in a water, salt, and sugar mixture.

So the soup become salty enough (for me anyway) because the fish is quite salty. So I don’t add any extra salt to the soup, but of course, feel free to add to your taste if you want!

an overhead photo of a counter top with a bowl of creamy smoked fish soup on the left, and a pot filled with smoked haddock soup on the right with a ladle in the soup.

Make More Potatoes Instead Of Less

You can always add more water if it’s too thick, but you can’t add more potatoes if it isn’t thick enough. Unless you plan ahead…

I’m all about thick and creamy potatoes soups. So if you’re worried about the thickness of your soup, make more potatoes than just 5 (I usually cook an additional 2 potatoes!).

Then when the potatoes are soft, I’ll take out a few spoonfuls of potato mash to set aside for later.

This way, when I add in the cream broth and haddock to the potatoes and it’s too much liquid, I have extra cooked potatoes to add to thicken the stock.

An over head photo of the cutting board on the counter top.

On the bamboo cutting board is a knife that was used to the the chunks of potatoes next to it. There are still two more whole potatoes to cut. Next to the potatoes in the cutting cue are a bunch of fresh green onions.

How Do You Know When The Cream Broth Is Smoky Enough?

My recipe says to take out the smoked haddock when the milk tastes smoky… but what does that mean?

You’ll just have to trust me that you’re going to know if it’s too early to take the haddock out of the milk broth.

But as a guide, taste your milk after 3 minutes of simmering with the fish, if it still tastes like milk then it’s too early to take the fish out.

a view of two large sauce pants cooking on the stove top. In the pot on the right are potatoes being boiled in a broth with onions. In the left pot is a cream mixture with fish, chives, and bay leaves.

You’ll know the difference between milk and smoky milk when it’s actually smokey! One will have loads of layers of flavour, and the other will just be warmed milk.

The flavour from the smoked fish really gets absorbed by the milk and it embodies the flavour – it’s delicious!

I’ve made this soup several times now, and it’s always different how long I have to keep the fish.

The first time, it was ready after boiling and then simmering for 3 minutes. But, I’ve had to leave it for anywhere from 5-10 minutes as well. The 3 minutes it just a starting point.

Pieces of smoked haddock fillets that have been removed from a creamy mixture, you can still see a white film coating on top. There are bay leaves removed too. They're on a plate with a pink, blue and green rim.

Why Remove The Fish When You Combine Both Soups?

It might seem like a useless step, but removing the fish from the milk broth is helpful in two ways…

First, it lets you check for bones when you break up the fish into smaller pieces. No one wants a nice sharp surprise in their creamy soup!

Second, once you add the fish to the soup you don’t really want to be mixing the soup around that much because you risk the fish breaking into too small of pieces and loosing the fish altogether in the depths of the soup.

So you only want to add it once the soup is ready and well combined. You still want nice chunks of smoked fish when you eat the soup!

To remove the fish from the creamy broth, I use tongs, but you can also use a slotted spoon.

Read to serve cullen skink soup in a red both with two handles on the side. The soup inside is a thick and creamy potato soup. On top of the soup are pieces of smoked fish and freshly chopped green onions, There's an extra pinch bowl of green onions to add more. There's a wooden spoon next to the bowl, And a closed vintage recipe book for homemade recipes.

Freezing and Reheating Smoked Fish Soup

If you have leftover soup, the best way to store it is to freeze the leftovers. The soup can be frozen for up to three months.

To reheat the soup you want to avoid using the microwave though.

So if you know in advance you’re going to be eating the soup, the best way to reheat it is to take it out of the freezer at least one night before. Then it’s easy to reheat on the stove when you want to eat it.

You don’t want to reheat the soup in the microwave because this will change the texture of the fish, for the worse.

To reheat the soup on the stove, turn the stove to medium heat and let the soup slowly heat up. The soup tends to thicken, so you might have to add some more milk as well.

If there’s leftover soup at this point, the safest is to get rid of it. You don’t really want to be reheating the dairy and fish for a third time around.

Two bowls are filled with cullen skink on the left, and two containers are also filled with the soup. It's a chunky potato and creamy soup with chunks fo potatoes and fish.

Smoked Haddock Recipe

The hardest ingredient to find, will most likely be a smoked white fish. You can try your local fish store, but ours didn’t sell any.

In the end, my partner bought a smoker and I said the only condition is that he had to make me smoked haddock.

You will need a smoker and time, the whole process to smoke haddock will take about 7 hours. So I recommend making more haddock than less, and freezing the extra fillets.

P.S. If you’re making fresh soup with frozen haddock, take out the fillets the night before and keep it in your fridge to let it defrost.

What You’ll Need To Smoke Haddock

Kosher salt
Brown sugar
Measuring cups
Large baking dish with cover (maybe two depending on how many fillets you want to cure)
Parchment paper
Thongs

Step 1: Cure Haddock Fillets

This recipe is for 6 haddock fillets.

In a large baking dish, add 3 cups brown sugar, 1 cup kosher salt, and water, and stir the mixture until it’s well combined.

Add the filets skin side down, add more water to cover the fillets completely.

After 30 minutes, wash off the fish, dry them, and let them sit for 1 hour on the counter. This will create what is called, the pellicle.

The full list of ingredients needed for cullen skink photographed from on top. On the counter there is a closed vintage recipe book, a wooden spoon, three golden potatoes, a vegetable peeler, and cooking cream. On a separate marble cutting board is a fillet of smoked fish, a bunch bowl of chives, a pinch bowl of black peppers, some dried bay leaves, and a cut open red onion.

Step 2: How To Smoke Haddock

Place your fish fillets on your smoker once it’s preheated to 150 degrees.

You want to keep the temperature at around 125 to 175 degrees.

Smoke the fish for around 3 to 5 hours until the internal temperature is minimum 125 degrees.

If your fish fillets don’t have skin on the bottom, place parchment paper on your grill so you can more easily remove them.

Haddock is a lot thinner than smoking other fish, like salmon, and they will shrink even more during the smoking process.

So when it came time to taking them off the grill they were hard to pick up and handle without breaking them.

Cullen skink closeup in a red bowl. The Cullen skink is a thick and creamy potato soup with chunks and pieces of fish on top and freshly cut green onions

Fun Fact: Do You Know Why Is It Called Cullen Skink?

Sounds like a very normal and delicious soup, right!? So why does it have such a strange name?

Cullen skink dates back centuries to the town of Cullen in Moray, Scotland.

Skink is the Scottish word for shin, knuckle, or hough of beef. Skink was popular in Scotland to make soup broth. So Cullen skink actually referred to a beef broth soup.

But in the nineteenth century, beef was scarce in the town of Cullen. Haddock, on the other hand, was in full supply as they’re a fishing village.

As there was more than enough haddock to go around, the beef was replaced by smoked fish. And it just stuck!

Find out more about the history behind this delicious soup.