Last Updated on January 22, 2026
Delicious Ideas with Hot Smoked Salmon – Lettuce Boats
Nutritious and tasty, I love salmon. It’s a rich, oily fish full of vitamins B and D and omega-3 fatty acids. So it’s good brain food as well as being protein-rich. While it’s nothing like eating a sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream, Salmon isn’t the lowest-calorie fish option, though. But, I find that a little goes a long way – around 40g is enough to make me feel as if I have had a good lunch when mixed in with salads.
Hot-smoked salmon differs from the thin slices of cold-smoked salmon that you might be used to eating in a sandwich. Generally, you’ll be sold a fillet, and the hot smoking process makes the fish flakier and slightly firmer than a cold smoke. So it works very well used in something like these lettuce boats.
I’ve been doing a mixture of buying and reviewing fish from DelishFish in Scotland for some years now. It’s a fifth-generation, family-run business in Peterhead, right by the fish market. They sell online and through two retail outlets, and, having bought their fish from the market there, they then prepare it all in-house. I can remember John Milne, the owner, telling me that he hated fish as a child because of the bones. He now takes great care when he’s preparing fish to make sure that the individual labelled packs he sells are as free from bones as possible. And, I love the fact that everything comes packed in individual portions – perfect for a small household.
John also hot smokes his own fish. The hot smoked salmon he sells is unlike anything else I’ve ever tried, and although he sells it with no added flavouring, he also has a small range where the fish has been smoked with ingredients like Thai Chilli, Orange and Drambuie and a Honey Roast salmon. The latest is a Sweet Mustard smoked salmon, a limited edition, which I’ve been lucky enough to be asked to sample. I wanted to make a dish which didn’t overwhelm the fish but which added a few complementary flavours and textures. And, I wanted something that was relatively low-calorie!
I suspect the idea of making lettuce boats comes from eating these as canapes somewhere. Certainly, if you pick out the smaller leaves to use, they could make a pretty dish to accompany a cocktail party. You could vary things a bit by using chicory too, though I suspect that might work a bit better with the sweeter, honey roast salmon. I’ve added a light, lemon pickled fennel for a bit of crunch and a dressing of creme fraiche with a little more mustard. We had a couple each as a starter, and I liked them so much I made them again the next day, for my 5:2 fast lunch. They are ultra-simple to put together and perfect for a hot summer’s day.
Hot Smoked Salmon Boats
Ingredients
- 250 g Hot Smoked Salmon
- 1 Small Fennel bulb
- 1 Lemon
- 1 heaped teaspoon Dijon mustard
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 1 Little gem lettuce
- 1 tablespoon Low fat creme fraiche
Instructions
- mix the creme fraiche with the mustard
- Carefully pull apart the leaves of the lettuce, wash and dry
- Remove the salmon skin and flake into largish pieces
- Make up the boats by adding a dollop of dressing, then a few shavings of fennel, then a good teaspoon of salmon, seasoning with salt and pepper and then topping each one with a finely sliced piece of lemon
Do they work for a diet? Well, it does, of course, depend on how you make them and how many you eat. 250g of salmon was enough for me to make 10 of these, and it works out at about 50 calories each. Two made a good starter, and three was a light lunch with a little extra tomato and cucumber salad
Why not save this recipe for later – it’s easy and delicious!
Disclosure: I was sent samples of fish from Delish Fish. All content is editorially given.
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