Slow Cooker Salmon Curry
Decadently creamy and luscious, this aromatically spiced Slow Cooker Salmon Curry is comfort food for me – I hope you find it to be your comfort food too.
Why cook salmon in a slow cooker?
Someone asked me why would I cook salmon in a slow cooker?
After all, salmon is a tender meat. All you need is a frying pan and some spices and a tender piece of salmon can easily be cooked up on the stovetop within minutes – as I did with these Harissa Salmon fillets.
But, every now and then, I like to cook up sauces and curries in my slow cooker because the flavor that results after a bunch of spices, herbs, garlic, ginger, onion, etc. hang out together for a couple of hours or more is so deliriously delicious.
And, there are also those times when I have a million things going on and it’s just plain easy to throw a bunch of ingredients into my slow cooker, set it and forget it while I busy myself with a million errands and household chores.
And those are some of the reasons for this slow cooker salmon curry.
It is not necessarily to get the salmon tender – but to let all the spices bloom and result in one delicious curry sauce that makes it hard for us not to lick our plates clean!
As a child, I grew up eating curry – vegetable curry, egg curry, chicken curry – you name it – my mom could curry just about everything. One of my favorites of all her curries was her fish curry – and it didn’t matter what fish she used.
These days, when I need something comforting, I tend to turn to fish curry. Warm, creamy, soul-and-taste-bud-satisfying, fish curry.
And that’s what this salmon curry is – luscious, creamy, so incredibly aromatic and tasty – and it came together by throwing a bunch of ingredients into a slow cooker for a little over 2 hours.
Usually, I don’t employ a slow cooker to make curry.
Usually, I manage to pull together a salmon curry in less than 30 minutes on the stove. But, lately, life has been a tab bit busy.
Sometimes, all I have is 5 to 10 minutes between getting home from my day job and then going onto wherever my daughter needs me to be.
While 5 to 10 minutes isn’t enough time for me to pull together a curry, it is plenty of time for me to throw a few ingredients into a slow cooker before I head out. That way, when we get home a few hours later, we have a warm and nutritious meal waiting on us.
I have noticed that whenever I make curry in a slow cooker, it always ends up being so much more flavorful than when I make curry on the stove top – I am thinking it’s because all the ingredients get to hang out together longer.
This Salmon Curry is dairy-free as I used coconut milk. My go-to coconut milk is Chaokoh brand – this is an Amazon affiliate link to one of my favorite brands of creamy coconut milk and coconut cream.
What to pair this curry with?
Serve this curry with:
• Broccoli Kale Cilantro Sambol & roti,
• On the side with some delicious Sri Lankan Shrimp Kottu Roti,
• Some shrimp curry and wild rice,
• Or, serve it simply with rice or this onion and herb roti
My daughter and I enjoyed this Slow Cooker Salmon Curry with some cardamom and clove spiced saffron rice one night and some roti on another night as we had leftovers for days. I sure do hope you give this a try and maybe, just maybe it will be your comfort food too?
This recipe first appeared on Today Food, if you happen to like this recipe, please click >HERE< and give it a thumbs up.
Ingredients
- 6 pieces salmon without skin
- 1 onion chopped
- 6 cloves garlc chopped
- 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
- 3 stalks celery chopped
- 2 carrots chopped
- 2 cans coconut milk I used Chaokoh full fat coconut milk 1305 oz
- ½ cup vegetable stock
- 1 12 ounce can tomato paste
- 1 ½ teaspoons coriander
- 1 ½ teaspoons cumin
- 1 teaspoon chili powder can reduce to ½ for a milder curry or eliminate entirely
- 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- chopped cilantro parsley, and chili flakes to garnish
Instructions
- Turn on slow cooker
- Pour in the 2 cans of coconut milk
- Dollop the tomato paste in (I did not mix this with the coconut milk – just dumped it in in spoonfuls)
- Add in vegetable stock
- Add in coriander, cumin, chili, turmeric and paprika
- Add in salt and pepper
- Stir the ingredients together well
- Place salmon pieces into the slow cooker – trying your best for them not to overlap
- Add in the onions, garlic, ginger, celery and carrots
- Put the lid on and set the timer for 2.75 hours on low (I used my AllClad slow cooker and set my timer for 4 hours as that was the lowest option for the low setting, but I turned it off at the 2 hours and 45 minutes mark)
- Garnish and serve with rice or naan
I made this for Christmas Eve since I had people with special diets that could not eat wheat and a vegetarian, and everyone raved about this for days. I promised my family I would be making it again. This was really really good.
Hi Christina, Thank you so very much for stopping by to let me know. I am so so glad to hear you and your family loved this. Happy New Year to you and yours!
Can this be frozen?
Hey Claire – I haven’t ever tried to freeze this and I’m not sure it will be as good thawed out – Im so sorry. Thanks for stopping by.
What if I used tilapia fillets would that work or do you think the curry would be too heavy for this type of fish?
Oh my goodness – this is so delicious! And what a breeze it was to make. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Thanks so much for letting me know you liked this recipe, Chantel! I sure do appreciate your kind words – hope you have a wonderful rest of the week.
Simply gorgeous!! Would love to dig in:)
You know Sashi, I think you are really really smart to make this in the slow cooker. I am positive this is crazy flavorful and delicious. Curries especially take a while and this is such a nice recipe. I need to get a slow cooker, which I have been wanting for a while now.
Hugs to your mom, I could eat curry everyday all day.:)
xx
That looks ever so delicious! I love salmon and fish curries.
Cheers,
Rosa
I never used to like curry dishes and now i LOVE them – love the extra spice it adds!! This looks wonderful.
Ah, so delicious! I wish I grew up eating curry (and salmon) haha! I feel like now I’m just making up for lost time 😉
I agree the slow cooker works magic when ingredients get to hang out together! Have never even thought of doing fish in the slow cooker. But it makes sense for a dish like this. Great idea — thanks.
This looks amazing! Whilst I love and adore salmon, my husband doesn’t like seafood (*ugh*), can I substitute any type of meat (chicken, lamb etc) and same cooking time? Thanks x
Awesome use of your slow cooker! Such a gorgeous curry, I can tell it’s just bursting with flavor! Pinning, yumming and tweeting it but I’d rather be eating it 🙂