Smoked Salmon Bagel Bites

This smoked salmon canapes recipe is the result of combining two other finger foods recipes that I recently developed.

First off, I designed my Homemade Mini Bagels recipe as a base for Homemade Bagel Bites, when the source material was discontinued in Canada.

Secondly, I made some delicious Smoked Salmon Canapés for my keto blog, using English cucumber slices as the base.

As I mentioned in that post, fish canapés are an easy French appetizer that I like to make for special occasions.

Traditionally, these hors d’oeuvres have some sort of bread or pastry base - A slice of bread cut into mini toasts, crackers, Melba toast, etc - usually with a combination of cream cheese and smoked salmon on top.

Cream cheese canapes are a great finger food to serve fo anything from a holiday Sunday brunch to passed hors d'oeuvres on New Years eve.

Alongside a little white wine - or sparkling wine - they’re the perfect appetizer for your next dinner party, cocktail party, or even before Christmas dinner!

With a bunch of small bite mini bagels on hand - and some extra plain cream cheese spread - I figured I’d whip up another batch of the salmon appetizers, using bagels as the base.

These little bites were fantastic!

Smoked salmon on bagels is just a really satisfying thing in general.

We love it on my Rye Bagels, and later designed a Smoked Salmon Pizza Recipe based on that idea, after all!

Having it in the mini form is just cute and fun, you know?

I may have to make mini rye bagels someday to make the PERFECT bite (the rye bagel recipe, the technique from the mini bagels recipe), but in the meantime?

This simple appetizer works really well with even plain mini bagels.

You can even make a main course out of them - we’ve definitely done so for breakfast / brunch on more than one occasion!

Bon appétit!

Ingredients

This recipe uses only a few simple ingredients that should be easy to find at most grocery stores. A few notes for you:

Mini Bagels

I used my Homemade Mini Bagels for this recipe - about ½ a batch.

(The other half went to making Homemade Bagel Bites, as they stopped selling the source material pizza snacks in Canada!)

I definitely recommend making these if you can - fresh is always so much nicer than mass produced - but you can definitely use store bought if you prefer.

This makes enough for about 20 mini bagels (split, so 40 halves), but that’ll depend on the sizing.

Smoked Salmon

While hot-smoked salmon - like my Hot Smoked Sockeye Salmon Recipe is fantastic, you’re going to want to use cold-smoked salmon fillets for this.

Hot smoked salmon is a cooked salmon, with the expected flaky texture. It could definitely be tasty on a canape, but not really as elegant.

Cold smoked salmon is a cured fish product, rather than cooked fish. This gives it a completely different texture - silky smooth and pliable, rather than flaky.

You can generally find good quality smoked salmon on cards or in fancy boxes in the fish section of larger grocery stores.

Cream Cheese

I like to use a full fat cream cheese - plain cream cheese - softened to room temperature so it’s easy to mix - and pipe.

While crème fraîche is popular for salmon appetizers, it’s not really sturdy and won’t really hold its shape if piped.

So, aside from Neufchatel and dairy free cream cheese products, there aren’t really any good substitutions for the cream cheese in this recipe, IMHO.

Fresh Herbs

I use both fresh dill and fresh chives, both in the flavored cream cheese and sometimes some additional fresh dill sprigs as garnish.

If you have to substitute dried, I’d go with half as much, and let the cream cheese chill before using, to let the flavour come out more.

Everything Else

Rounding out the recipe, you will need:

English Cucumbers
Fresh garlic cloves
Lemon zest
Salt and black pepper

Optionally, consider having some lemon slices, capers, or dill for garnish.

How to Make Smoked Salmon Bagel Bites

The full recipe is in the recipe card at the end of this post, here is the pictorial walk through.

Prepare your flavouring ingredients, chopping the dill and chives, pressing the garlic, and zesting the lemon.

In a small bowl, beat softened cream cheese until smooth.

Combine cream cheese with dill, chives, garlic, and lemon zest. Stir well to combine, season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Note: Flavoured cream cheese can be made up to a day ahead of time, and stored in an airtight container in the fridge. You’ll want to warm it up a bit before piping or spreading it on the bagels, however!

Split each of the bagels in half. Toast - if desired - and arrange on a serving plate.

Spread or pipe cream cheese mixture on the sliced bagels.

Separate smoked salmon into slices, use a sharp knife to slice each piece of salmon into long ribbons.

Arrange smoked salmon on top of the cream cheese bagels, arrange on a serving plate.

More Finger Food Recipes

Looking for more appetizer recipes for your next party, or the big game? Here are some fun ideas!

Air Fryer Cream Cheese Wontons
Air Fryer Jalapeno Poppers
Antipasto Skewers
Armadillo Eggs
Chicken Satay
Crispy Fried Olives Stuffed with Garlicky Cheese
Crispy Smoked Chicken Wings
Cucumber Shrimp Canapes
Easy Air Fryer Frozen Pierogi
Gluten Free Pizza Bites
Greek Salad Skewers
Homemade Bagel Bites
Hot Dog Sliders
Jalapeno Popper Stuffed Pretzels
Keto Mozzarella Sticks
Loaded Potato Skins
Loaded Pierogi Nachos
Piroshki
Puff Pastry Pinwheels
Reuben Egg Rolls
Smoked French Fries
Smoked Jalapeno Poppers
Smoked Salmon Canapes
Smoky Dry Rub Wings
Spanakopita Triangles

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