Lox vs Smoked Salmon: Cured, Cold-Smoked, Hot-Smoked & Nova Explained

Lox vs smoked salmon: lox is salmon cured in salt and never smoked or cooked, while smoked salmon is cured and then smoked, either cold-smoked below 90°F, which leaves it silky and raw-textured (that is Nova), or hot-smoked to 160°F, which cooks it into firm, opaque flakes. Lox is the saltiest and tastes purely of salmon; Nova is milder with a trace of smoke; hot-smoked tastes like cooked salmon off a grill; gravlax is cured with salt, sugar and dill and not smoked at all.

For a bagel, buy Nova, which is what most delis now sell as “lox.” Buy true lox if you want salt and silk, and hot-smoked salmon for salads, dips and anything you eat with a fork.

Lox vs smoked salmon at a glance

	Lox	Nova	Hot-smoked (kippered)	Gravlax
How it’s made	Salt-cured, traditionally in brine; belly cut	Milder cure, then cold-smoked	Brined, then smoked to 160°F internal for at least 30 minutes (UAF)	Cured with salt, sugar and dill; no smoke (Britannica)
Smoked?	No	Yes, below 90°F	Yes, hot	No
Cooked?	No	No; a “raw, smoked fish” (UAF)	Yes	No
Texture	Silky, translucent, dense	Silky, translucent, a little softer	Firm, flaky, opaque	Silky, slightly firmer, herb-crusted
Taste	Salty, clean salmon	Lightly salty, faint smoke	Cooked salmon, smoky, often sweet glaze	Salt-sweet with dill and mustard sauce
Sodium per 100 g (USDA)	About 2,000 mg (chinook lox)	672 mg (USDA “smoked chinook”)	Varies by brine	Varies by cure
Best use	Bagel with cream cheese	Bagels, platters, eggs	Salads, dips, pasta, flaked on toast	Appetizer slices with mustard-dill sauce
Price	Varies; premium over raw salmon	Varies; premium over raw salmon	Varies; usually the least per pound	Varies; often made at home

Is lox cooked?

No. Lox is raw salmon preserved by salt. Curing draws water out of the flesh and seasons it, which changes the texture from soft to silky and firm, but nothing heats it. The University of Alaska Fairbanks extension guide defines cold smoke as keeping the fish below 90°F and says “the resulting product is a raw, smoked fish such as lox or Nova Scotia-style salmon”; it adds that at 95°F “the fish will start to cook.”

That is also why commercial producers freeze salmon before curing or cold-smoking: UAF says fish intended for cold smoking must be frozen first to destroy parasites, and the FDA notes that freezing kills parasites that may be present in raw fish. Hot-smoked salmon is the only item in this guide that is cooked, held at 160°F for at least 30 minutes according to UAF.

Nova vs lox: what’s the difference?

Lox is cured only; Nova is cured and cold-smoked. Smithsonian Magazine traces lox to Scandinavia, where fishermen “mastered the art of preserving salmon in saltwater brine.” Classic lox is belly salmon, heavily salted, and it arrived in New York with Jewish immigrants, who paired it with bagels sometime before 1950 (Smithsonian).

Nova takes its name from Nova Scotia salmon, uses a milder cure, and gets a brief cold smoke that adds aroma without cooking the fish. Because it is less salty, Nova took over the deli case, and in most of the country the word “lox” on a menu now means Nova. If you want the original, ask for belly lox. NPR traces the rest of the bagel’s cast: capers from Italy, cream cheese from Britain.

Gravlax vs lox

Both are cured, neither is smoked, and the cure is the difference. Britannica describes gravlax as a Scandinavian favorite of “salmon marinated in salt and dill and accompanied by a mustard sauce.” Modern gravlax cures add sugar to the salt, which keeps the fish less salty than lox and gives it a faint sweetness, and the dill pressed into the flesh leaves a green herb edge on every slice.

Texture-wise gravlax is a touch firmer than lox because the dry cure pulls more water. Serve it thin-sliced with the mustard-dill sauce, rye or crispbread, and skip the cream cheese.

Hot-smoked vs cold-smoked salmon

Cold-smoked salmon is cured and smoked below 90°F, so it stays raw in texture: translucent, silky, sliceable paper-thin. Hot-smoked salmon is brined, then smoked at temperatures that bring the fish to 160°F; it comes out opaque, flaky and firm, like a baked fillet with smoke in it. UAF notes that cold-smoke temperatures “are not hot enough to kill bacteria,” while hot-smoking temperatures “are high enough to kill most bacteria,” which is why hot smoking is the method home cooks are told to use.

In Florida, hot-smoked fish is the everyday product: mullet, kingfish and amberjack smoked over oak and flaked into smoked fish dip. Hot-smoked salmon works exactly the same way in a dip, a salad or a chowder. Cold-smoked salmon and lox are for slicing.

Lox vs smoked salmon taste and texture

Lox tastes of salt and salmon and nothing else, with a dense, buttery slickness from the belly fat. Nova tastes softer and rounder: less salt, a little smoke, more of the fish’s own sweetness.

Hot-smoked salmon tastes like grilled salmon with a campfire note, and many commercial versions are glazed with brown sugar or maple, so expect sweetness. The species matters too: most deli lox and Nova are made from fatty farmed Atlantic salmon (USDA lists 13.4 g fat per 100 g raw), while wild sockeye or coho versions are leaner, redder and more intense. Our sockeye vs Atlantic guide explains that gap.

Salt and nutrition per 100 g

USDA’s entry for regular lox (chinook) lists 117 calories, 18.3 g protein, 4.3 g fat and 2,000 mg of sodium per 100 g, with 0.45 g of EPA plus DHA and 23 mg of cholesterol. A 3-ounce serving carries about 1,700 mg of sodium, most of a day’s recommended limit, which is the single biggest nutritional difference between lox and fresh salmon.

USDA’s smoked chinook entry has the same calories, protein and fat but 672 mg of sodium, about a third of lox, plus 17.1 µg of vitamin D. Use those as the two ends of the range: traditional belly lox at the salty extreme, mild Nova and hot-smoked salmon closer to the smoked-chinook figure. Products made from farmed Atlantic salmon will run higher in fat and calories than these chinook-based records.

Is lox safe to eat? Listeria and pregnancy

For healthy adults, yes; keep it cold and eat it by the date. For pregnant women, older adults and anyone with a weakened immune system, federal advice is to skip refrigerated smoked and cured seafood. FoodSafety.gov says refrigerated smoked seafood “presents a real threat of Listeria,” lists the labels to watch for (“Nova-style, Lox, Kippered, Smoked, Jerky”), and says not to eat it unless it is in a cooked dish that reaches 165°F; canned and shelf-stable smoked salmon are fine. The FDA’s Listeria page gives the same advice: at-risk groups “should not eat … raw and smoked fish.”

Hot-smoked salmon is cooked, but once sliced and refrigerated it sits in the same high-risk category, so the at-risk advice covers it too. For everyone else, UAF’s storage guidance is practical: refrigerate below 38°F, and expect lightly salted smoked fish to keep 10 to 14 days unopened.

Which should you buy?

Bagel and schmear: Nova. Cream cheese, thin red onion, capers and tomato; the cheese needs the salt.
The old-school version: belly lox. Saltier, silkier, best with plain cream cheese and nothing else.
Brunch platter with eggs: Nova or gravlax, sliced thin, with mustard-dill sauce for the gravlax.
Salads, pasta, dips, chowder: hot-smoked salmon, flaked.
Pregnant or immune-compromised: canned smoked salmon, or hot-smoked salmon heated in a cooked dish to 165°F.
Budget: hot-smoked usually costs least per pound; sliced lox and Nova carry the biggest premium.

If you want the Florida take on smoked fish, Fish On Fire’s menu has it as smoked fish dip rather than on a bagel.

Bottom line

Lox is cured, Nova is cured and cold-smoked, hot-smoked salmon is cooked, and gravlax is cured with dill and sugar. None but hot-smoked is cooked, all are salty, and the at-risk-group Listeria warning applies to every refrigerated version. For the bagel, buy Nova; for a fork, buy hot-smoked.

Lox vs Smoked Salmon: What's the Difference?