Herring is one of the most versatile fish in the world, used for everything from traditional cured dishes and omega-3 supplements to aquaculture feed and fertilizer. It’s a staple protein source across Northern Europe, Scandinavia, and parts of Asia, and it plays a critical role in marine ecosystems as a forage fish that feeds whales, seals, and seabirds. Here’s a closer look at the many ways herring is used.
Food: The Primary Use for Herring
Most herring ends up on a plate. It’s eaten fresh, smoked, pickled, salted, and canned across dozens of countries, and each region has developed its own signature preparations over centuries. The fish’s high fat content makes it ideal for preservation methods like smoking and pickling, which is why herring became a dietary cornerstone in Northern Europe long before refrigeration existed.
Kippers are whole herring that have been split, gutted, salted, and cold-smoked over woodchips. They’re a classic British breakfast item, typically served with eggs and toast. In Poland, śledzie are herring fillets pickled in vinegar, oil, sour cream, or onions, served as an appetizer or side dish. Germany has rollmops: pickled herring fillets rolled around onion or pickle. Norway’s sursild is a pickled herring traditionally eaten during Christmas. In Sweden, surströmming takes things further with fermented herring that’s notorious for its intense smell.
Herring isn’t just a European fish. In Malaysia, keropok lekor is a popular snack made from fish including herring, shaped into rolls and fried. In Japan’s Kanagawa region, shirasu don features tiny young herring and other small fish served over rice. Canned and jarred herring products, including smoked fillets and pickled varieties, are widely available in grocery stores and offer around 18 grams of protein per serving.
Nutritional Profile and Health Benefits
Herring is one of the richest dietary sources of omega-3 fatty acids, specifically EPA and DHA. These are the same fatty acids sold in fish oil capsules, and herring delivers them in high concentrations because of its naturally oily flesh. A 75-gram serving of kippered Atlantic herring provides about 9 grams of fat, with a substantial portion coming from those beneficial omega-3s. The same serving delivers roughly 18 grams of protein and significant amounts of vitamin D and vitamin B12.
Clinical research from the University of Gothenburg tested what happens when people eat herring regularly. In two intervention studies, subjects ate 150 grams of baked herring fillets five times per week for periods of four to six weeks. Compared to control groups eating lean pork or chicken, the herring group showed a significantly lower ratio of oxidized LDL to total LDL. Oxidized LDL is a form of cholesterol that contributes to plaque buildup in arteries, so a lower ratio suggests reduced cardiovascular risk. In animal studies from the same research, herring and herring oil improved overall cholesterol profiles and decreased triglycerides.
The U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend 8 ounces of seafood per week for adults on a 2,000-calorie diet, and herring is specifically listed as a low-methylmercury choice. Testing of Atlantic herring from the Norwegian Sea found average mercury levels of just 0.04 mg per kilogram of muscle tissue, well below the EU’s maximum limit of 0.5 mg per kilogram. That makes herring one of the safer fish you can eat regularly, including during pregnancy, when the recommendation rises to 8 to 12 ounces of low-mercury seafood per week.
Industrial Uses: Fish Oil, Feed, and Fertilizer
A large portion of the global herring catch never reaches a dinner table. Instead, it’s processed into fish oil, fish meal, and fertilizer. Herring oil is a major commercial source of EPA and DHA for the supplement industry. Those omega-3 capsules in your medicine cabinet may well come from herring. The oil also has applications in the pharmaceutical and food manufacturing industries, where it’s used as an ingredient in fortified foods and other products.
Fish meal made from herring is a key ingredient in aquaculture feed, particularly for farmed salmon. Salmon raised on diets built around fish meal and fish oil develop omega-3 levels that match or exceed those of wild-caught fish. Herring meal is also used in livestock feed. Historically, herring that wasn’t suitable for human consumption was processed into animal feed and fertilizer using relatively simple methods, though modern techniques have become more refined and extract greater value from the fish.
Ecological Role as a Forage Fish
In the ocean, herring’s most important “use” is as food for other animals. Pacific herring and Atlantic herring are forage fish, meaning they sit in the middle of the food web and transfer energy from tiny zooplankton up to large predators. This makes them one of the most ecologically significant fish species in northern oceans.
Ecosystem modeling published in PLOS One identified several marine predators whose diets consist of 20% or more herring: humpback whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, and Pacific hake. When researchers simulated what would happen if herring populations declined, those predator populations dropped sharply. The effects cascaded further up the food chain, reducing the prey base for transient orcas that feed on marine mammals. Seabirds also depend heavily on herring, especially during the spawning season when the fish gather in enormous schools close to shore. Pacific herring in particular is a relatively large, long-lived forage fish found from the Sea of Japan to the California Current, supporting commercial, recreational, and Indigenous fisheries throughout its range.
Preservation Methods That Shaped Herring Culture
Herring’s deep roots in Northern European cuisine come down to preservation. Before modern refrigeration, communities needed ways to store protein through long winters, and herring’s oily flesh responded exceptionally well to salting, smoking, and pickling.
Pickling herring at home requires creating an acidic environment that prevents bacterial growth. The key threshold is getting the pH below 3.5, which stops food-poisoning bacteria from developing. In practice, this means using a pickle solution with at least as much 5% vinegar as water. A typical recipe calls for about 4 pints of vinegar to 3 pints of water per gallon of pickling liquid. For smoking, the fish is first brined in a saturated salt solution (roughly 1 part fine kosher salt to 3.5 parts water), then cured to a final salt concentration of 1.5 to 5% depending on the desired taste before being smoked.
These preservation techniques aren’t just historical curiosities. Pickled and smoked herring remain popular worldwide, and the methods are straightforward enough for home preparation. Commercially, canned herring products, both smoked and pickled, offer shelf-stable options that keep for months or years without refrigeration.