From raw, to just north of raw - cured. I mentioned before that a bagel and lox is probably my all time favorite breakfast, so why not make the lox from scratch? Although I've never really been clear on what exactly constitutes lox, and how it differs from smoked salmon. Is lox smoked? A brief internet search reveals some dispute on the subject, and I'm not about to throw my hat into the ring. So to avoid any further confusion, I'll refer to the recipes in this post as ones for "cured salmon". Regardless of what you call it, I found curing my own salmon to be shockingly simple, and most certainly worthwhile. The end product is excellent and much cheaper than buying smoked salmon at the grocery store.