Air Fryer Salmon

My tip for cooking with salmon

If you have an air fryer and interested in trying salmon – I highly recommend it! The best tip I have for cooking with salmon is to use fresh fillets instead of frozen. 

For years I was using frozen fish fillets because I live in the Midwest and good fish isn’t exactly easy to come by. I don’t always shop at stores that have a meat and poultry counter so I would just pick up a bag of frozen fish.

Then I realized, I never wanted to cook fish. Nothing was ever all that great so I would usually stick with my usual beef, pork or poultry. Then I started buying fresh fish fillets (usually from Aldi or Costco) and realized I had been missing out on how much better fish dinners could be!

Here’s the catch (pun intended) if you purchase fresh salmon and then freeze it, it’s still better than the frozen fillets. I’ve bought salmon from Costco and cut it into fourths and frozen each section. I later thaw those out the night before cooking and the flavor is still much better.

Using the air fryer

I’m still new to my air fryer (this is the second recipe I’ve posted) but so far I have found that my air fryer takes longer to cook than most recipes online state. I’m not sure if it’s my particular device or the thickness difference in my foods, but I have come to expect to need a little more time.

For salmon in particular, the fillets often have an uneven thickness. I purchased mine at Aldi and the thicker part of the fish was nearly double the size of the thinner part.

Next time, I will remove the thinner part of the fish a few minutes early and then return the thicker part to the fryer for the remaining time. Recipes online said between 10-12 minutes but after 12 minutes my thicker portion had an undercooked layer.

Check out the members shopping guide for Aldi here! 

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Air Fryer Salmon

Course: Main Dish

Cuisine: Air Fryer, American

Keyword: Air Fryer, Dairy Free

Prep Time: 2 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes minutes

Total Time: 17 minutes minutes

Servings: 4 servings

Calories: 130kcal

Author: Steph Wagner

Cost: $1.97 per serving

Easy cooking, easy cleanup and wonderful flakey fish in the air fryer!

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Equipment

• Air Fryer

Ingredients

• 16 oz fillet salmon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper

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Instructions

• Season salmon with salt and pepper and place in bottom of air fryer basket.
• Set the air fryer to 400 F for 14 minutes. *If fish has a thinner part and thicker part of the fillet, remove the fryer basket after 10 minutes and cut off thinner part; return the basket with thicker portion for the remaining 4 minutes.

Notes

Note: several recipes online said 10 to 12 minutes but after 12 minutes the thicker parts of my fillet had not fully cooked.

Consider opening the fryer at 12 minutes and removing the thinner side of your fillet and continuing to cook the thicker side if you have uneven sides like mine.

Nutrition

Serving: 3oz | Calories: 130kcal | Protein: 21g | Fat: 4.5g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 62mg | Sodium: 195mg | Potassium: 556mg | Vitamin A: 45IU | Calcium: 14mg | Iron: 1mg