Sous Vide Salmon (with a simple spice rub)

Sous Vide Salmon recipe. Cooking salmon sous vide gives you buttery, tender salmon with a melt-in-your-mouth texture you can’t get with regular cooking methods. I sprinkle the salmon with a spice rub, sous vide it for 45 minutes, and give it a quick sear on one side for a browned, crispy crust. And you can cook from frozen!

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Salmon is my favorite fish, and sous vide salmon is my favorite way to cook it. Well, except maybe for grilled salmon. Or salmon nigiri. Hmm…

Let me start again: Sous vide salmon is definitely one of my top three ways to cook salmon. Tender and buttery all the way through if cooked to medium-rare, it is a unique way to serve salmon.

Equipment

• Sous vide setup (I use an Anova Sous Vide and a Lipavi Sous Vide Tank This post contains Amazon affiliate links and rack)
• Quart-sized zip-top freezer bags (or vacuum bags and a vacuum sealer)
• Heavy skillet (Optional, if you want to sear the salmon. I use a 10-inch or 12-inch cast iron skillet.)

Ingredients

• 4 (6-ounce) salmon fillets, each about 1 inch thick
• 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground fennel
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons olive oil (for the bag)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (optional for searing)

How to Sous Vide Salmon

Season and bag the salmon, then dry brine for 30 minutes

In a small bowl, mix the sea salt, black pepper, ground coriander, and garlic powder until completely combined. Sprinkle the salmon with the seasoning, about 1 teaspoon per fillet. Drizzle the salmon with the olive oil, then put the salmon in zip-top bags, 2 fillets per bag. If using vacuum bags, vacuum seal the bags on the “wet” setting. If using zip-top bags, squeeze all the air out by zipping them closed most of the way, slowly lowering them into the sous vide water bath, and then zipping the bag completely closed after all the air is pushed out by the water. Set the bags of salmon on a plate and refrigerate for 30 minutes to dry brine the salmon.

Sous Vide the Salmon for 30 minutes at 122°F

Set a sous vide bath to 122°F/50°C for medium-rare salmon. (Use 131°F/55°C for medium, or 115°F/46°C for ultra-buttery rare salmon) Put the bags with the fillets into the water bath and cook for 30 minutes, up to a max of 1½ hours. (If you have 1½-inch thick fillets or more, cook for 45 minutes to 2 hours.)

Dry the salmon

Remove the bag from the sous vide, cut it open, and gently remove the fillets from the bag. (They will be very tender and want to fall apart. Pat the fillets dry with paper towels.

Sear (optional) and serve:

If you want to serve poached salmon, you’re done! If you want a seared crust, preheat a heavy-duty 12-inch skillet over medium heat (I use a cast iron skillet, and preheat for about 5 minutes). Add the vegetable oil, swirl to coat the pan, then set the fillets in the pan, skin-side down. Let the fillets brown, about 1 minute. (The salmon will release from the pan when it is browned properly, so if it is still sticking, let it sear for a few more seconds). Gently work a spatula under the salmon and carefully move it to a serving plate. Serve and enjoy!

Tips for the best Sous Vide Salmon

Get quality salmon

Sous vide is low-temperature cooking, which is not going to kill food-borne pathogens. Make sure you have high quality fish, kept at the proper temperatures. If you really want to pasteurize your salmon, get inch-thick pieces and sous vide them at 131°F/55°C for 3.5 hours – but the texture of the fish dries out when you cook it that long.

Salt the salmon early

If you don’t salt the salmon ahead of time, and let it rest, some of the protein in the salmon will be pulled to the surface while it cooks, giving the salmon a white, chalky appearance. (This protein is albumen, the same type of protein in the white of eggs. If this happens, it will taste fine, but it won’t look like a beautiful pink piece of salmon.)

Salting early also lets the salt absorb into the fish, dry brining it and seasoning it deeply. I like to salt the salmon 30 minutes to an hour ahead of time, but 10 minutes ahead is enough to deal with the albumen.

Cook from fresh or frozen? Both work.

You can cook the salmon directly from frozen; it just takes a little more time. I add an extra 15 minutes if I’m cooking 1-inch thick pieces of salmon (or thinner), or add 30 minutes if the salmon is more than an inch thick. The downside to cooking from frozen is you can’t do the dry brine ahead of time unless you salt and season the salmon before you vacuum seal it and freeze it. (If I’m buying pre-frozen, individually vacuum-packed salmon fillets, I’ll quickly thaw them so I can do the dry brine afterward – see below.)

Can I cook vacuum-packed frozen salmon in their packages?

You can, but I don’t recommend it. The individual wrappers are usually not a heavy enough plastic to stand up to sous vide, especially with how they are sealed. (The “easy peel” corner is a weak point – I’ve had them come apart in my sous vide water bath. Yuck). I transfer the salmon to my own vacuum bags, or to zip-top bags and then squeeze out all the air. (See below for a tip on getting rid of extra air).

Quick thawing of individually wrapped salmon

If each piece of salmon is shrink-wrapped in plastic, you can thaw it in a bowl with a thin stream of cold water running over it. It will take 15 to 30 minutes to thaw the salmon, depending on how thick the pieces are. I check them by gently bending the salmon, feeling if it is thawed all the way through.

How long can I cook salmon sous vide?

Salmon, unlike meat, will fall apart if cooked too long sous vide. I wouldn’t go much beyond 1.5 hours, and the best texture is after 45 minutes.

Dry fish sears better

Make sure to gently pat dry the fish before searing. Wet fish will steam, not brown, until all the liquid on the outside is boiled away. To get a good crust on wet salmon takes so long that the salmon starts to cook all the way through, defeating the whole “sous vide gives the salmon great texture” reason for sous vide in the first place.

No vacuum sealer?

For salmon, that’s OK. Put a piece of salmon in a quart-sized zip-top bag, zip the bag halfway closed, then slowly lower it into the water, letting the water push all the air out of the bag. Keep lowering until the zip-top is just above the water, then zip it shut.

Cooking for at-risk people

If you are cooking for someone who needs to be sure their fish is pasteurized, you have to cook to Medium-well doneness and extend the cooking time. Cook 1-inch (25mm) thick salmon fillets at 140°F (59°C) for 90 minutes. That is enough time to pasteurize the salmon and kill any bad bacteria. (Also, I would cook farmed salmon, which are fed a much more careful diet than wild salmon.) My source is Douglas Baldwin’s fantastic website on Sous Vide cooking.

Adapted from: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking, Douglas Baldwin, and Sous Vide Salmon Recipe, J. Kenji Lopez-Alt/Serious Eats.

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Related Posts

Want to try some other salmon recipes? My Sear Roasted Salmon with Knob Creek Maple Orange Glaze and Salmon Saute With Tequila Orange Sauce are easy ways to cook it on the stovetop. On the grill, I like to cook whole sides of salmon using my Grill Smoked Salmon and Easy Cedar Plank Salmon recipes. Or, to grill individual fillets, try my Grilled Salmon with Mustard Barbecue Sauce. Last but not least, a quick, sushi-like appetizer (with cooked fish) is Salmon Salad Bites with Sushi Flavors. Give it a try if you like a kick of wasabi.

If you’re looking for something else, here is my Sous Vide Recipes Index.

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