No-one ever looks for a “difficult” recipe, but for many home cooks, everything about making fish for dinner feels more difficult. Even buying fish feels more challenging than buying chicken or steak or pork chops. There are so many different considerations when buying fish – what type of fish, fillet or steak, frozen or fresh, how to tell if it is really fresh… That’s all before you even get the fish home to cook it! Well, the good news is that once you do have it home, cooking fish can really be very easy, especially when you use your air fryer. This easy air-fried salmon recipe proves it!
Keep it simple!
These words are the best advice in so many circumstances, but especially when cooking fish. The most sage advice I could give you is to buy the best quality fish you can and do as little to it as possible. This recipe for air-fried salmon does just that – a tiny amount of oil, some salt and pepper and that’s it!
Brush with Oil
Salmon is a fatty fish (remember, those fats are good-for-you-fats!) and therefore doesn’t need a lot of oil, but I do brush the salmon fillets lightly, and mostly on the skin side so that it doesn’t stick to the surface of the air fryer basket. Pre-heating the air fryer empty for 2 to 3 minutes will also help prevent the fish from sticking.
I enjoy making Air Fry Salmon fillets weekly. Since I’m on a tight budget, I buy a bag of frozen Salmon. These are usually thin and are of odd sizes. As I live alone, I wonder if you have any ideas for Salmon recipes using these small sizes? Thanks.
Hi Lynn. You might try this salmon salad recipe – great on sandwich bread, in a brioche bun or on a salad. https://bluejeanchef.com/recipes/pan-roasted-salmon/
I have to eat low sodium so I would need to skip the salt.
I would like to try incorporating dill to this. Any ideas?
Hi Sue. Skipping the salt is entirely up to you. If you’d like to incorporate dill, you could do it a number of ways. One of my favorite toppings for simply cooked salmon is a cucumber-dill yogurt sauce (just cucumbers, dill, yogurt, s&p and a little olive oil mixed up in a bowl). You could also make a dill butter (room temperature butter whipped up with salt and dill), or just sprinkle dill on top. Fresh dill is much more delicious than dried dill and fresh dill should always be added at the end, after everything has been cooked.
What is the difference between air frying and convection?
Air Frying basically is the same technology of convection cooking where a fan circulates the hot air around the food. In an air fryer, the space is compact which creates an enviorment that will cook the food faster and make it crispier than a larger convection oven. Check out my Air Fryer 101 pages for more info on air frying. https://bluejeanchef.com/cooking-school/air-frying-101/