How long can you marinate salmon? Salmon is one of the most popular fish types consumed worldwide and is both adaptable and delicate. It implies that you could want to learn the right marinating techniques to preserve this lovely fillet.
Salmon marinating is a gourmet lesson with a dash of science. Do not become alarmed if you find this frightening just yet!
In this article, we’ll show you how to select the best salmon marinade, how to marinate salmon precisely, and some of the tastiest salmon meals and sides. Nice, huh? Let’s get started straight now and stop waiting around.
How Long Can You Marinate Salmon?
Because it not only adds taste but also helps the meat retain moisture, marinating is a fantastic seasoning and cooking technique.
How long should salmon be marinated? Everything is determined by the size of your fish.
Salmon fillets and other smaller parts can marinade for 30 to 60 minutes. A full-sized salmon steak, on the contrary hand, can marinade for at least two hours. Always marinade your fish for no more than two hours since longer might cause the fragile proteins inside the fish to break down, resulting in mushy, textureless fish. If you’re using a marinade with an acidic base, like vinegar or lemon juice, six hours is indeed the absolute maximum marinating period for salmon.
How to Marinate Salmon Properly
Fish with higher fat content and their own aromas, such as salmon, mackerel, or tuna, go wonderfully well with strong spices. Whether it’s smoky barbecue marinades, spicy rubs, or Asian spice mixtures with soy or teriyaki sauce, it all depends on personal preferences and also a bit on the cook’s time allotment.
If you still have three hours before heating up the grill, you still have the choice of marinade, rub, or an Asian composition with soy or teriyaki coating. With a shorter lead time, spontaneous people simply conjure up a crunchy rub or a coating of teriyaki sauce. We present three simple and at the same time clever ways of marinating a nice salmon fillet in just a few minutes.
Marinate salmon with a marinade of oil and herbs
Experienced everyday cooks usually have the ingredients for a nice marinade at home. A rapeseed or sunflower oil and two to three aromatic herbs – that’s all you need.
In principle, any fish can be refined with a marinade. It is important to marinate the fish sometime before you plan to grill it. The following applies: The delicate delicacies want to be treated gently. Therefore apply oil marinade with your favorite herbs 3-4 hours before grilling for the basic taste. It is important to work discreetly with oil marinades.
The fish should not be swimming in oil, a few squirts of oil will suffice. Dab off excess oil immediately before grilling so that nothing drips onto the embers during grilling and no flames develop.
Expert Tips
Lemon or lime juice: Be careful with acid as it will cook the fish. Therefore, only add lemon or lime juice to the fish after it has been cooked. Only use the zest for the marinade.
Choosing the oil: Rapeseed and sunflower oil is particularly suitable for grilling, as they are very heat-resistant.
Rub salmon
To “rub” the fish means to rub it with a spice mix just before grilling. In particular, fish with a strong inherent aroma, such as salmon, can be rubbed wonderfully. The rub is generously and evenly sprinkled onto the fillet and gently massaged in.
When it comes to rubbing, one speaks of dry marinating. Unlike marinade, a rub is not mixed with oil or other liquids but is completely dry. The rub can therefore be stored for a long time in a clean screw-top jar or shaker.
And rubs are something for spontaneous people because the spice composition only has to be applied generously about 30 minutes before grilling, as you use a lot of rubs and it has a very intense taste.
It is even important to apply the BBQ rub just before grilling so that the fish does not dry out due to the salt it contains and remains wonderfully juicy. When grilling with charcoal, this means turning on the grill and rubbing the fish while the charcoal soaks through.
Expert Tips
A good BBQ rub is made up of several components that combine to create a well-rounded composition of spices.
This includes salt for flavor, a base such as paprika or dry mustard, and sugar, which caramelizes during cooking and gives a wonderfully sweet note, especially brown sugar usually has more taste and looks better than white.
As well as a finely tuned mixture of spices and herbs. Basically, you should not grind the spices too finely. A mortar or spice grinder is ideal for chopping.
Salmon with teriyaki coating
Teriyaki is a traditional way of preparing fish that originates from Japanese cuisine. The name is made up of the Japanese words “teri” (gloss) and yaku” (to grill, to stew).
The lacquer usually consists of a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, or sake with other ingredients and gives the marinated fish a wonderful shine “The trick is to coat the fish with the viscous sauce just before grilling and to touch it up again for the visual effect while it is on the grill.
Then close the lid and let the coating dry. Teriyaki coating is an exciting taste combination of sweetness and spiciness. And on top of that, this version of the marinade is wonderfully simple. The consistency of the lacquer is firmer than with marinade,