Deep Fried Salmon with Flour

Deep fried salmon with flour in a pan or Dutch Oven is delicious. We will show you how to cook coho salmon, sockeye or pink varieties for a crispy lightly breaded fish dinner idea.

There is a trick to cooking fried foods so they are crispy and don’t taste like oil. I will go over a few tips you can follow for this recipe and others along the way so everything comes out delicious and the perfect texture every single time. 😉 (affiliate links present)

How Long to Cook Deep Fried Salmon Bites

We have shared with you here how to cook Fried Salmon Bites in a pan or air fryer before but that was with breadcrumbs, now we are using flour. In both cases they don’t take long. Biggest thing with cooking any type of fish is to NOT over-cook it, that is tragic. For bite size pieces you just need 1-2 minutes, seriously that is all!!

Ingredients

• Salmon cut into strips or large bite size pieces, skin on is best
• All purpose flour we use to give it a bit of a crispy crust on the outside
• Garlic salt I add to everything
• Old Bay I love for a pop of flavor
• Onion powder is a nice addition to season flour
• Whisked egg to get the flour to stick
• Salt and pepper to taste, added when done
• And you will need quite a bit of oil for frying

How do you pan fry salmon?

There is just a slight difference if you want to use a shallower pan vs. a pot with more oil so the pieces are completely submerged. It will take just a bit effort on your part because they’ll need to be flipped. You will still want the oil to become hot enough before adding your food, aim for 360F. You’d fry for 2 minutes on one side and 2 on the other. Salmon bites would be 1 minute on each side.

If you wanted to know How to Fry a Whole Fish that would take significantly longer but is quite delicious as well. You can add a light breading with flour or breadcrumbs on this as well but the flesh will not get crispy, just the skin itself.

How do you fry fish without it falling apart?

Keep the skin on!! This is the biggest tip, and nothing works better than this. even if you don’t want to eat it, keeping it in tact will allow your bites or filet strips to stay in one piece and not break apart when you drop it in the hot oil.

What oil is best for deep frying fish?

I would say that I’ll use vegetable or canola oil for this or to make our Fried Chicken Cutlets with Flour too because it doesn’t really have a taste to it. If you want a nutty taste and a really big crunch, try peanut oil instead!

How to Deep Fry Salmon

• Fill wide pot or deep pan 1/3 of the way full with oil over medium high heat.
  • Always heat the oil 350 – 370 degrees before adding fish so have a thermometer handy.
• Slice salmon fillets into 1.5″ strips or 1.5″x1.5″ chunks. (leave skin on to help with it not falling apart when fried).
• Pour flour into a shallow dish and mix with seasonings listed above or those you love. (You could use cornmeal instead if you wanted a different texture but that will be grittier)
• Whisk egg in another shallow dish. Blot pieces of fish with paper towels to remove moisture so egg will stick.
• Dip each piece into flour on all sides to coat, lift up and allow excess to fall off. Dip into whisked egg on all sides, lift up for excess to fall off. Then back into the seasoned flour to coat and ideally sit inside oil that has reached 350 – 370 F. degrees immediately to fry for 3-4 minutes for slices or 1-2 minutes for bite size pieces.

With Flour

We explain how to make this below in the recipe card. You could alternatively use a cornmeal blend with our Copycat Zatarain’s Fish Fry Seasoning instead too if you’d rather have a different more Southern classic texture to the outside.

No Breading

If you don’t want to add any coating (or extra calories) to the outside you could skip that. In this case I would highly recommend making our Salmon Dry Rub Recipe and rolling in that to bring a sweet and savory flavor to it. If not there won’t be a lot of taste since the oil will permeate the flesh more without any sort of breading barrier.

Battered

If you want a thicker and crunchier crisp this is How to Make Beer Batter instead!! Another great choice that adds a whopper of taste and tastes more like Gorton’s fried fish fillets, or ones you would be served at a restaurant.

How to Reheat Fried Fish in Air Fryer