How to Cook Frozen Salmon

How to cook frozen salmon in the oven, pressure cooker or air fryer frozen salmon instructions are here. Cooking frozen fish is easier than you think, gets fork tender without breading so it’s a healthy meal that everyone loves. Try it this week!

Cooking Frozen Salmon without Thawing

It’s a new year and you want to start eating healthier right, we have a lot of easy fish recipes?? Or maybe you’re just like us and are just seafood obsessed, either way you might need dinner help if it is still rock hard and everyone is starving. Eeeekkk. I have been there, don’t feel guilty we’ve all done it at least once (ok a lot) before.

No worries, I have done the experimenting for you when it comes to cooking frozen fish in the air fryer and whatnot. These tips aren’t just specific to this pretty pink variety, you can use them for other types too. The biggest difference is the thickness of the fillets thus a variance in cook times.

Let’s start with where you’re buying this shall we? Yes you can find this most often in the meat department or in the frozen section where seafood is kept. Another great resource too though is if you want to buy meat online. I have done this many times before online here before snow season happens to stock my freezer.

Then I am prepared when I do not want to leave the house to shop for anything. Pull a goodie like this out and decide how I want to make it. All of them are good, just different. Let’s start with my favorite small kitchen appliance here. Season with with salt and pepper and lay frozen salmon fillets in air fryer basket. Takes about 15 minutes to cook the salmon from frozen this way.

How to Season Frozen Salmon

If you use a small bowl to whisk together dill with butter you can drizzle on halfway thru the cook time and top when serving. OR when seasoning your salmon you make our salmon dry rub with brown sugar and a bit of spice you can just sprinkle on top about halfway thru with olive oil so it sticks really well.

With the salmon skin side down this gets the inside flaky but a bit of crisp on the edges. Test internal temperature at the thickest part of the salmon. If it isn’t quite right yet just close the basket and give it a few more minutes. A bit of crunch on the top is the best. Texture is everything y’all.

How to Cook Salmon From Frozen

in Air Fryer

You can use a Foodi, AirWave or Cosori to make it this way. It will get the outsides a bit crispy which we love but keep that in mind. You would want to follow the link at the top of this post. You just season and air fry at 360 degrees F for 10-12 minutes or until fish easily flakes apart with a fork in the center.

in Pressure Cooker

Want it as tender as humanly possible with no crisp at all, no worries. I would use your pressure cooker of choice. Crockpot Express has one, IP of course, or use a Ninja Foodi. You will want a trivet to keep it out of the liquid below. That is necessary because you’re going to essentially steam it until it’s soft.

This only takes a few minutes since it is under very high pressure and you do not want it overdone. That is the absolute worst! There is nothing worse than an overcooked grayish piece of seafood. Don’t even get me started on that, let’s just say it is better a bit underdone in the center than dry. Period.

Just follow our easy Instant Pot frozen salmon recipe with just butter and a squeeze of lemon juice to the tee. You’ll see even though it was hard just minutes before that it still comes out incredible. You may even fool the rest of your family that it was a rock less than an hour beforehand.

Ok now let’s talk about using your oven if you don’t have any of these other appliances. I mean it is rare that I use this but occasionally it does happen. 😉 I like to wrap my baking sheet in non stick aluminum foil just because it makes cleanup a whole lot easier.

How to Cook Frozen Salmon in the Oven

• The entire directions and ingredients used are in the printable recipe card below. Other methods mentioned above you can find by clicking on the blue link you are interested in and that post will pop up for you to read and follow.
• This is how long to cook salmon at 400 if it is defrosted, timing for hard is below.

If you can’t find non stick then just spray some olive oil spray on it and you’re good to go. You could use a coated porcelain baking dish too, that would work. The “sauce” used was just butter, lemon juice, dijon mustard and a bit of diced parsley.

It does need some sort of liquid to keep it nice and moist. Just a pat of cold butter in the middle with a sprinkle of salt and pepper would work too, I’ve done that when I am in a hurry. The biggest part to this is the temperature and timing. The latter will vary a bit though if you can imagine.

The thicker your pieces are the more or less time it will take to get just right in the center. If you buy a large fillet and cut it into 4 equal pieces (like I do) take note because the ends will cook faster than the center, thick, portion. That works great for us though because my husband likes the middle of his a whole lot more underdone than I do.

in Foil

You can make simple with just a few seasonings or with a salmon sauce like we did in our oven baked teriyaki salmon in foil recipe.

And then we have frozen salmon grill style. That is right, this is how to cook frozen salmon on a grill so it comes out tender and doesn’t fall thru the grates.

in the Microwave

You will want to brush the top with a little olive oil, then season with salt and pepper and place in the portions in a microwave oven proof dish, wrapped with cling film so it can steam for 7 – 8 minutes or until flaky.

in a Pan

You can use a cast iron skillet on your stovetop too if it is not rock solid. I don’t make it plain this way though, I add bacon to the outside as well to amp up those killer flavors. Follow our bacon wrapped salmon recipe to try that.

Need more tips like this one? We recently shared how to cook frozen bacon in the oven too, because I have needed that a time or two.