Fresh Salmon Burgers

April 2025

Recipe from Cook's Illustrated, September 2024

Our favorite fish to have for dinner is salmon and we usually use a recipe for double-glazed salmon with the maple and liquid smoke glaze. Frozen salmon filets are kept on hand and the ingredients for this glaze are all pantry staples. The salmon is good to eat and easy to prepare. Nonetheless it would be good to find another way to prepare salmon to provide some variety. Thus I was interested in this recipe for salmon burgers from a recent edition of Cook's Illustrated. (And in another recent salmon cakes recipe from Americas's Test Kitchen TV show which I intend to try soon.)

Four salmon filets were skinned resulting in 1 pound of salmon; the recipe is for 1¼ pounds, so close enough. These were cut into ¾-inch pieces which were par-frozen and coarsely chopped, with salt, in the food processor. The chopped salmon was mixed in a bowl with a mixture of panko bread crumbs, fresh parsley, mayonnaise, lemon juice, shallot, Dijon mustard, and pepper. The salmon mixture was divided into four portions which were shaped into 3½-inch patties on a parchment lined quarter sheet pan. These were then placed in an unheated nonstick skillet and cooked over medium heat until browned, about 5 minutes per side. After resting on the parchment for 5 minutes they were served. Total time was about 1 hour. 

The burgers were served on homemade slider buns with ketchup or mayonnaise, eschewing the sriracha mayonnaise condiment in the recipe. The burgers were juicy and tasty with a strong salmon flavor with the other flavors providing complimentary background notes. They were a little crumby and we found them to be too large, both for the buns and for our stomachs. When we had them as leftovers we divided a burger in half and this worked out well. We could also try them without the buns. We will want to try the other salmon burger recipe but this one may become a regular for us.