Food - Drink
Can You Cook Frozen Salmon Without Thawing It First?
By MICHELLE WELSCH
Frozen salmon is cheaper than fresh, lasts for months, and can taste just as good and be just as nutritious as a fresh filet. However, you do need to adjust your cooking method when dealing with frozen salmon, and while thawing it is sometimes necessary, you might be able to cook it from frozen if you poach, bake, grill or pan-fry it.
Cooking salmon from frozen works best with filets, which are smaller and cook faster. For poaching and baking, the cooking time stated in your recipe will have to be about 50% longer, since the frozen middle of the fish takes a bit to be properly cooked through, but you can check its temperature throughout the process.
Rinsing frozen salmon to remove ice and then using paper towels to pat it dry is beneficial for any recipe. After this prep step, poaching is straightforward, but when baking the fish, know that herbs and seasonings won't stick to it while frozen, so bake the filet for a few minutes, remove it from the oven, season it, and then finish baking it.
You'll have to make bigger changes if you're grilling or frying: for grilling, cover the salmon with marinade and wrap each piece in foil before placing the filets on the grill. For pan-frying, wash the fish to remove ice, dry it, then pan-fry the skin side first, flip the fish, add seasonings, then cover the skillet to let the rest of it cook through.
