We have the coho salmon cooking tips you need to produce a great result with your seafood delivery purchase. Coho has something for everyone. Versatile and crowd-pleasing, this species has a moderately strong, clean-tasting flavor. Cooking with coho salmon is a great choice for people who love the natural flavor of salmon but who also like to experiment and recipes that call for stronger seasoning.
Coho salmon doesn’t have as much omega-3 fatty acid content as chinook or sockeye, but it’s still relatively easy to cook and has more fat content than pink or keta salmon. Whole fillets are large enough to make for an impressive spread, but small enough to manage on most grills and even some larger home smokers. Cooked fillets are often described as lean but still firm and meaty.
Coho Salmon Recipes and Cooking Tips
There is no wrong way to cook coho salmon or, rather, there are a lot of right ways to cook it. Coho salmon can be grilled, baked, broiled, smoked, or poached. Here are some of our favorite tips and recipes.
- Tired of the same mix of lemon and pepper with your fish? Here is a more complex recipe with peanut oil, soy sauce, and balsamic vinegar from Dent Island with a unique result that is hard to mess up when following the recipe and is awesome when paired with coho salmon.
- Looking for a minimalist approach? This recipe from the Food Network will reveal the natural flavor of coho salmon and will be especially popular with people who like their seafood cooked “rare.” In our experience, we prefer the salmon cooked more like 3-5 minutes on each side even with strong heat.
- Looking for coho-specific inspiration? From Spruce Eats: “A favorite way to cook silver salmon is to slice it into cutlets, then lightly dust it with flour, and sauté it in walnut or olive oil. This would be delicious served with a French rouille sauce.”
Serving Tips for Coho Salmon
Whether the salmon comes from Alaska’s pristine watersheds or you caught the salmon yourself in a local stream, any dish is best served with a good story. Don’t dismiss the effect of a cool-sounding name, either. You don’t have to emphasize the name or otherwise get pretentious, but coho does sound like a fancier variety of fish. What doesn’t stand out is the color. Somewhere between lighter pink salmon and sockeye’s deep-red color, coho salmon matches most people’s perception of orange-peach “salmon” color.
Storage Tips for Coho Salmon
The other good thing about coho salmon’s moderate fat content is that it can be stored for longer periods of time with degradation. Along with the late harvesting season, you can buy frozen coho salmon fillets in September and know that the frozen salmon will still be good well into the following season’s early run of chinook and sockeye.
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