These Sriracha Seared Salmon Cakes are spicy, crispy, and satisfying. Baked or fried, these are, without exaggeration, the best fish cakes I have ever made or eaten. It’s not a claim I make lightly. Trust.
I have tried many salmon cake recipes over the years; most were lacking spice, overly-complicated, or just plain boring. In my own version, I start with my oven seared salmon as a base. Searing the salmon takes all of ten minutes, and it is SO worth the extra effort. Using fresh seared salmon rather than canned will give you a fresher, less “fishy” flavor as a base. It will also give you some glorious crispy browned edges, which add a ton of flavor to the finished product.
When you start with freshly seared salmon, you don’t need to “doll it up” too much. I tried lots of variations, but found that a simple mix of celery, onion, Greek yogurt, panko, dill and smoked paprika gave these salmon cakes all the flavor and moisture they needed.
Oh, and Sriracha. Did I mention Sriracha? Yeah. Adding Huy Fong’s magical spice sauce was a total goldmine!
Most people don’t know the history of sriracha. The Huy Fong brand was developed in 1980 by a Vietnamese refugee of Chinese descent named David Tran. The name, Huy Fong, comes from the ship Huey Fong that brought Tran to America. Sriracha sauce itself was inspired by traditional Thai hot sauces. Not surprisingly, 80 percent of the recipe is chili peppers, aged in the bottle for 6 months before being sold. The thick, garlicky hot sauce is bottled in Southern California, not far from where I live.
WhenSriracha is added to these seared salmon cakes, they go from tasty to extraordinary. Top them with a dollop of cream Sriracha sauce, and enjoy!
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Sriracha Salmon Cakes
Ingredients
Salmon Cake Ingredients
- 1/2 pound fresh boneless skinless salmon filet
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 large eggs beaten
- 2 ribs celery
- 1 onion peeled
- 3/4 cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1/4 cup Greek yogurt
- 2 tablespoons fresh dill, roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon sriracha (if spice sensitive use 1/2 tbsp, if you love sriracha/spice use 1 1/2 tbsp)
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- Grapeseed oil for frying (about 1 1/2 cups)
Creamy Sriracha Sauce Ingredients
- 1/3 cup Greek yogurt
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise you may substitute Greek yogurt or sour cream
- 1 tablespoon sriracha or more to taste
NOTES
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. First you will need to sear the salmon. For step-by-step photos of the following process, click here.
- Place a large nonstick skillet with metal oven-safe handle on a burner over medium high heat for 3-4 minutes until drops of water sizzle and bead on the surface when you sprinkle them.
- When water dries pour 2 tbsp oil and swirl around the bottom of the pan to evenly coat. Oil will begin to smoke lightly after a moment or two. Place salmon fillet(s) gently into the skillet.
- Turn the heat to high. Let the salmon sear for 2-3 minutes until a golden brown crust begins to form on the bottom of the fish. You'll be able to see the edge of the crust where the meat touches the pan.
- Transfer the whole skillet to the preheated oven. Let the salmon continue roasting in the oven for another 6-9 minutes until just cooked through. Using an oven mitt, take the hot skillet out of the oven and remove seared salmon from the skillet. Leave the remaining oil from cooking the fish in the skillet, you'll be using it again.
- Roughly chop the salmon and reserve (it will be about 1 1/2 cups flaked salmon). If baking the salmon cakes (recommended), reduce oven heat to 375 degrees F. If frying the patties, you can turn the oven off.
- In a food processor, mince together the celery and onion.
- Add the minced celery and onion to the same skillet you used to sear the salmon. Cook until softened and starting to caramelize. Place in a mixing bowl and allow to cool off.
- In the food processor, combine the chopped salmon and fresh dill. Pulse a few times so that the mixture is chopped, but not a paste (careful, it can easily go to over-processed if you pulse it too much!)
- In the mixing bowl with the cooked celery and onion, add the processed salmon and dill, 2 beaten eggs, Greek yogurt, salt, smoked paprika and sriracha. Stir to blend, then add the panko breadcrumbs.
- I recommend baking these fish cakes. There is really not a big flavor difference here between baking and frying, and baking lowers the calorie count. To bake them, shape the mixture into 1/4 cup patties, then place patties on a well greased baking sheet. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 8 minutes. Turn the patties, then bake for 7-8 more minutes till browned and cooked through.
- If frying the patties, add enough oil to the skillet to reach a depth of 1/4 inch. Heat slowly over medium heat. When the oil is hot, fry the salmon cakes for 2 1/2-3 1/2 minutes on each side till golden brown. Be careful not to overcrowd the pan.
- Once cooked, remove the salmon cakes from the pan using a metal spatula and place them on paper towels to drain.
- To make the sauce: Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir together until well blended. If subbing Greek yogurt or sour cream for mayonnaise, add salt to the sauce to taste. Add additional sriracha for added spice, if desired.
- Serve salmon cakes topped with the creamy sriracha sauce.
Nutrition
tried this recipe?
Let us know in the comments!
Hi I am dairy free. What can I use instead of Greek yogurt?
A dairy free sour cream should work! You may need a bit more panko to hold them together, if it’s a more liquid texture than Greek yogurt – just add breadcrumbs as needed until you can shape together a nice firm patty.
This was a hit. Used canned pink salmon as fresh is way too expensive. Just be careful not to over process the canned variety. All your recipes turn out beautifully and are loved by all. Thank you.
Hi. Looking forward to trying these- I love sriracha! But going to use fresh raw ground salmon. Thoughts?
You mean without searing it first? That will work fine as long as you ensure that the patties are cooked through after baking/frying.
Hi! How can I tell if the salmon is cooked through? You specify 6-9 min in the oven. I’m an inexperienced fish cooker. Thanks so much!
Hi Jessica, the best way is to use a food thermometer. The fish should be cooked to an internal temperature of 145 degrees F to be considered food safe. Many people prefer to eat salmon a bit rare in the middle, but for food safety you want to make sure it reaches at least 145 degrees in the center of the fillet.
I love this recipe! I use a big piece of salmon (from Costco) so I actually quadruple the recipe. I do make my cakes a little larger so 2 lbs. of fish yields 20 cakes (1/2 lb would be 5 cakes). The last time I made these I froze cooked them all and then froze half of the cooked cakes. I am happy to report that the frozen cakes reheated wonderfully in the air fryer. I preheated to 375° sprayed top of frozen cakes with olive oil and cooked 7 minutes. Flipped, sprayed again and cooked another 7 minutes. Next time I’ll cook 5 minutes per side because they there a little too crispy, but still delicious.
(I meant to say I cooked all the cakes and then froze half of them.)
Hi, I made these and we LOVED them ! So delicious !
I want to make them for Shabbat for 8 ppl ( some kids) and am thinking I’ll double the recipe. I’ll have other kind friendly dishes, but I think kids will love these!
My question is how much do you think I can do ahead ? Could I get as far as shaping the cakes and fridge them a few hours before baking ? Or maybe just mix everything up and refrigerate then make patties right before baking ? Of course I’d prefer to do the former. :).
Let me know your thoughts. Thanks for another great recipe Tori! We love you in our house !!! ❤️
Hi Mary! So happy you enjoyed them. You can totally make the patties a few hours ahead and refrigerate, I do that all the time!
Your recipes are too good. I have been a regular visitor to your website and have tried out a couple of other recipes too. Thanks a lot for sharing!
Hi was wondering if I can used canned salmon instead of fresh?
Yes you can, but it will be missing a bit on flavor… part what makes these unique is the searing process. But it should work with canned, too. 🙂
I LOVE LOVE LOVE your website!! Has anyone tried using packaged lump crab?
It should work just fine Tracy. 🙂 Glad you’re enjoying the site!
I have to admit that I almost gave up on fish cakes because I haven’t made or tried any cakes (except crab cakes with real crab meat which is not an every day meal) which I would want to make or eat again. These salmon cakes are absolutely fabulous! I have followed your recipe precisely and they came out delicious. The sauce idea is fantastic as well. I am not new to cooking and spices but I didn’t know about sriracha sauce. It’s a true discovery I must say. I also tried to substitute panko bread crumbs before I found where to get them with grated sweet potato and a little bit of quinoa flour and psylllium husks for holding the mixture together – and it also worked well and was tasty.
I rarely write comments but this time I decided to write the words of appreciation for the detailed explanation, history insights and gratitude for sharing your recipes and their sources. Your cooking blog and recipes are the only case in my cooking by the book experiences so far that I find everything I make from here comes out tasty and more or less expected consistency and flavour. This is very hard to achieve due to the difference in the quality of the produce across the world. I am not in the US or Israel but in Eastern Europe and I find that your recommended proportions and combinations work very well with local produce as well. I made several dishes (mostly from “healthy” section) and I am very impressed with the results.
Thank you Tori!
Thank you so much for your very kind comment Nicole! I am upgrading the recipes site-wide to a new system that supports metric measurements, so that should be helpful for you. So happy you are enjoying the site!
I’m going to try this for the first time tonight – looks great. I’m an inexperienced cook and have 2 questions:
1. What type of Greek yogurt works best? Fat content and brand (given sourness profile).
2. We’ve got some amazing sweet corn that I want to grill and scrape off the cob and add to it. Will that work OK or will the flavors fight.
Hi Kelly, Tori’s assistant Ashley here. We normally use full fat Fage Greek Yogurt. I’m not sure about the corn since we haven’t made these with corn added. I think that flavor-wise it sounds lovely, but not sure how the cakes would hold up.
I was thinking about freezing some for a quick dinner, whats your thought? Tried it anyone?
I just tested this and was very happy with the results. I reheated the precisely cooked frozen cakes in the air fryer. 375° for 7 minutes a side. They are a bit crunchy on the outside so I thinks they could have been done in about 5 minutes per side.
This recipe has become part of my regular rotation ever since I fixed it for Rosh Hashanah! I love the addition of sriracha and how making salmon cakes can really stretch out a piece of salmon.
I made these earlier this week…..they are AMAZING!!
Fabulous Teri! Happy to hear that. 🙂
Excellent recipe! I made this tonight and it was a tremendous success. Used flax seed meal soaked in water in place of eggs, but followed the recipe otherwise as written. Served over lemon-dressed baby spinach with a scoop of quinoa and some baby tomatoes and goat cheese tossed over the top. Delicious. Thanks a million for this recipe!
You’re welcome Dawn, glad you enjoyed it!
I made this recipe today for a Rosh Hashanah brunch, and everyone loved it! I wavered between wanting it to have a higher percentage of salmon and appreciating that it stretched a half pound of salmon into a meal for four people, but the overall flavor was fantastic.