- By now you know salmon is healthy for you,
but by now you might also be bored
of your regular salmon recipe.
Have you tried air frying it?
(upbeat music)
Hey guys, I'm Yumna, AKA Feel Good Foodie.
And I'm gonna show you how easy it is to cook salmon
in the air fryer.
Air fried salmon results in the most tender,
succulent, delicious piece of fish.
And it's really quick and easy too,
literally seven to eight minutes.
You can use my simple cooking guidelines
and then you can add whatever seasoning you want to it.
Today I'm putting a fun Greek spin on it
by using a Mediterranean marinade for the salmon
and then I'm gonna top the cooked salmon with a Greek salad.
It's a perfect recipe for a weeknight meal.
So let's get started
because I know you don't have much time.
We're gonna start with four pieces of salmon
and I like to use a paper towel to dab it
so that there's no extra moisture.
I'm using some wild-caught frozen salmon,
so this was thawed overnight,
which ends up releasing some moisture.
That's why it's really important
to make sure that it's nice and dry.
And even if you're using fresh salmon,
it's still a really good step to make sure that it's nice
and dry so that the salmon cooks really well
in the air fryer.
Now to season the salmon, I'm going to add some salt,
pepper, some dill, oregano, fresh garlic,
and crushed red pepper which is optional.
Next I'm gonna add about a tablespoon of olive oil
and the juice of half a lemon.
If you're feeling extra fancy,
you can also zest that lemon just to give it an extra zinc.
Now we want to make sure to spread all
of that marinade all over the salmon
so it's nice and coated.
You can use your hands, or you can just use a spoon.
I like to just kind of toss it around a couple of times
so that everything gets nice and coated with that garlic,
dill, oregano, lemon juice, and olive oil.
And I recommend keeping the skin on the salmon
because it helps it lift off the air fryer much more easily.
And you'll notice a lot
of the salmon are about equal thickness.
This is really important to make sure that everything cooks
at the same time in the air fryer.
So if you have pieces of salmon
that are different thickness,
you may want to cook them in batches
so that you cook the thicker ones first,
and then the thinner ones afterwards.
Or you can also just watch the time
and remove the thinner ones first.
All right, now we want to marinate this
for about 10 to 15 minutes.
No more than 15 minutes,
because if you marinate it for too long,
the lemon juice is going to break down the salmon
and become really tough and chewy.
While the salmon is marinating, it's a good time
to think about what you're gonna be serving the salmon with.
I like serving it with some fresh vegetables like beans
and broccoli, and also like to throw in some carbs in there,
usually like rice or potatoes.
Today what I'm doing is just a simple Greek salad.
It's so flavorful, it has so much color, texture,
and nutrition, and it goes really well with the salmon.
All right, we're gonna start
by making the dressing right in the bowl.
The dressing is simply olive oil, red wine vinegar,
oregano, salt, and pepper.
Now we'll whisk all of this together.
Greek salad is super simple,
all you really need is a few ingredients.
We're gonna start with some tomatoes.
I like to de-seed the tomatoes when possible,
just to make them more flavorful and less watery.
Then we're gonna add some cucumbers.
Same thing for the cucumbers, I like to de-seed them
when I'm working with really large cucumbers,
or you can use a Persian cucumber
that has much smaller seeds.
Some red onions, olives, these are called Muda olives
that have been pitted and some feta cheese of course.
All right, now we're just gonna mix all of this together.
The salad is mixed, the salmon is marinated,
now it's time to cook the salmon and put it all together.
We're going to air fry at 400 degrees
for seven to eight minutes.
And it's really important to preheat the air fryer first
because it's really gonna ensure that that salmon cooks
at high temperature, right from the get-go.
And that just results in more crispy and delicious salmon.
All right, the salmon looks nice and marinated.
Put everything right into the air fryer.
And if there's any excess marinade,
you could just let it drip because it's just gonna fall
into the air fryer anyways.
Now it's important not to overcrowd the basket right here
because you don't want the salmon to steam.
You want it to really get nice and seared and crispy.
So make sure there's a little bit of space
between each salmon or just cook them in batches.
All right, the salmon is all done.
And the best way to check for doneness
with salmon is to take a fork and literally try to flake it
from the top to the bottom
and it should literally just fall right off.
And something to keep in mind too is
that if you see white beading on top of the salmon,
that's usually a sign that the salmon is already cooked
and sometimes even over cooked.
So you want to avoid seeing too much of that white beading.
And now it's time to serve it.
I'm gonna test that little piece that came off.
Perfectly tender and delicious.
Look at that.
Easy cleanup with the air fryer,
seven minutes of cooking time,
and the possibilities are endless with how you can top this
and how you can serve it.
So now we're gonna take the Greek salad that we just made
and add it right on top of the salmon.
This is a really fun way to serve it in the summertime
when you're just looking for a lighter meal that has lots
of fresh flavors and lots of color and nutrition,
and we're gonna garnish it with a little bit of parsley
and look how good that looks.
I'm so excited to dig in and try this.
There's so much to love about this recipe
and I hope you guys love it as much as I do.
If you do try the salmon recipe, be sure to tweet me, DM me,
Facebook me, or send me a message on the website
because I love to hear about your recreations
and seeing all of those wonderful photos.
If you enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe
so you don't miss out on any more Feel Good Food.
See you at the next video.