Gochugaru Salmon With Crispy Rice
- Total Time
- 20 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:4 servings
- 4skin-on salmon fillets (6 ounces each)
- Kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) and black pepper
- 1tablespoon olive oil
- 4cups cooked white rice, preferably leftovers
- 4teaspoons gochugaru (see Tip)
- 2tablespoons maple syrup
- 2tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, kept whole
- Sliced cucumbers or pickles, for serving (optional)
Preparation
- Step 1
Season the salmon on all sides with salt and pepper. Heat a large cast-iron or nonstick skillet over medium-high. Add the olive oil and sear the salmon fillets skin side down until the skin is browned and crispy, 2 to 5 minutes. The salmon’s orange flesh will begin to turn pale coral as the heat slowly creeps up the sides of the fish; you want that coral color to come up about two-thirds of the way at this point for a nice medium-rare. Carefully flip the salmon and cook the second side until the flesh feels firm, another 1 to 2 minutes. When you press it, it should not feel wobbly. Transfer the salmon to a plate skin side down and keep the pan with the rendered fat over the heat.
- Step 2
Add the rice to the fat in the pan and spread in an even layer, packing it down as if making a rice pancake. Reduce the heat to medium and cook until the bottom is lightly browned and toasted, about 5 minutes. You should hear it crackle. Flip the rice like a pancake, using a spatula if needed. You may not be able to flip it all in one piece, but that’s OK. Cook until lightly toasted on the second side, another 1 to 2 minutes. Go longer if you want crispier rice, but the trifecta of crispy-chewy-soft tastes wonderful.
- Step 3
While the rice is cooking, stir together the gochugaru, maple syrup, rice vinegar and 1 teaspoon salt in a small bowl. When the rice is done, divide it evenly among the plates. In the now-empty pan, add the gochugaru mixture and cook, stirring constantly, over medium-high heat until it bubbles up and reduces significantly, 15 seconds to 1 minute. It should look pretty sticky. Turn off the heat and add the cold butter, stirring with a wooden spoon or tongs until fully melted and incorporated into the gochugaru mixture. Pour this glaze over the salmon and serve with cucumbers or pickles, if you’d like.
Tip
- You can find gochugaru, or red-pepper powder, at Korean or Asian supermarkets and at most grocery stores, as well as online. It sometimes comes in larger bags, which is not a problem because it freezes beautifully and tastes great dusted over just about anything.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
Nancy
I just purchased Gochujang concentrated chili paste for another NY Times recent recipe. Would it be possible to substitute the paste for the powder?
Sue
Gochujang contains salt and sugar along with red chile, so if you substitute one for the other, you'll want to dial back the sugar and salt. I'd probably omit the maple syrup altogether and replace both it and the gochucharu with 2 tbsp gochujang, and skip extra salt. You'll miss the maple flavor, but the glaze should form up nicely and I'd expect the dish to work well as a whole.
Felicia
I subbed the Gochugara with Gochujang and reduced the maple syrup to 1 tbsp. Everything else I followed exactly and this was one of the best meals we've made in a long time. it was also easy to prep and clean up. We'll be adding this to the regular rotation!
Ashley
Rice tip: if you don't have leftover rice, smash your hot, fresh rice onto a plate and stick it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Cools it down and removes some moisture so it's pretty similar to leftovers.
megan b
Trying not to be overly dramatic here - but this is a pretty life changing salmon dish. Possibly one of the best NYT recipes I’ve tried. Thank you Eric Kim!
alex
Double the sauce Double the cucumber Half rice (2 cups) Add a little hot sesame oil and salt to cucumbers
Corbin
I will make the sauce in a separate pan before cooking and use it to baste the salmon as it cooks. I’ll also mix it in with the rice before frying it for more flavor, also I won’t have to clean a sticky sauce out of my cast iron :)
J
Roasted salmon at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Mixed together sauce ingredients without cooking, then basted salmon with it after first 10 minutes in oven—it turned into a beautiful, glossy, just sticky enough sauce and saved another pan. Excellent dinner.
Pinkney
This is a very good dish. The sauce recipe NEEDS TO BE DOUBLED to go far enough for four. It barely made three as written and photographed. We will do it again. Not having left over rice we made four cups of Jasmine rice in the rice cooker, let it cool and it worked very well. Ordered the gochugara spice on line. Just fine from Amazon.
Steve
I love gochugaru, but I've never experienced it as "mild," and I enjoy chilis of all kinds. The Kimchi that I ferment has quite a kick of heat, which comes from the gochugaru that I use.
Sarah P
Another masterpiece from Erik Kim. That man can do no wrong in our household. We made this dish as written and added some homemade Korean radish kimchi to go with it. Fantastic balance of flavors. 10/10, recommend!
Alicia
This was so good! Super high flavor to effort ratio, my favorite kind of weeknight recipe. Well-written recipe, easy to follow, short list of ingredients, and tasted great. Wouldn't change a thing, except use 100% leftover rice (I did 50 leftover/50 freshly cooked bc it's what I had) to get some extra crisp factor going on. It makes a difference. Slam dunk, Eric Kim!
gerry in Oregon
I found the gochugaru at a local Asian market. Made this last night with tofu slices baked in panko crumbs (425 degrees-15 min). Served over cauliflower rice with a side of steamed asparagus. A wonderful veggie meal. Doubled the shimmery sauce and made it in a small sauce pan. Next time I will cut the salt in half.
Sherri
They aren't really interchangeable normally, although a glaze made out of gochugang might also be good. The paste is a fermented mix of chili with glutinous rice and some other stuff. Gochugaru is more like chili powder, but with a smokier and sweeter flavor. My guess is that a mix of chili powder with a bit of smoked paprika would be closer. Just a guess, though. The recipe looks great, and I already planned on salmon tonight!
Tal
Just tried this recipe tonight. My son and I were pretty happy with the flavor. I am GF, so i used Gluten Free Gochujang paste (amazon- Yoon Jiyeong Artisanal). This paste is not very spicy, but the flavor is very good. I would add a bit more other smoky hot chili powder to give it a bit more of a kick. Moreover, next time I’d try to use only 1 tbs butter to finish off. I found that (my generous) 2 tbs butter called for separated from the glaze when the fish cooled and made it too ‘greasy’
Patrick
The rice in this is such a fun weeknight dinner hack. I’m gonna start frying my side of rice with the fat of every stove top entree I make!
tasty pie. for next attempt:
Followed the sub instruction and used extra hot gochujong and on a whim added some maple extract to avoid the extra sugar. Great recipe. With that out of the way…the real reason I am commenting is that I hope someone might know the answer: in the video for the recipe there is a flowering tree/plant behind Eric. Is it real? If so, anyone know the name?
amy
One of our faves. Just made with fresh steelhead trout while visiting Colorado.
ajg
This is really delicious but presupposes fatty salmon, so our Coho, which is very lean, didn't leave much salmon fat behind. Also followed Felicia's lead and used the Gochujang that we already had in the house - 4 tsp - reducing the maple to 1 T - and it was delicious. I do want to know the person who can flip that rice "pancake" in one piece (and I want photos!). Our rice was previously cooked and frozen - no way!
Salmon and guchugaru glaze
Increase the sauce by at least 50%, eve more. Let the rice really crisp.
Bo
Stupendously delicious. This is by far the best salmon / steelhead trout recipe I've ever come across. The flavors of the sauce compliment the salmon taste perfectly. My wife, who's not a huge salmon eater because she doesn't like fish with strong flavors, devoured it and asked me when are we having it again.
margo
Have made this twice in two weeks. Love it! So easy and delicious! Agree on doubling the sauce for 4 - this recipe was perfect for 2 pieces of salmon. Went to a local Asian restaurant, bought white rice and put it in the fridge for a few days - was perfect.
Greta Wade
I made this today with last year’s sockeye catch. Was tempted to ignore Eric’s instructions to start with the salmon but instead ignored myself and followed the recipe. It was wonderful! Are with roasted Brussels sprouts and red onion. Doubled the sauce recipe and would recommend that because you will find a million other ways to use the stuff. Only thing I would recommend is using wild salmon or no salmon. Farmed fish are just…:(!
Tom
I substituted Gochujang paste (the powder being unavailable at my local markets). The result was much too sweet so I then wished I had read previous review comments that warned of this. Still, this dinner was quick, gorgeous and delicious! A joy to make and eat.
MEM
We LOVED it! I sub'd mango for the cucumbers.
EOregon
Delicious but for some reason the skin did not crisp up for me, even though my gas stove was on high.
Bo
Do not use olive oil as the smoke point is too low. I knew better than to use OO but as my pan heated up the oil smoked way too soon. Swapped it out for Canola and no problem. Also, you need to add enough oil in the pan and just let it sit there untouched. I pre-cooked 6 pieces and then put them in a container in the fridge. The skin was perfectly crispy then got soft in the fridge. All you do is then toss the filets in a skillet with more oil when COLD to re-crisp skin and finish in oven.
DennisD
This was excellent, but the sauce was salty. I thought 1 teaspoon was a lot for the small quantity, but went for it. Next time I would start with 1/2 t or less and work up as needed - especially since he calls for salting the fish
Ann
How spicy is this?
Dan
Based on multiple reviews, I doubled the sauce. This was unnecessary; I had a lot of sauce leftover. Besides that, this was delicious. Just follow the recipe.
KinAZ
This recipe just didn’t work for me. The rice wouldn’t brown fully and while it did get crispy it was too oily. The sauce broke. I liked the flavor of the sauce and will play around with d with it. Less butter I think. I served with a scallion garnish which helped with the richness. I keep looking g for a recipe that will help me like salmon.
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