If you’re looking for the best salmon marinade, you’re in the right place. This easy salmon marinade is made with simple pantry ingredients and turns ordinary salmon filets into something incredibly flavorful, tender, and juicy especially on the grill!

Whether you’re cooking salmon for a weeknight dinner or a summer cookout, this marinade is the secret to grilled salmon that everyone loves.

What Makes This the Best Salmon Marinade

This salmon marinade works because it contains the perfect balance of flavor (citrus, honey, and savory) while keeping the salmon tender and juicy. It adds subtle flavor while still allowing the flavor of the salmon to shine:

• Balanced flavor: Sweet honey, bright orange juice, and savory soy sauce create a marinade that’s flavorful but not heavy.
• Tender, juicy salmon: The citrus helps lightly tenderize the salmon while the oil locks in moisture during grilling.
• Quick marinating time: You only need 20 minutes to infuse big flavor so there’s no long wait required.
• Perfect for grilling: This marinade caramelizes beautifully on the grill without burning or drying out the fish.
• Versatile and foolproof: Use this salmon marinade for grilling, baking, or pan-searing with equally great results.

If you’ve ever struggled with bland or dry salmon, this easy salmon marinade is the simple fix you’ll want to keep using!

Ingredients You’ll Need

This salmon marinade comes together with a handful of simple ingredients that balance sweet, savory, and citrusy flavors perfectly. Each one plays a role in making the salmon tender, juicy, and full of flavor.

• Garlic: Add bold, savory flavor to the salmon marinade
• Orange Juice: Brings bright citrus flavor and natural sweetness to the marinade.
• Honey: Adds a touch of sweetness and helps balance the savory ingredients in the salmon marinade.
• Sweet Chili Sauce: Adds gentle heat and depth of flavor to the marinade.
• Sesame Oil: Adds rich, nutty flavor and enhances the marinade.
• Soy Sauce: Provides saltiness and umami, forming the flavorful base of the salmon marinade.
• Salmon Filets: Look for vibrant pink color and the filets soak up the marinade beautifully.

This pasta feels like spring or summer in a bowl. It’s light and lemony with a great balance of flavors. The lemon cuts through the creaminess, the salmon brings that slightly smoky depth, and the pine nuts add just the right crunch.

Smoked Salmon Pasta

I’ve fallen in love with the ease of dishes made with smoked salmon. The huge boost of flavor the salmon adds to the meal is wonderful, but best of all, the cooking time is minimal.

The sauce comes together in minutes with simple ingredients, just a splash of cream, plenty of lemon juice and zest, and a good amount of Parmesan to tie it all together. Toss in the pasta, sprinkle over some buttery pine nuts, and fold in silky ribbons of smoked salmon at the end.

This meal came together quickly for a weekend lunch. My husband really enjoyed this, despite the fact that pasta is not one of his favorite foods. My sons and I loved it as well. This recipe is a definite keeper.

Salmon Pasta

Salmon and I haven’t always had a great relationship, but over the past 10 years or so, I’ve grown to love this fish. There are near-endless ways to prepare it, and I can’t get enough of it lately.

Spicy, sweet, and slightly tangy glazed salmon with broccoli has been a family favorite for a long time. One delightfully simple sauce does double duty as a marinade for the fish and a flavor booster for the fresh broccoli.

This brown sugar salmon uses the air fryer to cook a piece of salmon to seasoned and subtly sweet perfection in mere minutes.

With flavorful salmon nestled on a bed of baby greens, fresh herbs, glass noodles, avocado, crunchy cabbage and carrots, pickled broccoli and a to-die-for chili lime dressing, this Asian salmon salad is a showstopper. This is a salad to get very excited for – just ask my friends and family. I’ve been talking about it for months

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7 Min Crispy Air Fryer Salmon Bites w/ Mango Salsa

This easy 7 minute Air Fryer Salmon Bites recipe with Strawberry Mango Avocado Salsa are so crispy and so good! Crispy on the outside, tender inside, our salmon bites are an easy recipe, with healthy salmon tossed in a smoky-sweet spice blend with a vibrant mango, strawberry and avocado salsa!

In under 10 minutes you can be eating this air-fryed to crispy perfection salmon recipe, because we all know hangry happens.

Listen, fish isn’t for everyone, previously myself included, but I’m working so hard to change that and it’s slowly becoming one of my favorite proteins! It’s light and flaky, always tender, and cooks SO fast. I thought I had a few good salmon recipes, but this is the best salmon I have literally ever had.

I love that it’s high in protein and when baked in the air fryer it’s texture is heavenly! One of my new FAVORITE recipes for salmon is our smokey salmon bites with a fresh mango salsa! They are perfectly tender and caramelized bite-sized salmon pieces. So GOOD! I could eat these salmon bites every day!

Two Years of Testing…

I’ve been testing our air fryer salmon recipe for over 2 years now and I’ve discovered the absolute best dry rub recipe that takes this salmon from delicious to down right addicting. In fact, it is the best easy summer dinner recipe ever!! Yes, it is possible to make salmon in the air fryer without drying it out and yes, even our kids, the seafood haters love it!

Fresh Strawberry Mango and Avocado salsa

Our fruit salsa takes a regular salmon rice bowl from good to amazing!

This fruit salsa is the kind of sweet topping even picky eaters love!

No oven, no mess, and totally weeknight-friendly! This is a quick, healthy dinner that doesn’t feel like just getting something on the table.

Ingredients for Salmon Bites

All you need are simple pantry staples to make this dry rub for salmon.

In the next section, you can see all the ingredients you will need for the mango salsa– you will want to hit the produce section for those ingredients. Here is everything you will need:

For the Salmon

• Salmon– Look for skinless salmon filets to save yourself time on skin removal then just cut them into evenly sized, small cubes !
• Brown Sugar– A hint of sweetness, but it also helps to caramelize into a mouthwatering crust on the salmon.
• Spices– Smoked Paprika, Chili Powder, Garlic Powder, O

How to Smoke Salmon Recipe [+Video]

Smoked salmon is a delicious and versatile dish that can be enjoyed as a snack, appetizer, or part of a main course. Learn how to smoke salmon at home with our easy-to-follow recipe and video tutorial below.

We start this recipe with a dry brine that loads the salmon fillets with flavor and prepares them to soak in all the smoky flavor. This is a hot-smoked salmon recipe made on a wood pellet smoker.

We have covered all our bases when it comes to salmon here on the blog. We have air fryer salmon, grilled salmon, baked salmon, salmon in a salad, salmon bowls and stuffed salmon. We have been working on a smoked salmon recipe for years, and we have finally nailed it!

Ingredients for Smoked Salmon

Aside from the salmon filets, you’ll need just a few ingredients for the dry brine rub and then a few ingredients for the seasoning mix you rub all over it before smoking it. Here is what you will need:

Dry Brine

• Kosher Salt: adds flavor
• Brown Sugar: adds sweetness and flavor
• Black Pepper: adds flavor and tiny bit of heat

Smoked Salmon

• Salmon Filets: You can get smaller individual filets or get one big filet and then slice it into servings afterward
• Dijon Mustard: adds flavor
• Butter: adds rich flavor and helps keep the salmon moist
• Brown Sugar: adds a little sweetness and helps caramelize the outside of the salmon
• Dill: I almost always prefer fresh herbs for recipes, but for this one, I prefer dried dill.
• Smoked Paprika: adds more smoky flavor
• Salt and Black Pepper: adds flavor
• Maple Syrup: used to baste the fillets as they smoke

The measurements for each ingredient can be found in the recipe card at the end of the post.

What is the Best Salmon for Smoking?

I always look for farm-raised salmon when it comes to smoking. They tend to have a higher fat content which helps them stay tender and flaky through the smoking process. King salmon is my go-to. Coho or Atlantic salmon is my backup. You want to avoid really lean salmon like sockeye salmon.

Why Brine Salmon

This brining process will eliminate some of the moisture from the inside of the fish while simultaneously infusing it with salt, which will help preserve the salmon and its moisture and help create a pellicle (see section below).

What is a Pellicle?

Spicy, sweet, and slightly tangy glazed salmon with broccoli is one of my favorite ways to cook and serve fish. One delightfully simple sauce does double duty as marinade for the fish and flavor booster for the fresh broccoli.

Glazed Salmon

This keeper of a recipe makes adults and kids alike happy, even if some of the kids turn their noses up at the broccoli. They just don’t know what they’re missing!

This fuss free broiler method is ideal for busy weeknights when I don’t have a ton of time to get dinner on the table. And the glaze on the salmon helps balance the “fishy” taste that lots of folks find less than desirable.

I like that I can use the same sauce for both the fish and the vegetables here, keeping prep time and dishes minimal! Feel free to adjust the amount of red pepper flakes in the recipe based on your preferred level of spiciness.

This recipe is a hit with salmon lovers and skeptics alike!

Salmon Glaze

Baking salmon in the oven results in a deliciously tender filet packed with flavor. It truly doesn’t need to be more complicated than that for a great result!

This baked salmon recipe is as easy as mixing together a simple sauce, spooning it over a fresh filet and letting the whole thing cook in the broiler. In my sauce, I used olive oil, soy sauce, red pepper flakes and peach jam for a glaze that is equal parts sweet, savory and tangy with just the right amount of heat.

(You can use store bought peach jam in this recipe but if you happen to have Homemade Peach Jam on hand, it’ll work wonders in this recipe too!)