This honey sriracha salmon is sweet, spicy and ready in just 15 minutes. Made with a simple glaze and perfectly seared salmon, it’s an easy weeknight dinner packed with flavour.
As delicious Salmon Fillet Recipes go, this has to be one of the easiest. Not only does the sauce require only 4 main ingredients, but the salmon turns out perfectly tender. Prepare for this to make your easy weeknight dinner rotation and never leave. Follow me…
Honey Sriracha Sauce
This sauce truly couldn’t be easier to make. Just 4 ingredients! Here’s what you’ll need:
- Honey – Make sure it’s runny honey, or it’ll clump in the pan.
- Soy Sauce – Light or All Purpose. This adds a mild salty flavour & deepens the sauce.
- Sriracha – Don’t sub other hot sauce brands; only Sriracha is suitable for this recipe.
- Lime Juice – The acidity will cut through the sweetness.
You can completely customise this sauce too, tweaking to preference after you’ve mixed it all. You can also make it in advance, cover and store until needed (just make sure it’s room temp when needed or it’ll be too thick).
Pan-Fried Honey Sriracha Salmon
For this recipe, we’ll be using skinless salmon fillets. The easiest and most effective cooking method for this type of recipe is pan-frying. Here are a few tips that’ll help you along the way:
Tips for Pan-Frying Salmon
- Room Temp – Like any meat, you’ll want the salmon out of the fridge at least 20mins before using, otherwise it’ll seize up and risk drying out in the pan.
- Non-Stick – Salmon is notorious for flaking apart in the pan, so ensure you are using a non-stick pan to avoid this!
- Butter – Basting the salmon in butter adds gorgeous flavour and keeps it moist.
- Heat – You’ll want the heat on a high-medium. This will ensure you get a nice golden crust without cooking the salmon right through.
The main thing when pan-frying salmon is to work fairly quickly. It’s easy to take your eye off the pan and the next thing you know, the salmon’s cooked through before you’ve basted in butter or added the sauce. Slightly undercooked salmon is a good thing in the first instance.
Process shots: Take salmon out of fridge 20mins beforehand (photo 1), coat in seasoning (photo 2), add to pan with oil over medium-high heat (photo 3), flip when golden (photo 4), add butter (photo 5), baste until almost cooked through (photo 6).
Honey Sriracha Salmon FAQ
It’s on the mild side as written. This is so everyone can enjoy the sauce, including those who don’t like too much spice. It’s very easy to adjust and make spicier by adding more sriracha.
Yes. Cook it skin-side down first to get it nice and crispy, then flip and finish with the glaze.
Keep an eye on the side to track when it starts turning opaque. You can also peek in the centre too. The best advice though, is to always stay on the side of caution and remove the salmon from the pan just before it’s finished cooking. This is because it’ll carry on cooking slightly as it rests, and when added back to the pan. It’s much easier to cook the salmon than revive overcooked salmon!
Simply carry on gently simmering and stirring to reduce and thicken the sauce. Keep in mind it’ll carry on thickening as it cools.
How to serve Honey Sriracha Salmon
This is such a versatile dish because you can serve it with so many things. Here are a few of my favourite ways:
- Easy – to keep within the 15 minutes, serve with leftover/microwave rice and a side salad if you want to bulk it out. You could even go with buttered, crusty bread for ultra convenience.
- Company – to take it up a notch if you’re serving for company, consider some Smashed Potatoes and Roasted Broccolini or Asparagus.
- Homestyle – Roasted Baby Potatoes or a Baked Potato with any side of veg you fancy!
For now, let’s tuck into this full honey sriracha salmon recipe shall we?!
How to make Honey Sriracha Salmon (Full Recipe & Video)
Honey Sriracha Salmon
Equipment
- Large Non-Stick Frying Pan & Tongs
- Small Pot (for sauce)
- Spoon (for basting)
- Sharp Knife & Chopping Board
Ingredients
- 4x 4-5oz/120-150g boneless skinless Salmon Fillets (see notes)
- 1/2 tsp EACH: Garlic Powder, Salt
- 1/4 tsp Black Pepper
- drizzle of Olive Oil, as needed
- 2 tbsp / 1oz / 30g Unsalted Butter
- 1/4 cup / 75g Honey
- 1 tbsp Sriracha, or to taste
- 1 tbsp Light/All Purpose Soy Sauce
- 1 tbsp Fresh Lime Juice
- Sesame Seeds, to serve
- thinly sliced Spring Onion, to serve
Instructions
- In a small pot, combine the honey, sriracha, soy sauce and lime juice, then place to one side.
- Season both sides of the salmon fillets with 1/2 tsp garlic powder & salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper.
- Heat up a drizzle of olive oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Place the salmon presentation-side-down and fry for around 3mins, or until it builds up a golden crust. Carefully flip over and fry for a further minute.
- Drop in 2 tbsp butter and baste the salmon for 1-2mins, or until the other side starts to turn golden and the salmon is just about cooked through the centre (you can check the sides or peek in the centre to see if it has turned opaque and easily flakes). Remove the salmon and place on a plate to one side, then lower the heat to medium.
- Pour in the sauce and gently simmer and stir until it thickens to a glossy, syrupy consistency (it should only take 1-2 minutes). Adjust seasoning/spice if desired.
- Add the salmon back and coat in the sauce. It should be thick enough to cling to the salmon.
- Serve with sesame seeds and spring onion and enjoy!
Video
Notes
Your Private Notes:
Nutrition
Looking for more?
You’ll find plenty more delicious comfort food like this in my Debut Cookbook ‘Comfy’
For the sister recipe to this, check out my Honey Sriracha Chicken!
For more similar recipes, check out these beauties:
- Honey Butter Chicken
- Honey Lemon Salmon
- Hot Honey Feta Chicken
- Cajun Honey Butter Pork Tenderloin
- Honey Garlic Chicken
This recipe calls for skinless salmon fillets but the directions say to rub seasoning into skin?
Apologies, that’s a typo. They’re definitely skinless! C.
Hi Chris, this recipe sounds awesome and I am making it tonight. However, my salmon has skin on it. Is that a problem? Do I need to change anything? Which side do I put down first? It is very unlikely that I will get an answer from you tonight if you live in England….
Hi Marion! This recipe works best with skinless salmon fillets, just so you can baste them in the sauce without the skin going soggy. Not a deal breaker though if you can’t/don’t want to remove the skin. Just cook it skin side down over medium heat until the skin is nice and crispy and the salmon is about half way cooked (4-5mins depending on thickness of fillet). Then flip it over and create the sauce. I wouldn’t baste the salmon in the sauce until serving, just so the skin stays nice and crispy. Bonus tip is patting the skin dry before you fry to help it crisp up!
Hope this helps!
Chris 🙂
Thanks so much for your answer! This turned out awesome! We did remove the skin.
That’s great to hear! 🙂
Great recipe. Wife and I loved it and have added it to our recipe book for later use. I baked it this time and it was delicious, but I look forward to trying your pan frying method in the near future. Thanks for sharing.
That’s awesome to hear, Simon! Glad to hear it worked well in the oven. Thanks for popping back for a review 🙂
Served this recipe over a spinach salad with feta cheese and used the sauce as a warm dressing! Was a restaurant quality salad! Will be putting this recipe in my arsenal of keepers.
Amazing! I’ll definitely have to try this in salad form! 🙂
That looks so delicious and perfect for weeknights too. Love that combination of flavours.
So good for weeknights!!
I absolutely LOVE those pictures, those alone are selling it to me. Sounds very flavoursome, coming from an avid seafood lover!
Thanks so much, Charla! 🙂
This is one of my favourite ways to serve salmon. It has so much flavour.
It certainly does! 🙂
Great Salmon recipe! Perfect flavor with the added kick!
Thanks, Tisha!
One of the best ways to cook salmon. Delicious and so inviting. Love how quickly this dish comes together – makes it a great recipe to keep handy.
Thanks, Danielle! It’s definitely a quick one 🙂