This Bourbon Glazed Salmon is packed with sweet and savory flavors. It’s an easy way to bring perfectly cooked fish to the table: it cooks in 5 minutes!
Looking for an easy salmon recipe full of sweet and savory flavors? This Bourbon Glazed Salmon is a must try! The recipe comes from the cookbook of a dear friend of ours. Our friend Lauren McDuffie from My Kitchen Little wrote the most beautiful and impressive Smoke, Roots, Mountain, Harvest book about Appalachian cuisine from its roots. Dude, is this recipe a hit! The salmon cooks in just 5 minutes and the bourbon sauce? Lauren says it’s like “salmon in a party dress.” After tasting, we are inclined to agree! Read on for the recipe and a little more about the book.
About the book: Smoke, Roots, Mountain, Harvest
Even if we didn’t know Lauren personally, we’d sprung from her new cookbook. She lives just around the corner from Indianapolis and we are blessed to have another cookbook author within 5 minutes! This Bourbon Glazed Salmon recipe is from her book Smoke, Roots, Mountain, Harvest, in which she wrote, in her own words, “to get a taste of Appalachian cuisine and culture.”
The book literally makes you want to hop on a plane to get there asap! Lauren walks you through Appalachian favorites like Sorghum Cider Quick Bread, Blackberry Loop, and Chili Cheese. At the same time, she tells stories and anecdotes that make it read like a novel. It is truly one-of-a-kind and we are delighted that Lauren’s book is being introduced to the world.
Get the book: Smoke, Roots, Mountain, Harvest
How to grill salmon
Nothing could be easier to prepare this Bourbon Glazed Salmon! You can use salmon fillets with or without the skin. Place the salmon on a baking sheet and season generously with salt and pepper. Then put in the grill and grill for 5 minutes. That’s it! A really easy salmon recipe. You make a homemade bourbon glaze for the salmon: Brush the glaze in the last minute of grilling, and then again as soon as you take it out of the oven.
Other ways to cook salmon? Try our Baked Salmon, Seared Salmon, Miso Salmon, Cajun Salmon or Blackened Salmon. Or check out all our salmon recipes!
Make the glaze for the Bourbon Glazed Salmon
The bourbon glaze takes this salmon from ordinary to extraordinary! Here are some pointers about the frosting:
- Simmer for 15 minutes, then cool for 20 minutes. The main idea of bourbon icing is to simmer bourbon with brown sugar and a few other spices until it’s reduced to a syrupy icing. The baking portion only takes about 15 minutes, but the glaze needs to cool for about 20 minutes to thicken.
- Prepare for a quick meal. To speed up that timing, you can make the bourbon glaze ahead of time for a really quick meal! Just keep it in the fridge and bring it to room temperature before serving. It really adds that sweet-salty-salty component to the salmon that will blow your mind. trust us!
Serve like this!
Serve this salmon with one of our must-have salmon side dishes. Here are a few ideas:
About buying sustainable seafood
Finally, a few notes on sourcing sustainable fish for this Bourbon Glazed Salmon! Alex and I try to buy sustainable seafood whenever possible. We eat mostly plant-based foods, but we adapt to eat sustainable fish from time to time. Here’s what we learned about buying sustainable seafood:
- Always buy wild salmon. Farmed salmon is generally marketed as a sustainable fish; However, the fish are fed other wild forage fish that are not sustainable seafood.
- Frozen works too! One myth about fish is “fresh is better”. As soon as an animal dies, it begins to decompose; Freezing suspends this process. If a fish is frozen when you catch it and stays frozen until it gets to your kitchen, it’s of higher quality than a raw fish that took a week to get to your plate.
This salmon recipe with bourbon glaze is…
Pescetarian and gluten free.
The description
This Bourbon Glazed Salmon is packed with sweet and savory flavors. It’s an easy way to bring perfectly cooked fish to the table: it cooks in 5 minutes!
For the bourbon glaze
- ¾ cup bourbon
- 2/3 cup Brown sugar
- 1 tbsp Worcester sauce
- 1 tbsp Honey
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
For the bourbon salmon
- Four 4– 5 ounce salmon fillets (skinned or skinless)
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground pepper
- For the bourbon glaze: In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, combine bourbon, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, honey, Dijon mustard, vinegar, garlic powder, and 1 teaspoon Kosher salt. Let the mixture simmer, stirring frequently, until the sugar has dissolved. Continue to simmer without stirring until the frosting has reduced by half, 12 to 15 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before use to allow it to thicken.
- For the salmon: Place a rack in the top third of the oven and preheat the grill. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Season the flesh side of each fish fillet with ½ tsp salt and ½ tsp pepper (or without the skin, sprinkle ¼ tsp salt and ¼ tsp pepper on each side). Place skin-side down side by side on the baking sheet. Grill for 4 minutes. Remove the salmon from the oven and brush generously with a little bourbon sauce using a pastry brush. Place the baking sheet on the grill for 1 minute. Or check the doneness of particularly thick fillets and extend them a little longer if necessary.
- Brush the fillets again with the bourbon sauce and place on a platter. Scoop the extra sauce into a serving platter and serve with the salmon for drizzling and dipping. (Basting the sauce too early could burn the sugar in the glaze, so this works towards the end of cooking and then again once the fish is out of the oven.)
- Category: main course
- Method: Goal
- Kitchen: American
Keywords: Grilled Salmon, Bourbon Glazed Salmon, How to Grill Salmon
Looking for healthier seafood recipes?
Aside from this grilled salmon recipe, here are some healthier seafood and fish recipes:
Last update: September 2020
