Cooking Frozen Salmon In A Pan

Don't defrost frozen salmon! Go directly from freezer-to-skillet in minutes

Did you know that if you have fish or seafood in your freezer you don't need to defrost it? I had no idea until last week! We regularly buy frozen salmon, cod, and scallops. It's so convenient and more affordable. Do we buy fresh sometimes? Of course, especially for special occasions or pre-Covid dinner parties, but for everyday cooking, we pull a couple of these fillets out of the freezer for dinner. For Sean, the main thing is that fish and seafood are wild caught and sourced well. For me, the main thing is that it's not overcooked. Nothing is more unappealing to me than a piece of tough, dry salmon on my dinner plate. Meh.

With a goal of eating salmon 1-2 times a week, I was hunting online for a new way to prepare frozen salmon, when I stumbled across this Alaska Seafood video called, " How to Pan Sear Frozen Wild Alaska Salmon " … wait, what? All this time, I've been putting frozen salmon fillets into a large bowl of cold water to defrost long before I'm ready to cook it. You mean, I don't have to do that? I can just pull them out of the freezer and cook them up straight away? Per this video, you can do exactly that. You take frozen fish or seafood out of the freezer, remove the vacuum-wrapped plastic, run the pieces under cold water, pat dry, brush with oil, season with salt and pepper, and then put it in the skillet. Wow! I followed this method and it was fantastic. Moreover, the result was a nice, tender piece of salmon with crispy skin. It wasn't overcooked. Just so you don't have to keep watching and pausing the video like I did, here are all the main shots:

So what did I do on a busy weeknight with this new and nifty way to cook frozen salmon? In a small glass bowl, I combined around 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil with salt, pepper, 1 tablespoon of shredded unsweetened coconut, and 1 teaspoon of curry maple sugar that my sister Myna gifted me from Eastern Canada. It's on the sweeter side, so you can always add regular curry powder, a little brown sugar or honey, and a bit of cayenne for some kick. This concoction is quite literally brushed onto the frozen salmon fillets, which then hit the skillet, so you just get a hint of flavor when it's fully cooked, it's not overpoweringly curry-tasting. We dug into this salmon with basmati rice, oven-roasted vegetables, and eggplant raita. The photo at the end doesn't quite do it justice, but it was delicious.