Miso-Glazed Salmon
A four-ingredient glaze, a short marinade, and eight minutes under the grill. The sugar in the miso is doing the browning, so watch it.
- Prep
- 10m
- Cook
- 9m
- Waiting
- 30m
- Total
- 49m
- Serves
- 4
- Effort
- Easy
Method
| 3 tbsp | 1 Whisk smooth 3m | 2 Marinate skin-side down, 30 minutes at room temperature 30m Longer is not better — the salt in the miso will start curing the surface. | 3 Grill 10 cm from the element until the glaze blisters 8m Aim for 48°C / 118°F in the centre for medium. It carries on cooking off the heat. | |
| 2 tbsp | ||||
| 1 tbsp | ||||
| 1 tbsp | ||||
| 1 tsp | ||||
| 4 x 150 g | ||||
| 2 | ||||
| 1 tsp | ||||
- 1
Whisk smooth
3m- white miso 3 tbsp
- mirin 2 tbsp
- sake (optional) 1 tbsp
- caster sugar 1 tbsp
- grated ginger 1 tsp
- 2
Marinate skin-side down, 30 minutes at room temperature
30m- from 1 Whisk smooth
- salmon fillets 4 x 150 g
Longer is not better — the salt in the miso will start curing the surface.
- 3
Grill 10 cm from the element until the glaze blisters
8m- from 2 Marinate skin-side down, 30 minutes at room temperature
- spring onions 2
- toasted sesame seeds (optional) 1 tsp
Aim for 48°C / 118°F in the centre for medium. It carries on cooking off the heat.
Why it browns so fast
Miso brings both sugars and free amino acids to the party, which is the exact pair the Maillard reaction needs. Add a tablespoon of sugar and mirin on top of that and the surface will colour in a couple of minutes under a hot grill — long before the middle is done if the fillet is thick.
The fix is distance, not temperature. Ten centimetres from the element browns the glaze at roughly the rate the interior cooks. If your grill only has one setting and it is fierce, move the tray to the second shelf and accept an extra two minutes.
The temperature question
Salmon is safe at 63 °C / 145 °F and unpleasant well before that. Pulled at 48 °C / 118 °F it rests to about 52 °C and stays translucent and silky in the middle. If you prefer it flaking cleanly, pull at 54 °C. Anything above 60 °C squeezes out albumin — the white curd on the surface — and dries the fish.
Notes
- Line the tray. Sugar plus miso plus grill heat welds itself to bare metal.
- Any firm-fleshed fish takes this glaze well; so does aubergine, cut thick and given twice the time.
- The glaze keeps a fortnight in the fridge. Make triple.