Healthy air fryer salmon doesn’t get any easier than this. Within minutes you can have a dinner with healthy air fried salmon and veggies. It’s also budget friendly too.

Healthy Air Fried Salmon Recipe in Air Fryer basket

Healthy Air Fried Salmon Recipe

Healthy cooking can be simple and quick. Our air fryer salmon recipe is a perfect example of how to eat healthy without sacrificing flavor. We’re obsessed with this air fried salmon because it truly is so quick. You’ll have dinner on the table in a few minutes and the salmon is perfectly cooked. Best of all, there’s very little oil to cook salmon in the air fryer! Seriously, we’re always surprised at how little oil you need to make a fantastic healthy salmon dinner.

Healthy Air Fried Salmon Recipe on a plate

Video: Healthy Air Fryer Salmon Recipe

Why Air Fry Salmon Instead of Baking It?

We’ve baked and roasted salmon so many times that we had believed it’s the best method out there. But with air fried salmon, the cooking time is much quicker! The salmon comes out wonderfully moist. The small air fryer cooking baskets makes for a quicker cooking time when compared to a conventional oven. If  using a regular oven, you have to wait for it to pre-heat. For air frying, there’s no pre-heating required. And best of all, cleaning is so much easier if you use easy to clean silicone mats. We give recommendations further below.

How to Air Fry Salmon (Tips)

  • We use fresh salmon fillets. Our timing is based on fresh fillets.
  • Use a very light layer of oil such as olive oil, avocado oil or grape seed oil. You don’t need much at all.
  • Our recipe uses simple oil, salt and pepper. But if you want to use other seasonings, that’s great! Lemon pepper, garlic powder, onion powder or even steak seasoning is fantastic. Steak seasoning has so much flavor it’s not just for steak!
  • If you’re air frying salmon fillets that are over 6oz, you have to add about another 1-2 minutes of cooking time. Also, if it’s like an 8oz thick fillet, you definitely will need the extra 1-2 minutes.
  • All healthy air fried salmon recipe details are in the recipe box below.

What About Frozen Salmon?

Sure, you can use frozen salmon if it’s thawed. We suggest thawing the salmon in the fridge overnight, then squeezing out all the excess water. Then proceed with the air fryer salmon recipe. Make sure it’s fully thawed through the center, so when it’s air fried, it will cook all the way through.

What are the Best Air Fryers?

There’s so many on the market now. You just need to research and find the ones that fits your needs, capacity and style. We group the basket style air fryers into 2 main size groups: 3-4 qt range & the 5-6 qt. range.  Here’s our favorites:


Cosori 3.7 qt. Digital Air Fryer – “That’s a stylish Air Fryer” was said as we unboxed the Cosori. Beyond being stylish, it has cooked great. The basket is not as tall and wider than most in its size group, which is perfect. You’ll have a lot better results in an air fryer with single layered, spread out foods, then with ones piled high and thick.
The non-stick basket style (non-wire base) & smoothness of the basket tray is also great for clean up.

Ninja 4 qt. Digital Air Fryer – Has a great ceramic coated basket, one of the longest lasting we’ve used. Super powerful fan that will often cook recipes even faster than other air fryers. We initially returned our first one because we thought we wouldn’t like the basket style. After reconsidering, we bought another and are super glad we did. We love it’s basket and just a platform insert. One less bulky thing to wash. This is a great air fryer.

Good Larger Air Fryers

Tiluxury Air Fryer 5.8 qtTiluxury 5.8 qt. Digital Air Fryer – It’s a good larger air fryer capable of cooking for larger families, especially when you need to cook more food. It’s great for cooking bigger batches (ie 4 salmon fillets instead of 2 or 2 lbs of fries instead of 1).
We like that this Tiluxury 5.8 qt has the non-stick basket (non-wire base). Makes for less sticking for delicate meals (ie baked fish fillets).  And we like the digital interface (easier cleaning).

Gourmia 6 qt. Digital Air Fryer – This is quickly becoming one of our favorite larger basket style air fryers. Great basket size, good controls, cooks nice. Clean up is great. It has become one of our kitchen favorites. We’ll often find it as Costco at a great price too![/one_half_last
Healthy Air Fried Salmon Recipe in Air Fryer @BestRecipeBox

Healthy Air Fryer “Baked” Salmon

Salmon sizes will vary in length and thickness, so you can add or reduce cooking time if needed to cook your salmon to your preferred texture.
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Ingredients

  • Two 6 ounce (Two 170 g) salmon fillets , skin and bones removed
  • 1 teaspoon (5 ml) olive oil or light spray of organic cooking spray
  • kosher salt , to taste
  • black pepper , to taste

Equipment

Instructions 

  • Rinse and pat dry the salmon. Lightly coat with oil or cooking spray. Season both sides with salt and pepper.
  • Place salmon in basket. Air fry at 380°F for about 8-12 minutes (depending on your air fryer and thickness of the salmon).
  • Gently press the salmon to check it's doneness (the firmer it is the more fully cooked it is). Or check the salmon with a fork to make sure it's cooked to your preferred doneness.
    Enjoy! It’s that easy.

Notes

Air Fryer Notes:
  • Don’t crowd the basket. If you decide to double the recipe, it will work great but make sure your air fryer is large enough to fit more salmon filets. If the basket is more crowded, you might need add an additional 1-2 minutes of cooking time to make sure the salmon is cooked through or cook the salmon in batches. 
  • Recipes were cooked in 3-4 qt air fryers. If using a larger air fryer, the recipe might cook quicker so adjust cooking time. 
  • If cooking in multiple batches, the first batch will take longer to cook if Air Fryer is not already pre-heated.

Video

YouTube video

Nutrition Information per Serving

Calories: 259kcal, Protein: 33g, Fat: 12g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Cholesterol: 93mg, Sodium: 74mg, Potassium: 833mg, Vitamin A: 70IU, Calcium: 20mg, Iron: 1.4mg