Mediterranean salmon burgers made with wild caught salmon with bright flavors salty preserved lemon, loads of fresh herbs and warm spices.
Making our own burgers has been our favorite cooking exploration lately. Getting the creative juices flowing, thinking of different mix-ins and herbs has been so much fun. Not to mention, great meal planning. We'll make a slew of different types of burgers, such as hatch chile burgers or tandoori chicken burgers and store them in the freezer for a quick weeknight meal.
These healthy salmon burgers are loaded with flavor!
The inspiration for my these Mediterranean salmon burgers came from recipe testing with Alaska Gold's wild keta salmon. I wrote about keta salmon in my salmon curry recipe if you'd like to read more about it.
Basically it's a milder salmon that is able to take on BOLD flavors. So obviously I had to go BIG. Bright salty preserved lemon, loads of fresh herbs including cilantro, parsley and mint and warm spices of cumin and coriander to bring it all together.
A few notes on the ingredients and flavors:
- If you don't have preserved lemons, use the zest of 1 lemon instead.
- You can often find preserved lemons at International Mediterranean stores or specialty markets or on Amazon as well.
- Feel free to substitute, replace, double, omit any of the herbs in the recipe. But I do love the combination of all 3.
- Homemade salmon burgers freeze very well! Form into burgers and wrap in parchment paper then place in a Ziploc bag and Mediterranean salmon burgers are ready when you are.
More salmon recipes
Spiced Salmon Tacos with Mango Salsa
Cedar Plank Salmon with Creamy Dill Sauce
Greek Fattoush Salad with Grilled Salmon
Even more Mediterranean recipes
Mediterranean Salmon Burger with Preserved Lemon
LittleFerraroKitchen.com
Equipment
Ingredients
Salmon Burgers
- 1 ¼ lb. keta salmon skin removed
- ½ preserved lemon chopped (or zest and juice of 1 whole lemon)
- 1 tsp. ground cumin
- 1 tsp. ground coriander
- 3 garlic cloves roughly chopped
- 1 small shallot roughly chopped
- 1 small bunch parsley leaves
- 1 small bunch cilantro leaves
- ½ cup mint leaves
- ¾ cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp. kosher salt
- Ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp. Grapeseed oil
Yogurt Mint Sauce
- ½ cup Greek yogurt
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 4 sprigs of fresh mint leaves removed and chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste
Toppings
- Burger buns
- Tomato slices
- Arugula
- Shaved Cucumber
Instructions
- Begin by making the mint yogurt sauce by stirring together the yogurt, lemon juice and mint in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper and taste for seasoning and chill in the refrigerator while you make the rest of the salmon burgers.
- Add salmon filets to a food processor and pulse until just ground up then add to a large bowl.
- In the same food processor, add the chopped preserved lemon, spices, garlic, shallot and herbs and pulse until finely chopped and add herb mixture to salmon along with breadcrumbs, egg and salt and pepper.
- Mix everything until well combined, and then form into 4- 6ounce burgers.
- Heat a cast iron pan over medium heat and add grape seed oil. Cook salmon burgers for 5 minutes on first side and then flip over and cook for another 3-4 minutes until outside is lightly golden brown and burger is cooked through.
- Layer salmon burgers with bun, a dollop of mint yogurt sauce, tomato slices, arugula and shaved cucumber.
Blake says
The best Salmon burger EVER. We had 5 small pieces of the tail end of some Sockeye salmon. Samantha's recipe calls for Keta salmon but we didn't have any. We will use Keta salmon next time and see what the difference is. The Yogurt sauce is probably the best fish topping we have ever had, it can go on anything and make it better. Who thinks of putting mint with yogurt, Chef Samantha does thats who.
Franco says
These look interesting to mix them up with regular patties in my next barbeque!