Lightly seasoned Salmon Flakes are a great all-purpose topping or filling. It‘s so delicious and easy to make at home, too. Prepare a batch ahead of time and use it on steamed rice, pasta, gratin, tamagoyaki, and more!
When comes to feeding my family, I’ve learned that having some make-ahead dishes can be really helpful. But they can’t be merely about convenience: They need to be tasty and nutritious as well.
Today I’ll like to introduce Salmon Flakes (鮭フレーク), a terrific recipe for anyone who is looking to pack more Omega-3 into every meal to stay strong and healthy.
What are Salmon Flakes?
Salmon Flakes is shredded cooked salmon that’s mildly seasoned and used as a versatile sidekick for a great variety of dishes. In Japanese, we say Sha-ke Fu-ray-ku (鮭フレーク). For such a simple dish, the salmon flakes have a lot to offer. The most common way to use them is to sprinkle over rice, like Furikake rice seasonings. Salmon Flakes elevate simple steamed rice with extra nutrients and flavors.
If you go to a Japanese grocery store, you can even find a jar of Salmon Flakes like this (see below).
While the store-bought stuff is tempting, it contains preservatives and unfamiliar ingredients so we will make our own! The great news is it’s ridiculously easy to make. Before I go into how to make Salmon Flakes, let’s go over how to use it with a few recipe ideas.
How to Use the Salmon Flakes
1. Sprinkle over
- Steamed rice
- Ochazuke
- Udon noodle soup
- Soups
- Stir-fried udon noodles
- Baked/mashed potatoes
2. Use as a filling
- Rice ball (Onigiri)
- Onigirazu
- Tamagoyaki
- Quiche
- Puffed pies
- Crispy wontons
3. Mix together
- Pasta (especially Japanese-style pasta with soy sauce- or cream-based!)
- Zosui (rice soup)
- Gratin
- Fried rice
- Stir-fries
- Maze gohan (mixed rice)
- Potato salad
- Dips
How to Prepare Salmon Flakes
This recipe involves 3 simple steps.
- Bake the salmon in the oven till fully cooked.
- Dehydrate the moisture and season the salmon in the frying pan.
- Let cool and store in a jar.
If you keep it in an air-tight container, it lasts for 4 days in the refrigerator and for up to a month in the freezer.
Itadakimasu!
My kids love salmon, and many of you expressed how much you and your children enjoy all my salmon recipes. So I hope this Salmon Flakes recipe will come in handy. I personally love tossing this salmon into pasta or sprinkling it over rice when we need protein or just one more dish. And I’d love to hear some other fun and delicious ideas you have for using the recipe!
Wish to learn more about Japanese cooking? Sign up for our free newsletter to receive cooking tips & recipe updates! And stay in touch with me on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.
Salmon Flakes
Ingredients
- 1 lb salmon (fillets, with or without skin; I used sockeye salmon, but you can use other types; I like that sockeye has a firm texture and doesn‘t crumble easily)
- ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 1 tsp toasted sesame oil (plus more, as needed)
- 1 Tbsp sake
- 1 Tbsp mirin
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp toasted white sesame seeds
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
To Bake the Salmon
- Preheat the oven to 425ºF (218ºC). Sprinkle ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt over 1 lb salmon fillets and set aside for 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, remove the excess moisture with a paper towel. Transfer the fillets to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Bake the salmon at 425ºF (218ºC) for 10 minutes (5 minutes per ½-inch thickness). Remove from the oven.
- Using chopsticks or a fork, break the salmon into flakes. You can do this directly on the parchment-lined baking sheet. Remove the skin and bones, if any.
To Season the Salmon Flakes
- Heat a large frying pan over medium heat. Once hot, add 1 tsp toasted sesame oil and coat the pan well. Add the flaked salmon to the pan.
- Add 1 Tbsp sake and 1 Tbsp mirin and stir well. Let the alcohol evaporate.
- Add 2 tsp soy sauce and stir to combine. Let the moisture evaporate.
- Transfer to a baking sheet and sprinkle with 1 tsp toasted white sesame seeds. Set aside to cool. Store in an airtight jar once the salmon is completely cool. Your Salmon Flakes are ready to use.
To Store
- You can store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days and in the freezer for a month.
Do you bake the salmon skin on?
Hi Leena,
Yes, please bake it with skin if your salmon has one, and remove it at Step 5.
Thank you for trying this recipe!
Just made up a bargain basement version of this with about 100g canned salmon and 1/4 ratio on everything else. I don’t think it’s supposed to work this way (canned stuff is already cooked, so I skipped straight to the pan, but it’s not really cooked anything like the pre-pan cooking step in this recipe), but I ended up just eating it all out of the pan without even letting it cool so I’m not really sure if it “worked” or not.
I mean, clearly it worked in terms of being edible (I was hungry, okay!), but I’m not sure if it was really “salmon flakes” per se. Perhaps the lesson is that slapping sake+mirin+soy sauce on stuff is just a pretty safe bet in general. Either way, thank you for the recipe! I’ll have to actually eat it on rice or in some other sensible context next time! Having a decent non-perishable option is nice.
I need to correct my previous review. I thought I was commenting on the the Potato and Salmon Casserole, which uses the Salmon Flakes, but I think I posted my comments to the wrong recipe. I made both, but served my family the casserole with a green salad. Can you correct this?
Hi Edie!
Don’t worry!!!😊 We are so happy to hear you enjoyed both of them!
Thank you very much for trying both recipes and for your kind feedback! 💕
Salmon Potato Gratin: https://www.justonecookbook.com/salmon-potato-gratin/
Only made 2 changes to satisfy family tastes and what we had on hand: Swapped the heavy cream for half and and and the whole milk for low fat sour cream. They’re all on pre-holiday diets! Swapped the Russets for Yukon Gold potatoes because that’s what we grow in our home garden, and the Parmesan cheese for Pecorino Romano, because that’s what was in my refrigerator. Otherwise, followed the recipe as written.
Was planning on enjoying leftovers tomorrow, but alas, there was not a Panko crumb left! And instead of enjoying all the goodbye hugs, I was busy printing off copies of this excellent recipe.
One of my family’s all time favorites!
What kind of salmon do you use? Atlantic salmon or Wild Alaskan or something else? Does it matter to this recipe or your slates salmon recipe?
Hi XT,
All kinds of salmon work, but Sockeye Salmon has more texture.
We hope this helps!🙂
This is a great way to fancy up some leftover cooked salmon! I made this to make salmon bowls with rice, edamame, cucumber, pickled ginger and wasabi.. basically an inside-out salmon roll! It was delicious!
Hi Anita!
Thank you very much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback!
We are so glad to hear you fancy up your leftover cooked salmon with this recipe and made a great dish with it!
Thank you for sharing your cooking experience with us!☺️
Make salmon teriyaki, seasoned well, crumble it into flakes, and place about half an inch thick on top of sushi rice that has been pressed about 1 inches or so high in a square or rectangular container. (If u have a sushi press for making spam musubi, that would work too for individual ones). Cut into squares or rectangles. It’s mmm good!
Min
Hi Minnie,
Yum! Thank you for sharing your tip with us!😊
Made a batch of this over the weekend to flavor some soup and even put some on the chestnut rice we made from some of the 3 (Boston Red Sox) baseball caps full of chestnuts that we picked from under a chestnut tree off to the side of an apple orchard a couple weeks back, when we were supposed to be picking apples. Thanks for a great recipe, as always.
Hi Brian,
Thank you for trying this recipe! We hope you enjoy this Salmon Flakes!
Chestnuts picking sounds fun! Fresh chestnuts must be delicious too. Thank you for sharing your story.😊
Just did this recipe with some grilled codfish leftovers (was light seasoned at first). It turn out great! Thanks for another great recipe.
Hi Cris,
Thank you very much for trying this recipe with codfish!🤩
We are so glad to hear it turned out great!
Thank you for sharing your cooking experience with us!
Hi.. May I ask, what type of soy sauce did you use for this and is there any alternatives or substitute for sake and mirin since im a muslim.
Hi Rosmariani,
Nami used this soy sauce from kikkoman. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013H9XTN0/?ref=exp_justonecookbook_dp_vv_d
If you cannot consume alcohol in your cooking, you can omit sake or replace it with water or broth when a recipe calls for Sake.
As for Mirin, you can look for Mirin that doesn’t contain alcohol.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005GTT3BM/?ref=exp_justonecookbook_dp_vv_d
Or you can substitute mirin with water and sugar. The ratio of water and sugar should be 3 to 1. For example, for 1 tbsp water, mix with 1 tsp of granulated sugar. Another alternative is to mix chicken broth with sugar.
We hope this is helpful!😊
Just out of curiosity, if the alcohol evaporates completely, would it be OK? I was thinking maybe if the sake and mirin were doubled and then heated in pan, the alcohol should evaporate completely and you should be left with only the flavour. I did this with red wine for other dishes for a different reason so was wondering if this is acceptable?
We’ve had some salmon fillets languishing in our freezer for some time now, this recipe is perfect! Super easy to make, too. I didn’t have any sake, so I doubled up on the mirin. It’s probably a bit sweeter than normal, but still tastes good. I was surprised how much moisture was still in the fish once flaked. I think next time I’ll salt both sides and let it sit a bit longer. Thanks for the great recipe!
Hi TheNealsMeals,
Thank you so much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback.
We’re so happy to hear that this Salmon Flake recipe turned out great!
Do you think you can use this recipe with other types of fish?
Hi Shirley,
Wow! You are very creative!
We’ve not tested with other types of fish before, so we’re not sure how the outcome will be… but we think it will work.
Please let us know how it goes!
Can you make salmon flakes with frozen salmon?
Hi ITL
Yes, you can. Please adjust the baking time for frozen salmon or defrost it first.
Thank you for trying this recipe!
Salmon flakes are a smart move!
Hi Dra,
Thank you very much! Thank you for trying this recipe!
Thank you for this recipe. Question: when do you add the salmon into the pan? After the sesame oil or after the soy sauce? The written instructions make mention of putting the salmon in the frying pan, even though the picture has the salmon placed in the frying pan. Thank you.
Hi Wendy,
Thank you for writing to us. We fixed the recipe by adding “Add salmon to the pan. ”
I hope this helps!😊
This seems like salmon taken to the next level!
I am defnitly going to do it next week! Just a question: can we use olive oil instead of sesame?
Thank you 😊
Hi Rita,
Sure! Olive oil should work as well.
Thank you for trying this recipe!😊
I love salmon flakes! I ask my sister in Japan send this to me, as I cannot find it. But now I’ll try and make my own. Thank you for the recipe. ありがとうございます！
みそちゃんはとても可愛いです。
Hi Teri,
Thank you so much for trying this recipe.
We hope you would like this homemade flake better than store-bought!😉 ありがとう〜