BEST SALMON EVER: Make It In Just 10 Minutes!

We've all been there. You're looking forward to moist flaky salmon and then you take a bite and it's just dry as the Sahara. With this air fryer salmon recipe you never have to do that again. Hi everyone it's Maya from WholesomeYum.com and I make easy healthy recipes with 10 ingredients or less and today I'm showing you how to make salmon in the air fryer. This is one of my favorite ways to cook salmon because it's practically foolproof. It's much harder to overcook it than using other methods. The fish is tender and flaky, the skin comes out crispy, it's perfectly seasoned and it's so easy. Plus this is faster than using other methods. The ingredients are simple and it takes just 10 minutes start to finish. That's including the prep time and the cook time and I'll show you an easy side to serve with this at the end. Let's do this. We're going to start by mixing together a quarter cup of olive oil and you can use avocado oil here if you like but I think olive oil has a better flavor for this salmon and one tablespoon of lemon juice. I like to squeeze mine fresh I think it tastes better but bottled lemon juice will work as well. So I just squeeze this into a measuring spoon like this although on average a tablespoon is about the juice of half a lemon. Go ahead and add that in and whisk it together. I have four salmon fillets here about six ounces each. This is what I recommend a larger piece might overcook. So I'm going to pat these dry with paper towels this is going to help keep the moisture inside when they cook and it will help the outside get crispy. Flip them over do the other side. I got skin on salmon because I love the crispy skin but even if you don't like the skin skin on salmon will come out more flavorful and you can just remove the skin or not eat it later. That being said this recipe will still work if you only have skinless salmon. Just make sure there's no leftover fish scales here so I think there are tools to remove these but I don't have a tool so I just use a knife or your hands work too. Usually the ones from the store will be mostly without scales but there might be a few. Now we're going to add the lemon juice olive oil mixture to the salmon half on one side half on the other side and same with the seasonings we'll add we'll add half on one side half on the other. I'll go ahead and brush that on make sure to get the sides too. So the total you'll need for both sides is one teaspoon of garlic powder half a teaspoon of paprika or smoked paprika if you like one teaspoon of sea salt and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. Now we're going to place the salmon fillets in the air fryer basket you want to place them skin side down first and make sure there's space between the pieces. If your air fryer is smaller than mine and they don't all fit then you can cook them in batches but we don't want to crowd the air fryer basket. Cook the salmon in the air fryer for 6 to 12 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. I always like to check at 6 minutes and then see if it needs more time. The best way to know it's done is to use a meat thermometer. 130 degrees Fahrenheit is perfect for flaky medium salmon and if you don't have a meat thermometer then just check that it flakes easily with a fork. My least favorite part of cooking air fryer salmon is removing it from the air fryer basket but that's why I have my handy fish spatula. I think this is the easiest way to do this and it does help that it has skin because then it doesn't break apart as easily. For serving I like to garnish this with a few lemon wedges just because pretty food is always more enjoyable and some parsley sprigs. If you are super hungry feel free to skip this part. I'm excited to try one of these. Let's get that to a plate here and by the way you can see underneath the skin is so crispy and the perfect pairing for this air fryer salmon is asparagus. Not too surprising right? So you can cook this a couple of ways. You can cook it in the air fryer actually but then you have to wait for the salmon to be done or do it the other way around. So what I actually did is I cooked this in the oven which took almost the same amount of time as the salmon so they were both done at the same time and they're both warm at the same time. You can never have too much lemon either. I'm gonna squeeze some more on here for the asparagus too. Salmon is normally so flaky I would just use a fork but because this has skin I'm gonna cut through that with a knife. That was so good. Perfectly flaky and tender. The skin is crispy. Let me know what you think if you try this and if you like this air fryer salmon you are going to love this juicy air fryer chicken breast too.