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Salmon candy has become my new favorite road food. Sweet, smoky, meaty, fatty. And while it looks like regular smoked salmon, it’s not. So what on earth is candied salmon?
Well, I first heard about candied salmon decades ago, when it was called squaw candy, but it’s no longer called that for obvious reasons. Salmon candy is basically heavily smoked strips of salmon, originally smoked so long they were basically salmon jerky. Nowadays it’s usually lacquered with something sweet, such as brown sugar, maple or birch syrup, or even molasses. The idea is to combine fatty-savory-smoky-sweet in one bite.
Strips from the belly of the salmon are best, but regular fillet strips are good, too — and you can do this to salmon collars as well.
Don’t get me wrong: I love my recipe for smoked salmon. I really do. But it’s for large pieces of salmon, meant to be eaten as a meal, or crumbled into salads or whatever. It isn’t something you can wrap in a paper towel, stick in your pocket and carry with you when you are picking blueberries or wandering around, or maybe fishing for more salmon.
For that you need to change things up a bit. First is the dry cure. My regular smoked salmon uses a brine cure, which keeps the fish supple and moist. Salmon candy needs to be heavily cured and heavily smoked to keep in less-than-ideal conditions.
While it isn’t strictly jerky, although if you want to make a true salmon jerky this is my recipe, the heavy cure and smoke has let me carry salmon candy on multi-day road trips and on fishing boats with a minimal amount of refrigeration.
How minimal? I’ve eaten it at room temperature after it had been in my pack while fishing all day, or in the late afternoon on a long drive. But I fish in cool places, so the salmon probably never got about 65°F. I wouldn’t let it get actually hot and eat it.
Remember, this is an Alaskan invention and it rarely gets hot in Alaska.
If you want something truly hardy, you will need to cut the strips thinner and smoke them harder to get them jerky-like.
What salmon to use? Well, any, really. This is a great use of chum or pink salmon, and it is also excellent with large trout or char. If you want to order salmon from Alaska, try Yakobi Fisheries — I have fished commercially with them and can highly recommend their fish.
Consider my candied salmon a hybrid, hardier than regular smoked salmon, and not quite as austere as the traditional salmon candy made by the native Alaskans. Whatever you call it, it’s damn good.
Smoked Salmon Candy
Ingredients
- 5 pounds skin-on salmon pieces, cut into 1- to 2-inch thick strips
- 1 pound kosher salt
- 1 pound brown sugar
- 1 cup maple syrup or birch syrup
Instructions
- Mix the salt and brown sugar together. Find a lidded container large enough to hold the salmon; a big plastic tub works well. Lay down a layer of the salt/sugar mixture about 1/4 inch deep. Put a layer of salmon down on this, skin side up. Cover the salmon with more salt/sugar mixture. If you need a second layer of salmon, make sure the layer of salt and sugar between them is thick enough so that the pieces of salmon are not touching. Basically you are burying the salmon in salt and sugar. Cover and let cure in the fridge at least 30 minutes, and up to 3 hours. The longer the cure the saltier it will be; I cure for 2 hours.
- Remove the salmon from the cure, which will get wet, and briefly rinse the fish under cold water. Pat dry with a paper towel and set the salmon on a drying rack skin side down. Let this dry in a breezy place for 2 hours, or in the fridge, uncovered, overnight. I put the racks under a ceiling fan near an open window with another fan blowing at the fish from the side. You are doing this to form a pellicle on the salmon, which helps it smoke properly. Don't skip this step!
- Traditionally salmon candy is cold smoked for several days. If you can do this, go for it. Regardless, you want to bring the temperature up gradually over the course of an hour or so and let it sit at around 165°F to 200°F for at least 3 hours, and up to 6 hours if you like your salmon candy harder and smokier.
- Every 90 minutes to 2 hours, paint the salmon with the maple syrup. This also helps to remove any albumen -- the icky white stuff -- that can form between the fish flakes if your smoker gets a little too hot too fast.
- When the salmon looks good and lacquered, typically about 3 to 4 hours, remove it to the drying racks again and paint it one last time with the maple syrup. Allow to cool to room temperature before storing. Salmon candy will last a week in the fridge, longer if vacuum sealed. It freezes well, too.
Notes
Tips
Smoke likes Fat. Smoke adheres better to fat than lean meat, so bellies and collars are better for this. Vary the thickness. Very thin strips will dry harder and be more like jerky... and will keep longer. I eat mine fairly quickly, so I leave the strips thicker, at about 2 inches wide.Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
So I have it in the brine but the recipe doesn’t mention water. The other smoked salmon recipe does. So have I done the right thing? I am just brining it in brown sugar and kosher salt. No water. Please let me know quickly if you can wouldn’t want to wreck 5 lbs of wild caught sockeye. I plan to try out the new smoker tomorrow. Thanks.
Aeriol: Nope, no water. This is a dry salt method.
Letting the salmon sit for a couple hours before smoking allows it to get “tacky”, so it takes smoke better. Lower temperatures get more smoke into salmon. Because it is important to get the moisture out of the fish you must use heat, how much and how long is a personal preference and depends on your smoker and outside temperature. I can mine in jars in a pressure cooker, so this finishes it and also disintegrates any small bones. It has a long shelf life also. Try vacusealing your strips with sausage and cheese slices and storing in freezer until you are ready to eat.
What kind of chips???
Jamie: Any kind.
always looking for new tricks/ideas. I use a brine that uses spicy rum – supposed to be Capt Morgan but Kirkland works, place on cookie racks on newspaper and dry with a fan. ,smoke @ 140 for a couple of hours and can them with some jalapeños for flavor. Wonderful.
i have been making salmon candy for 20 yr, after being in the brine for 36hr, I then scewer the strips and hang them for 48hr, then off to the smoker at 75 degrees for 3-4 hr till dry
How long do u smoke for? Should u start smoking right away??
Cory: You start smoking right away, and smoke until it’s done to your liking. Every smoker is different, so I can’t give you an exact time. Sorry.
Can I can it after it comes out of the smoker?
Laura: Not sure. I think it’d be better to use a standard smoked salmon recipe to can.
This is a great recipe. I make it for my annual neighbourhood BBQ, and my only problem is keeping it in the smoker after the first two hours. I generally start with a full rack, and by the end its about half that.
For the drying it with the fan you say 2 hours and then you say overnight which one is it cause I am at this point where it is drying
Lisa: It is a range. 2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge.
When you smoke with the skin on, which I understand is preferred, is it edible? I would think yes, as long as you make sure it’s properly scaled..? I’m giving it a shot this weekend so just thought I’d ask.
Fargo: Yep, it’s edible, but a bit chewy.
We bought salmon and realized that it didn’t have skin. Do you think the recipe will be affected?
Lynsie: You should be OK. Be careful taking the strips off the smoker though.
Thanks for a great salmon candy recipe Hank.It was great and is know my favorite. Living in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia we have great hunting and fishing areas that are well kept secrets, so we have fish and game all the time. Like the ideal of cutting the fish into 2-inch pieces making it easier to share with friends.
Trying this recipe for the first time. Have a Bradley 4 rack smoker with a temperature controller, so I should be able to control the heat at 180-200.
Everything sounds really good. but don’t understand why your temps are that high. Wouldn’t it be better if smoked like your other fish recipe. Is there something I’m missing here. I understand going slow with the temp the first hour but stop at 180 to 225 is kinda high ain’t it? It will lose everything out of the meat won’t it? Just asking I don’t want to waste a slab of king salmon it takes a lot of money to go on my trips. Thanks for your time and insight. It’s wonderful. I’m glad I came across it. I cook bbq all the time I’m a one man team with lots of hrs under my belt. So if you need any info on ‘queuing let me know. I will share with you. Thanks, Jim
Jim: Salmon candy is different. It’s supposed to be hard-smoked, and approaching jerky. The idea is to be able to pick up each piece, carry it with you and eat. So it needs to be harder than my normal smoked salmon.
WOW!! Terrific recipe, only problem is the salmon only lasts about twenty minutes! I used a dehydrator to dry it instead of a fan, however follwed recipe. Real crowd pleaser!
I use a honey/water glaze instead of the maple syrup and it seems to work well.
What internal temperature should I go for?
I don’t check it. I want it well cooked, though, as it’s kinda-sorta like jerky. Not THAT dry, but dried that my regular smoked salmon recipe. That’s why bellies and collars work best here.
Im 20 years old and this recipe was my first time getting involved with smoking salmon. It was unbelievable, tasted amazing. The only downside to my end result was the bisquettes I used. I will definitely use alder, oak, or cherry, etc. next time.
Best of luck fishing everyone.
I have 25lbs of chinook n sockeye curing, can’t wait to see or I should say taste the results. I have tried many different cures, but this one sounds great.
Anyone else find it salty? I made it tonight and it tasted very good just a little overly salty. I followed the recipe but cut it in half because I had half the amount of salmon. I followed it to a T and rinsed the salmon so not sure why it tasted overly salty.
Salt is a very variable thing, or, rather, the perception of it is. Several things going on here: First, these will taste less salty when you eat them cold. Humans’ perception of salt decreases as the food gets colder. Second, the size of the salmon pieces dictates how long they are in the salt. Smaller pieces need less time. Third, if you have a huge amount of salt and not as much salmon, they will get saltier faster. Making this is an inexact science, and you will need to tinker with it to get the salt levels where you like them.