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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.
Can I use a pellet smoker?
John: Yes, I do.
Amazing recipe! Cured mine for 2 hours but it wasn’t salty enough as I would have liked it so I’ll try three next time. I added a dash of molasses and whiskey to maple syrup and brushed it on the salmon once an hour over the course of 5 hours and it was like eating a piece of candy.
Went subsistence fishing for copper river salmon on Saturday…bellies are brining as we speak! Can’t wait to try the finished product!
Copper River near Terrace BC Canada?
Back again. I believe it’s my 6th time doing a batch. Should just save this recipe. Great recipe. Slow warm up of the fillets certainly helps. I’ts spreading through my network of friends.
I don’t care for maple either, but it pairs excellent with this process. I won’t eat maple any other way. I like to low smoke it until it gets a good hard shell basting every hour, that’s what makes it “candy”. I bought 5.5 lbs. of salmon yesterday and let it marinate overnight in the salt/brown sugar, but while I was at Kroger I noticed the same packaged smoked salmon was going for $1.75 an ounce ($28 lb.), so my $50 purchase turned into over $154 market value. I vacuum seal about half of it, eat it as a late night snack…
David,
I’m new to vacuum sealing. Do you freeze it after sealing? Or….?
Linda
Linda: Yes, you freeze after sealing.
Heidi, try birch syrup its got more of a light molasses/mineral type taste but no maple flavor. It glazes up beautifully on smoked fish. You might like it, I was impressed.
Anyone know how this is without the syrup? I’m not a huge fan of that flavor.
Heidi: Perfectly fine. Just skip the syrup.
I was in Alaska once and ate some salmon candy that had been canned!! It was amazing! Any idea on the process? I can a lot
Hello. When you say cold smoke you are meaning no heat correct?
John: Not exactly. A cold smoke is technically anything less than about 80F.
I’m going to try this tomorrow
Hopefully it works the way I think it might.
I have I pitboss, similar to a traeger. But I’m going to use a smoke tube at the same time to add more smoke. My plan is to try to smoke for about 5 -6 hrs maybe.
We’ll see how it turns out.
Thanks Hank ..much appreciated
How long can it be stored in the Fridge on the drying racks prior to smoking it?
Scott: Up to about a day.
Can’t wait to try out both your recipes for smoked salmon and smoked candy salmon. I am an avid hunter/angler and my family loves to do holiday assorted wild game meat trays that we share with friends and family. It just so happens that I have an abundance of trout filets and will be using your recipes on those as well. However, I may modify the brine slightly. As a family tradition we use orange juice for brining fish as it tends to soften the fishy flavor a bit. Thanks for all the detailed instructions. I look forward to the end product!
So like he mentioned. Forming the pellicle is very important. If you rush those steps it turns out mushy. Don’t rush.
Hi Hank,
Fantastic recipe! Thanks for sharing and answering all of these questions. Do you recall if you used diamond or Morton kosher salt in this recipe? I have heard that using one over the other may produce a saltier finished product. Thanks
John: I use Diamond Crystal.
Hank, do you have a target internal temperature for your salmon candy? I did one batch, pulled at 140, and it was good but i didn’t get the smoke I like. Used Alder pellets, Pit Boss pellet grill.
This batch, I’ve cold smoked for two hours with alder, will finish tomorrow.
Thank you!
Thanks! Made my candied salmon this way many times! Just awesome.
I love the recipe and thought your explanation was complete, detailed, and awesome. F the haters!
Hank: Thanks for posting this, I made some over the weekend. I am wondering if the maple syrup juices that are floating around in my ziplock bag are going to make the salmon candy go bad more quickly? Is there a way you get around that?
CJ: Should be fine. Maple syrup is pretty durable.
Just bought a pellet smoker, this is the first thing I’m making!