Miso Marinated Salmon (Salmon Misozuke)

Unlike Saikyo Yaki Fish and Nobu’s Miso Marinated Black Cod Recipe, the marinade for Miso Marinated Salmon (Salmon Misozuke) is not very sweet. The prominent miso flavour of the fish makes this dish somewhat simple and humble compared to Saikyo Yaki dishes. It is also a more economical and easy way of making miso marinated fish since you can buy normal miso from supermarkets at low cost.

The miso used in Miso Marinated Salmon is much cheaper than Saikyo miso. It is quite a tasty dish and not as sweet as Saikyo Yaki Fish. It goes extremely well with rice.

Originally, Misozuke (味噌漬け, miso-marinated food) was made by simply putting vegetables and other ingredients in miso to marinate. But this method is no longer used in Misozuke because of the high salt content.

As you can see in my recipe today, the modern times Misozuke marinade combines miso with sake, mirin, sugar, etc., to reduce the saltiness.

What’s in my Miso Marinated Salmon (Salmon Misozuke)

I used salmon but you can use other fish fillets such as kingfish, snapper, alfonsino, Spanish mackerel, and blue eye cod/blue eye trevalla.

• Salmon fillets
• Salt

Miso Marinade

• Brown miso
• Cooking sake
• Mirin
• Sugar

I made salmon fillets by diagonally slicing a side of salmon, which is the Japanese way of slicing fish fillets for marinating. But you don’t have to slice your fillets diagonally, as long as the thickness of the fillets is about 1.5-2cm/⅝-/¾”.

You can make thin fillets from a salmon cutlet/steak as shown in the post Saikyo Yaki Fish. You can also buy a wide fillet and cut it thinly if you like. But I find that the salmon fillet is often very thin, resulting in a very narrow piece of fish fillet to marinate.

Instead of brown miso, you can use white miso if the miso is not labelled as ‘sweet miso’. The photo above shows the marinade made with brown miso (left) and white miso (right).

How to make Miso Marinated Salmon (Salmon Misozuke)

1. Sprinkle salt over both sides of your salmon fillets and leave for 30 minutes. This is to remove fishy smell and excess moisture from the fillets.
2. Pat dry and remove the moisture from the fillets.
3. Mix the Miso Marinade ingredients in a bowl.
4. Coat the fillets with the marinade and marinate overnight or up to 2 nights in the fridge.
5. Scrape the miso off the fillets and grill them under the distanced strong heat.

After coating the fillets with the marinade, you can put them in the freezer instead of leaving them overnight in the fridge if you are not cooking them the next day. I then wrap each frozen salmon fillet individually, like the photo below, and store them in the freezer so that you can take one fillet at a time.

While defrosting them in the fridge, the fillets will get marinated.

Try to remove as much miso from the fillets as possible. Because the miso marinade contains sugar, it gets burnt quickly under the grill if a lot of miso is left on the fillet.

Miso marinated salmon is a perfect food to stock up in the freezer. You can keep it for a month.

Yumiko

5 from 4 votes

Print

Miso Marinated Salmon (Salmon Misozuke)

Prep Time

40 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

Marinating Time

12 hrs

Total Time

12 hrs 45 mins

 

Miso Marinated Salmon (Salmon Misozuke) is not very sweet, unlike Saikyo Yaki Fish. The prominent miso flavour of the fish makes this dish somewhat simple and humble compared to Saikyo Yaki dishes. It is also a more economical way of making miso marinated fish since the normal miso is much cheaper than Saikyo miso.

Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.

Recipe Type: Main

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: miso marinade salmon, Miso marinated fish, salmon recipes

Serves: 6

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

• 6 salmon fillets (about 100g/3.5oz each, note 1)
• ½ tbsp salt

Miso Marinade

• 4 tbsp brown miso (note 2)
• 3 tbsp cooking sake
• 1 tbsp mirin
• 1 tbsp sugar

Serving

• Thinly sliced cucumber in amazu (note 3)

Instructions

Marinating Salmon

1. Sprinkle salt over the salmon fillets and leave for 30 minutes. This is to remove excess moisture and the fishy smell from the fillets.
2. Pat dry and remove the moisture from the fillets.
3. Put all the Miso Marinade ingredients in a bowl and mix well until the sugar is dissolved.

4. Spread ⅓ of the miso marinade in a tray or a shallow container with a flat bottom so you can place the fillets without overlapping (note 4).

5. Place the salmon fillets on the miso in a tray/container.
6. Spread the remaining marinade over the salmon, ensuring that the surface of the salmon fillets is completely covered with the marinade.
7. Seal the surface of the salmon fillets with a piece of cling wrap with no air bubbles underneath the cling wrap.

8. If you are cooking the Salmon Misozuke in the next day or two, cover the tray with cling wrap and leave it in the fridge overnight or for two nights. If you are intending to stock up and cook it sometime later, follow the instructions for Freezing Salmon Misozuke below.

Cooking Salmon Misozuke

1. Preheat the grill or a broiler.

2. Scrape/wipe the miso off the fish fillets as much as possible. Do not rinse it off.

3. Place the fillets on the grill/broiler, about 10cm/4” below the heat. If the heat is too close to the fish, the fish will burn before it is cooked.

4. Cook for 2.5-3 minutes until the edge of the fillet starts burning. Turn them over and cook 1-1.5 minutes (note 5).

5. Place each grilled fillet on a serving plate with sliced cucumber in amazu as garnish.

Freezing Salmon Misozuke (note 6)

1. Put the covered tray in a zip lock bag and place it in the freezer straight away.

2. When the fish is completely frozen, remove each fillet with miso around it and wrap it in cling wrap. This will allow you to defrost a small number of fillets at any one time.

3. Place the wrapped fillets in the zip lock bag and put the bag in the freezer.

4. To defrost, leave the frozen fillet in the fridge overnight, during which the marinade penetrates the flesh.

Recipe Notes

1. I made salmon fillets by diagonally slicing a side of salmon, which is the Japanese way of slicing fish fillets for marinating. But you don’t have to slice your fillets diagonally, as long as the thickness of the fillets is about 1.5-2cm/⅝-/¾”.

You can make thin fillets from a salmon cutlet/steak as shown in the post Saikyo Yaki Fish.

2. Instead of brown miso, you can use white miso if the miso is not labelled as ‘sweet miso’.

3. Slice the cucumber thinly, then wilt the cucumber slices with a small amount of salt for 10-15 minutes. Squeeze excess water out of the cucumber, then marinate it in amazu. You can refer to any of my recipes that use amazu (sweet & sour flavour), i.e., Crab and Cucumber Salad with Sweet Vinegar Dressing (Amazu), Pickled Chrysanthemum Radish, and Homemade Pickled Sushi Ginger (Gari).

Alternatively, you may want to use blanched green vegetables such as beans, broccoli, asparagus, and okra.

4. If your tray is larger than the area needed to place the salmon fillets, spread the marinade enough to place the fillets on.

5. If your fillet is thicker, you will need to cook it slightly longer.

6. Instead of freezing the large tray with marinated fillets laid down, you could wrap each fillet coated with the marinade individually, then freeze them. But I find that wrapping individually after freezing them is easier and less messy.

7. Nutrition per serving. It is assumed that 50% of the miso marinade is consumed, which is higher than actual amount consumed.

serving: 112g calories: 231kcal fat: 14g (18%) saturated fat: 3.1g (16%) trans fat: 0.0g polyunsaturated fat: 4g monounsaturated fat: 3.8g cholesterol: 55mg (18%) sodium: 561mg (24%) carbohydrates: 3.2g (1%) dietary fibre: 0.3g (1%) sugar: 1.9g protein: 21g vitamin D: 11mcg (55%) calcium: 13mg (1%) iron: 0.5mg (3%) potassium: 376mg (8%)