One Pan Soy Butter Salmon with Mushrooms is an easy dish to make, and is perfect for a weekday meal. The salmon pieces and Asian mushrooms are sautéed first, then coated in soy butter with a touch of sweetness from mirin. The flavour combination of soy sauce and butter goes so well with rice.
Most Japanese dishes that use one pan or one pot are simmered dishes and stir-fries. But today, I managed to sauté salmon pieces, then mushrooms in a frying pan.
Sautéed salmon dishes usually use a whole fillet of salmon. But in this recipe, a salmon fillet is thinly sliced, then cut into large bite-size pieces. Bite-size salmon pieces cooked with a lot of mushrooms make today’s dish look like a stir-fry.
Prior to sautéing the salmon, the salmon pieces are lightly salted to give flavour to the flesh. This is because the flavouring is added at the very end of the cooking process and the soy butter flavour does not penetrate the centre of the salmon flesh.
However, the outside of the salmon pieces has plenty of good flavour since they are dusted with corn flour/cornstarch before sautéing.
You will be surprised to see a large amount of mushrooms in the frying pan when you add them to the pan, but they shrink a lot, and the volume of the mushrooms becomes just right for the amount of salmon.
What’s in My One Pan Soy Butter Salmon with Mushrooms
- Salmon fillet skin on, cut into thin bite-size pieces.
- Asian mushrooms such as shiitake, enoki, shimeji, and king oyster mushrooms.
- Salt & pepper
- Corn flour/cornstarch
- Oil
- Finely chopped green onions (not in the photo above).
I used 2 x 3cm/1⅛” wide salmon fillet, but a large fillet of about 6cm wide is also good.
Any combination of Asian mushrooms is OK. Even if you use only one kind of mushroom, the dish will look great.
Flavouring
- Soy sauce
- Mirin
- Water
- Butter.
I cut the butter into small cubes so that it melts fast.
How to Make One Pan Soy Butter Salmon with Mushrooms
Preparation
- Slice salmon fillets into about 1.5cm/⅝” thick slices, then cut each slice into large bite-size pieces.
- Thinly slice king oyster mushrooms and separate the large clusters of other mushrooms.
Cooking
- Sprinkle salt and pepper over the salmon pieces and leave them for 15 minutes, then pat dry if the salmon pieces are wet.
- Dust each salmon piece with corn flour/cornstarch.
- Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat.
- Cook salmon pieces until the surface of the salmon pieces browns slightly.
- Shift the salmon to the side of the pan and add mushrooms.
- Sauté until mushrooms wilt.
- Add the Sauce ingredients to the pan, mix, and turn the heat off.
- Transfer the Soy Butter Salmon with Mushrooms to a serving plate and scatter green onions.
One Pan Soy Butter Salmon with Mushrooms is a very easy dish to cook and perfect as a main dish served with rice. The butter in the sauce adds a richness to the dish.
Yumiko
Watch How To Make It

One Pan Soy Butter Salmon with Mushrooms is an easy dish to make, and is perfect for a weekday meal. The salmon pieces and Asian mushrooms are sautéed first then coated in soy butter with a touch of sweetness from mirin. The flavour combination of soy sauce and butter goes so well with rice. See the video.
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.
- 300g/10.5oz salmon fillet skin on (note 1)
- 250g/8.8oz mixed Asian mushrooms (note 2)
- ½ tbsp salt
- A pinch of pepper
- 1 tbsp corn flour/cornstarch
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1 tbsp green onions finely chopped (for topping)
-
Shiitake: Remove the stem, then slice thinly into 2mm/3⁄32" thick pieces.
-
King oyster: If the mushroom is very large, cut in half (or into 3) horizontally to 4-5cm/3⁄16-2" long, then halve each piece lengthwise. Slice each piece lengthwise into 2mm/3⁄32" thick pieces.
-
Enoki: Remove the clustering part at the bottom to separate each stem. Halve the length of the stem.
-
Shimeji: Trim off the base of the cluster and separate the cluster into 1-3 stems depending on the size of the mushroom.
-
Cut the fillet into about 1.5cm/⅝” thick slices perpendicular to the backbone, then cut each slice into bite size pieces (usually 4 pieces) so that every piece of salmon has skin on one side.
-
Sprinkle salt and pepper over the salmon pieces and leave them for 15-20 minutes.
-
Pat-dry the salmon pieces with kitchen paper, then dust them with corn flour/cornstarch.
-
Heat oil in a deep-frying pan over medium/medium-low heat.
-
Put the salmon pieces in the pan and cook for about 2 minutes until the bottom of the salmon pieces brown slightly.
-
Turn the salmon pieces over and cook for 1-1½ minutes.
-
Shift the salmon pieces to one side and add the mushrooms to the pan.
-
Gently mix and sauté the mushrooms, turning them over if needed. As you cook the mushrooms, the volume of the mushrooms starts shrinking due to wilting.
-
After 1 minute or so when the mushrooms shrink slightly, mix the salmon pieces and mushrooms together and continue cooking.
-
When all the mushrooms have wilted (about 2 minutes), mix with the salmon pieces.
-
Add the flavouring ingredients to the pan and mix gently until the butter completely melts. Remove the frying pan from the heat (note 3).
-
Transfer the Soy Butter Salmon with Mushrooms to a serving plate and scatter the green onions over the top.
1. I bought 2 x 150g/5.3oz fillet of about 3cm/1⅛" wide. You can of course have one large fillet.
2. I used shiitake mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, shimeji mushrooms, and enoki mushrooms, but you don’t have to use the same kind of mushrooms as the recipe. You can use only one or two kinds.
3. The smaller the cubes are, the faster the butter melts. It is important to melt the butter fast because prolonged heating of the sauce will reduce the sauce too much.
4. It is important not to overcook the sauce since there isn’t a lot of it. The flavour of the dish becomes bitter and salty if the sauce is overcooked.
Meal Ideas
A typical Japanese meal consists of a main dish, a couple of side dishes, a soup and rice. I try to come up with a combination of dishes with a variety of flavours, colours, textures and make-ahead dishes.
I think Japanese Potato Salad goes very well with the soy butter flavour of the main dish. For Side dish 2, I picked a salad with a dressing that does not have soy as a dominant flavour, nor mayonnaise. These salads I listed below may use soy sauce, but the quantity of soy is very little.
- Main: One Pan Soy Butter Salmon with Mushrooms – today’s recipe
- Side dish 1: Japanese Potato Salad – make ahead.
- Side dish 2: Daikon Salad with Pickled Plum Dressing – alternatively Persimmon Daikon Salad or Konbu Seaweed Salad with Cucumber.
- Soup: Miso Soup of your choice from Miso Soup Ingredient Combinations or your favourite ingredients.
- Rice: Cooked Rice.
This is delicious and so easy to prepare. I served it over rice , sprinkled with chopped chives as a quick evening meal before my husband headed off to RFS. I will certainly do it again with the other side dishes recommended. Thank you. I love salmon so It will be a staple in my repertoire!
Hi Alex, you’ve already made it? Wow, thank you so much and I am impressed!
Given quality ingredients this is such a simple dish to make but presents so beautifully! We are so lucky to be able to buy the variety of Asian mushrooms here in Australia – that also makes the dish more appetizing. Thanks for your method . . .
Hi Eha, thank you! It is sometimes very hard to present brownish dishes. But this is not so bad. It taste great too.
This looks so delicious and the side suggestions are great. I can’t wait to try making this dish. Thank you!
Hi Nin, it is Delicious. Nagi loves it too.