Japanese Salmon Rice Recipe

In fall, salmon are laden with milt and roe, so they don’t have a ton of fat, but the lean meat is loaded with flavor, which makes it a seasonal favorite. Salmon Rice takes advantage of salmon’s wide availability during this season and makes a one-pot meal that can be served with a bowl of miso soup or shaped into onigiri to eat on the go.

Harako Meshi (はらこ飯)

One regional variation of this dish takes advantage of the salmon roe as well. Coming from Sendai on the eastern coast of Japan, Harako Meshi is like the seafood version of Oyakodonburi, with the Salmon Rice being topped with ikura. If you’d like to try your hand at making ikura, it’s not too complicated, and I have a recipe for making ikura from scratch.

Why This Recipe Works?

Curing the salmon with salt removes excess water from the salmon, which not only reduces any fishy smells, but it concentrates the umami in the fish as well. Konbu and sake add amino acids to the rice, which have a synergistic effect with the salmon’s amino acids to give it a ton of umami. Instead of cooking the salmon with the rice, I add it at the very end while the rice is steaming. This gently steams it, preventing the salmon from getting dry.

Ingredients for Salmon Rice

Salmon - Any salmon, will work for this, and for that matter, you could really do this with any type of fish that has a lot of flavor (though you couldn’t call it Salmon Rice). Salt - I just used table salt to salt the salmon. If you use salt with bigger granules or flakes, you may want to increase the salt slightly to account for the volume difference. Rice - I highly recommend using Japanese short-grain rice for this dish. It has a higher ratio of amylopectin to amylose, which gives Japanese rice it’s tender, sticky texture. If it’s autumn when you’re making this, look for “new crop rice.” Freshly harvested rice has a sweet taste and tender texture that works perfectly for dishes like this. Konbu - Konbu contains a ton of naturally occurring glutamic acid, which is an amino acid that triggers the umami taste receptors in your mouth. When brought together with the cured salmon at the end, these amino acids have a synergistic effect, which cranks up the level of umami beyond what either of these ingredients would have on their own. Sake - Sake is another ingredient rich in glutamic acid and lends a mild sweetness to the rice. Garnish - I like to garnish my Japanese salmon rice with ikura to make Harako Meshi, along with some mitsuba leaves, but if you can’t find these, this rice is also delicious topped with a pat of butter and some chopped scallions.

How to Make Salmon Rice

First, you want to remove any bones in the salmon with clean tweezers. If you don’t have tweezers, you can remove the bones after the salmon is cooked, but I find it easier to spot the bones when the salmon is still raw. Now you want to slice the salmon, so it is about 1-inch thick. Too thin and the salmon will overcook, and if it’s too thick, it won’t cook through all the way. Sprinkle all sides of each filet with the salt and then place them on a paper towel-lined rack set over a tray. Cover the tray with plastic wrap and refrigerate the salmon overnight. Once cured with salt, the salmon will keep for about a week, so you can do this ahead of time. For the rice, add it to a strainer and set the strainer in a bowl. Wash the rice until the water runs mostly clear. Add the rice, water, sake, and konbu to a heavy-bottomed pot, like a dutch oven. This is important because we need a pot that can retain heat as the rice steams. Cover the pot with a lid and let the rice soak for at least 20 minutes. Put the pot on the stove and bring it to a boil over high heat. Once it’s boiling, turn down the heat to low and cook the rice for 12 minutes without opening the lid. After 12 minutes, add the salted salmon on top of the rice in a single layer and then immediately close the lid. It’s important to have everything ready and have the lid open for as little time as possible or the temperature inside the pot will drop too much, and the salmon will not cook through. Now turn off the heat, and let this steam for 15 minutes. When the rice and salmon are done, remove the salmon from the pot and keep the rice covered. Remove the skin and any remaining bones in the salmon, add the salmon back into the rice, and use a spatula or rice paddle to crumble and fold the salmon into the rice.