Our Favorite Salmon Burgers

Try our all-time favorite Salmon Burgers, complete with a buttered and toasted brioche bun, a succulent and well-seasoned salmon patty, and the best tartar sauce. Add a handful of greens and a ripe avocado and be ready to put these Salmon Burgers on permanent dinner rotation!

All out of salmon? Try our Tuna Patties instead! 🙂

Fresh Salmon Burgers

Wow, are these good! I’m convinced even people that aren’t really all that into fish could get on board with these burgers.

Between the buttery toasted brioche bun, the irresistible lemon tartar sauce, the creamy avocado, and the succulent salmon patty — these burgers are the best! The patties have a nice crisp exterior with a tender interior — no hard and dry salmon patties here!

Salmon Burger Toppings

While there are nothing short of a dozen ways to top Salmon Burgers, we think simple is best here — a few toppings make for the most stellar burger! Here’s what we love and recommend:

• A handful of baby spinach and arugula: We love this blend and add a generous handful to every burger.
• A ripe avocado: A good avocado is unbeatable! The combination of the salmon patty with a ripe, creamy avocado is the best! See “quick tip” below.
• The BEST sauce: More on this under “Salmon Burger Sauce” below.

Do You Put Cheese On Salmon Burgers?

Between the sauce, patty, and avocado, we don’t find the need for cheese on this burger! That said, a slice of Havarti would be our first pick.

The Best Buns: Brioche!

In my opinion, there is nothing better than Salmon Burgers using brioche buns. And once you have those buns, you’ve got to toast them with some melted butter. Trust me–they’re the best!

Spread softened butter generously on the insides of the bun. Place them (butter side down) on a large pan or grill over medium heat. Toast buns for about 30 seconds to a minute or until golden brown. Remove from heat. Subsequent batches will be quicker as the pan holds in the heat!

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Not Into The Bun?

I mean, at least promise me you’ll try it sometime, okay? Just kidding– no worries. These patties and sauce are still tasty without the bun. If you aren’t doing a bun, I’d recommend serving the Salmon Burger patty on a bed of quick coleslaw:

• Combine a bag of coleslaw mix and some fresh (refrigerated) coleslaw dressing (We love Litehouse; not sponsored) and toss the two together until the mix is sufficiently mixed. (Here’s a homemade Coleslaw recipe if you’d prefer to make it from scratch.)
• Place the cooked salmon patty on the coleslaw and add a generous scoop of tartar sauce to each patty. Drizzle on lemon and dig in!

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What Are Salmon Burgers Made Of?

It’s like making hamburgers, but using salmon instead of beef! We need a binder to help everything stick together and enough liquid to keep the patties from being dry. Here are a few ingredients worth diving into:

• Salmon. Use fresh if possible, but if you keep canned salmon in the pantry, you can use that as well. Canned salmon is actually delicious when jazzed up in a burger with all these accompanying ingredients. That said, fresh-cooked salmon also works well — just flake it first. While some canned salmon may be a little iffy, there are certainly good brands and it makes a great pantry staple to have on hand! This Spruce Eats breakdown is helpful; we tested with their favorite: Wild Planet® (great flavor, skinless, and boneless!) and their best budget salmon — Bumble Bee® Pink Salmon (great for the price, but it does have skin and bones to pick out).
• Use panko breadcrumbs. Panko is similar to regular bread crumbs but creates a much crunchier, crispier, lighter, and more delicate result. 
• Parmesan cheese. Parmesan from a can will be too salty and overpowering in these patties. Use the freshly grated — sandy-like consistency from the store. Here’s exactly what we use and we’ve also tested this brand.
• Fresh herbs. Our favorite herb combo in these Salmon Patties is fresh dill, green onions, and flat-leaf parsley. The combination of the three flavors creates a much more nuanced (and delicious!) taste.

Salmon Burgers Sauce

The sauce for these burgers is a quick tartar-style sauce. We’ve tried so many sauces with salmon burgers and we can’t get enough of this one. A few notes on the ingredients:

• If you don’t use dill for the patties, it’s fine to leave it out of the sauce, but add a touch of dried herbs (dill if you have it) instead.
• Pick good mayonnaise! We love Hellman’s/Best Foods® in this sauce — the better the mayo, the better the flavor.
• We love zesting the lemons with a microplane and then juicing them with this citrus juicer. These two tools make the recipe prep a breeze!
• Sweet pickle relish: This relish really pulls everything together and adds a sweet edge to the sauce which nicely balances the savoriness of the patty. We love Heinz® pickle relish best.

How To Cook Salmon Burgers On Stove

• Chill the mixture — We pop the formed patties in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.
• Handle delicately — Using a sharp metal turner pick up one patty at a time, (carefully) transferring from tray to skillet. Flip only once using the sharp metal turner.

How to cook them in the oven instead: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Drizzle on 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (not olive oil — it burns) and heat the pan for 1 minute. Add patties in a single layer with plenty of space and then bake for 12-15 minutes. Use a sharp metal turner to flip and bake another 4-6 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve promptly.

More Tasty Burger Recipes:

• Veggie Burger our ultimate veggie burger recipe!
• Green Chile Turkey Burgers with fire-roasted green chiles
• Chicken Burger with our favorite sauce
• Burger Recipe our go-to beef burger recipe and sauce
• Black Bean Burger with rice