My tandoori salmon recipe is basically an Indian inspired salmon marinade. I first made my tandoori salmon recipe a few years ago for a BBQ and it was a huge success – in fact it stole the show.

I’ve wanted to post my tandoori salmon recipe for a while, but every time I cooked it we ended up eating all the tandoori salmon before I could get a picture!

As said, this isn’t really about the salmon, it’s about the marinade – obviously it’s perfect as a salmon marinade but you can add the tandoori paste to pretty much anything. 

First things first – tandoori comes from the name of the tandoor, a large vertical (usually clay) cooking vessel most popular in India. A tandoor is less a BBQ more an outside oven. Naans or breads are slapped against the inside wall of the tandoor and cook in a matter of minutes (if not seconds). Meats are usually skewered and placed inside the tandoor vertically.

Think of a tandoor as an upright pizza oven, or rather a pizza oven is a fallen over tandoor!

So why give the definition of a tandoor? Well, it’s just for clarity that a true ‘tandoori’ dish would be cooked in a tandoor – but it’s a bit like a lamb tagine recipe – most are now just cooked in the oven with tagine being the name of the cooking vessel opposed to the recipe itself.

Anyway, I digress – back to my tandoori salmon recipe!

You can cook this tandoori salmon in the oven, but I think you can’t beat the proper flavour of BBQ salmon; especially tandoori BBQ salmon – the smoke from the charcoal is almost the final ingredient!

You want some more salmon recipes, BBQ recipes or just some more fish recipes?

I’ve cooked this tandoori salmon recipe a lot and I’ve noticed something;

1. The colour of this tandoori salmon marinade recipe is not bright red – if you really want it bright red like you get ‘down at the local Indian’ then you’ll need to add food colouring or beetroot. I don’t but I’m just letting you know. The chilli powder and saffron will add flavour and colour.
2. The tandoori salmon marinade recipe is actually quite delicate; if you char the outside of the salmon too much so the marinade starts to char it will lose it’s flavour. You do want a little browning but not too charred.

For this tandoori salmon recipe I’ve used a whole side of salmon but you could half the quantities if you wanted to cook less.

Tandoori Salmon Recipe (salmon marinade)

Tandoori Salmon – Ingredients:

(tandoori marinade recipe makes enough for two sides of salmon)

1 side of salmon (skin on)

Few sprigs fresh coriander

200g greek yogurt

2 tbl ginger – grated

2 cloves garlic – crushed

Small pinch saffron strands

1 tbl tamarind paste

1.5 tsp ground cumin

1.5 tsp garam masala

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp mild chilli powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or finely sliced green birds-eye)

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tbl lemon juice

1 tbl melted butter

Few turns black pepper

Tandoori Salmon Recipe – Method:

1. Soak the saffron strands in a tablespoon of hot water for 5 minutes.
2. Add the saffron and water and the rest of the ingredients together (except the salmon and fresh coriander) and combine.
3. Paste over the flesh side of the salmon and leave to marinade for a few hours.

Salmon Cooked in the Oven: –

1. Oil a roasting tray and place the marinated salmon fillet skin side down on tray and put into a pre-heated oven (200c) for 25 minutes – check to ensure it is cooked through.

Salmon Cooked on the BBQ: – 

1. Cook the salmon skin side down for about 15 minutes; the skin will char alot and help protect the flesh. After about 15 minutes turn the salmon over to let the marinade brown. This will only need about another 5-10 minutes. Check to see if the salmon is cooked through.

NB. I usually use a fish grill for the BBQ which makes it a lot easier to turn over the fish!

1. Rest the cooked tandoori salmon for five minutes before serving, garnish with squeeze of lemon, sprinkle of salt and chopped fresh coriander.

Goes great with anything!