Air Fryer Jerk Salmon

Air Fryer Jerk Salmon Recipe – good spicy jerk salmon air fried for a crispy outside and tender, juicy meat!

At Avdaye, we add lots of tips in all of our recipes – because we are a home cook without any formal training, and we find we are more confident making dishes when we understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe. Our goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.

Good Air Fryer Jerk Salmon

If you love the spicy flavors of the Carribean, and love salmon, this recipe is a easy way to whip up a good keto salmon dish – right in your air fryer!

We're marinating salmon in jerk sauce and air frying, because we love the crispy crunch you get on the outside of your salmon, while the meat inside stays perfectly tender, moist, and good.

We're also recommending our favorite authentic jerk sauce recipe to take the flavor over the top – while you could use a store bought jerk sauce, we found the flavors were out of this world good when made with a fresh sauce – especially since a big part of jerk sauce is simple flavors that honor fresh ingredients.

We hope you love this easy salmon recipe as much as we do.

How To Air Fry Salmon

If you've never used an air fryer machine before, you might not get the fuss.

We will note, however, before we get into this recipe more, that the name “air fryer” is a bit misleading – since nothing actually gets fried in oil.

Instead, it's more like a -convection broiler – where food is bombarded with quickly moving hot air, mimicking the way food would fry in hot oil, but on your countertop with only a bit of oil.

This allows you to cook at a steady high heat with less oil – giving you crispy crunch on the outside, and juicy, tender, and never dry meat.

Air frying salmon is a great way to cook your salmon perfectly, every time!

Kitchen notes

To air fry salmon, we recommend following the tips below:

Drizzle olive oil over your salmon evenly.

This will help give your salmon a lightly fried texture and allow the oil to crisp on the salmon. Don't skip the oil!

Season salmon liberally.

Take your salmon's temperature!

If you don't want rare salmon, aim for 145 degrees for fully cooked salmon. Remove salmon from air fryer at 130-135 degrees, as it will carryover cook.

How Long To Air Fry Salmon

Knowing how long to cook air fryer salmon can be tricky – especially since when cooked in the air fryer you can't see it.

This is a recipe where you have to trust in the process – which we will admit is not our strength!

For salmon filets (no thicker than 3-4″ across), follow these times for desired doneness when air frying at 400 degrees:

10 Minutes for salmon filets that have a little bit of red in the center (medium).

12 Minutes for salmon with no red in the middle, but still soft.

14 Minutes for well done salmon filets.

Jerk Sauce

You can use storebought jerk sauce for this recipe, but we used a recipe from Jessica in the Kitchen – her easy homemade jerk sauce was a solid spicy sauce and easy to whip up.

To find her homemade jerk sauce recipe, click here.

Jessica's vegan takes on the traditional Jamaican recipes she grew up with are always incredibly good if you're looking for some great meat free meals – but her jerk is hands down the best!

Jerk sauce is good on all sorts of meats, fish, and vegetables – and it is naturally low carb and keto.

Serve it with

You can find some of our favorite vegetable side dishes below:

Other Salmon Recipes You'll Love

If you love salmon, you're in luck – we have plenty of good, easy, flavor-filled salmon recipes.

Please check out some of our favorites below:

You can also find our entire salmon recipe index here.

Recipe FAQs

How long does this recipe last?

Salmon can be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to four days.

Air Fryer Jerk Salmon Recipe

Share Pin It Follow

Ingredients

• 4 salmon filets
• 4 tablespoons jerk sauce
• juice of 1 lime, fresh
• 4 cloves garlic, minced finely

Method

1. Pat salmon filets with paper towel to remove any excess water.
2. In a small bowl combine jerk sauce with 1/2 lime juice and garlic. Stir to mix well.
3. Pour over salmon and let marinate at least 10 minutes. Can be marinated up to a day in advance.
4. Preheat air fryer to the highest temperature possible (in a ninja foodi with broiler lid, it is broil setting at 450 degrees) and let air fryer get scorching hot, about five minutes.
5. Spray inside of air fryer basket with olive oil cooking spray or line with a piece of foil.
6. Place salmon in air fryer, skin down, and close lid.
7. Cook for 8 minutes, check salmon. For rare, you can pull the salmon once the outside has browned, right around 8 minutes.
8. For fully cooked salmon, continue to cook in air fryer until salmon meat reads 135 degrees with a digital thermometer. It will continue to cook after you remove from air fryer.
9. Drizzle remaining 1/2 lime juice over salmon and serve.