Instant Pot Salmon from Fresh or Frozen

Ever wondered how to cook salmon in the Instant Pot? It’s probably easier than you think! Read on for our tips for cooking fresh or frozen salmon in your Instant Pot.

We love salmon for dinner, it’s a very quick and easy meal. Some of our favorite salmon recipes include our salmon mango salad and our spicy pan-seared chili salmon.

We have discovered it is really easy to cook salmon in the Instant Pot. Serve it with a steamed vegetable and rice for a fast weeknight meal or use in meal prepping for the week.

Another of our favorites is this Thai Salmon bowl served with quinoa, raw carrot, pepper, and spinach drizzled with peanut sauce.

Salmon is perfect for meal planning in cold salads or bowls. We frequently cook a bunch of salmon on Sunday in the Instant Pot to be used for lunches over the beginning of our week. Who doesn’t love having an easy grab and go lunch?

We love cooking it in the Instant Pot because we can even cook frozen portions of salmon while making dinner or meal prepping other things. Then we can either eat some of the salmon hot or save it all for lunches and grab and go dinners.

For this recipe, we used 4-ounce salmon portions. We tend to buy the wild portions as the farmed versions usually contain coloring. However, watch for bones in the wild portions.

Tips for Instant Pot Salmon

First and foremost, make sure you are starting with quality ingredients. Check out these tips for finding good salmon at your grocery store.

When cooking salmon in the Instant Pot, place the trivet in the bottom and pour one cup of water with a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. Place the salmon (I can usually fit 4 portions at a time) on the trivet and season with salt and pepper. Close and seal the lid and pressure cook. I usually cook for 1 minute for fresh/thawed and 3 minutes for frozen and let the pressure release naturally for 5 minutes.

I have cooked a second batch when I couldn’t fit all the salmon in the first run, just add another minute to the pressure cook cycle. Also, if you have extra thick salmon, you may need to add time (and obviously, if it’s really thin, I would do a shorter release time).