The Best Spices for Salmon: Dill, Mustard, Horseradish, Pepper and Lemon

Salmon is rich enough to stand up to big flavors. The ones that keep turning up in named cooks’ recipes are sharp, bright and pungent: dill, mustard, horseradish, black pepper, lemon and salt, often several at once. Joanne Weir presses a crust of grated horseradish onto the fillet, The Spice House glues everything bagel seasoning on with a Dijon glaze, and gravlax skips cooking altogether with a cure of salt, sugar and dill. Below: what each seasoning does, how four named recipes combine them, and the safe cooking temperature.

At a glance

Why salmon takes strong seasoning

Salmon is a cold-water fatty fish. All that richness is why sharp, acidic and pungent seasonings suit salmon better than a lean white fish, though we didn’t find anyone who’s tested the pairing.

The core seasonings and what each does

Salt: cure, season, finish

Salt does three different jobs with salmon. In gravlax it’s half the cure. Stewart Hodgson’s recipe covers a 1 kg fillet with ⅓ cup (75 g) of salt and ⅓ cup (75 g) of sugar.¹ For cooked salmon, America’s Test Kitchen found that sea salt tastes no different from table salt once it’s mixed into food, and recommends it as a finishing salt.² So a few flakes over the fish at the table give you crunch, not a different flavor. For smoke, SaltWorks suggests rolling salmon in a smoked-salt rub before pan searing or plank roasting.⁸ See sea salt and smoked sea salt uses.

Dill: the Scandinavian pairing

Fish is one of dill’s main uses, and the herb is especially popular in eastern European and Scandinavian cooking. Gernot Katzer notes that in Scandinavia, fish and shellfish dishes are usually flavored with dill, and that cooks prefer the leaves to the seeds for them.³ Hodgson’s gravlax uses ½ cup of finely chopped dill in the cure and another ¼ cup in the mustard sauce served alongside.¹

America’s Test Kitchen counts dill leaves as a delicate herb and says to add delicate herbs at the last minute.⁹ With cooked salmon, that means scattering chopped dill over the fish or stirring it into a sauce at the end. See cooking with dill, fresh dill vs. dried dill and, if it takes over, too much dill.

Mustard: tang and a glaze

Mustard shows up in two forms. Hodgson’s gravlax sauce is ¼ cup of Dijon mustard whisked with 2 tablespoons each of sugar and white wine vinegar, ¼ cup of chopped dill and ⅓ cup of grapeseed oil.¹ The Spice House’s baked salmon brushes two 6-ounce fillets with 2 tablespoons of Dijon and 1 tablespoon of maple syrup, then presses the glazed side into everything bagel seasoning so it sticks.⁴ McCormick lists seafood among the foods ground mustard goes with and suggests it in rubs and marinades.¹⁰

A good rule of thumb: dry ground mustard for a dry rub, prepared mustard for a glaze or sauce, since it’s already wet and sticks. See mustard powder and mustard powder uses.

Horseradish: pungent heat

Horseradish has no bite until you cut it: cutting or grating ruptures the cells and releases its hot compounds. Joanne Weir’s horseradish-crusted salmon presses ½ cup of grated fresh horseradish (prepared works too), bound with egg white, onto a 2-pound fillet. It then cooks crust side down over medium-low heat until a golden-brown crust forms, 2 to 3 minutes.⁵ You feel the heat more in your nose than on your tongue. See cooking with horseradish and wasabi vs. horseradish.

Black pepper: gentle pungency

Pepper is in the gravlax cure (1 teaspoon ground) and in Weir’s crust, and Leela Punyaratabandhu’s roast salmon for TASTE is seasoned with nothing but salt, pepper and fennel pollen.⁶ See cracked vs. ground black pepper.

Lemon: brightness

Weir serves her salmon with lemon wedges. Lemon pepper is a shortcut, but it isn’t just lemon peel and pepper. McCormick’s version lists salt first, then black pepper, citric acid, onion, sugar and garlic, with lemon oil near the end. The company suggests stirring it into melted butter or olive oil and brushing it over seafood.⁷ Lemon juice adds acidity that zest and lemon pepper don’t, and that’s what cuts through salmon’s fat. See lemon pepper.

Fennel pollen and other extras

Punyaratabandhu rubs a 2-pound fillet with salt, pepper and fennel pollen before roasting. Everything bagel seasoning over a mustard glaze, as in The Spice House recipe, is another way to go. See fennel pollen uses and everything bagel seasoning uses.

Four recipes side by side

These are the named cooks’ recipes, not a house standard.

Gravlax is cured, not smoked

You’ll sometimes see gravlax called a smoked salmon. It isn’t. It’s raw salmon cured under salt, sugar and dill. Hodgson’s recipe keeps the fillet in the fridge for at least 48 hours, turning it every 12 hours.¹

Since gravlax is never cooked, the FDA’s advice on raw fish applies. It tells people at greater risk of foodborne illness, including pregnant women, children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems, to avoid raw or undercooked fish or shellfish.¹¹

Doneness and safety

FoodSafety.gov lists salmon among the fin fish to cook to 145°F (63°C), or until the flesh is no longer translucent and separates easily with a fork.¹² The FDA also says most seafood should be cooked to an internal temperature of 145°F.¹¹

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