Easy blackened grilled salmon recipe

I love grilled blackened salmon. It tastes great and they say it is good for you to boot. I never made it before, so I decided to try my own version on the grill. If you want to know how to make blackened salmon, here is exactly how I did it. 🙂

I picked up a cast iron griddle and decided to use it on my Weber grill. This cast iron griddle is almost exactly like the one I have. I was a little worried about getting the griddle hot enough, so I was sure to use plenty of charcoal. I placed the charcoal in a mound in the center of the grill. I left it sitting a little higher than usual so all the heat was under the griddle.

I found a pretty easy recipe for grilled salmon. More or less it amounted to a half stick of melted butter and cajun seasoning.

Here is a free tip for you. When you buy cajun blackening spice or blackening seasoning, make sure you pick up a good quality brand. That doesn’t mean you buy the most expensive brand, but it means look at the ingredients and make sure the first ingredient is something of good quality. I learned that the hard way once when I bought some cajun seasoning from a dollar type store. The first ingredient listed was salt. I shook it on something I was making and completely ruined it. It tasted like I shook a pound of salt on it, it was absolutely awful and ruined without question.

OK, back to the blackened salmon. You want to pick up skinless salmon fillets. Mine was roughly 2.5 pounds or so. You also need a half stick of butter. Melt the butter down in a bowl or whatever you want to use in the microwave. Take your filet and baste both sides of it well with the melted butter. Next, shake it down with your cajun seasoning. I covered mine pretty liberally, it’s all going to depend on how much you like. When you’re done with that, drizzle the rest of the melted butter all over it. That’s about all there is to it for preparation.

• 2.5 pound skinless salmon filet
• a half stick of butter
• cajun seasoning

I had a friend from Louisiana who was a really good cook. He told me that anyone that knows how to make blackened salmon or blackened anything at all, uses cast iron and cast iron only. He said nothing else gets hot enough and you are wasting your time trying it with anything else.

He heats the cast iron until he is able to light a wooden match by touching the head of the match to the cast iron. That’s when he knows it is time to cook. I thought that was pretty cool.

Anyway, I let the cast iron griddle heat on the grill for about 15 minutes to get good and hot. I forgot about checking it with the match. I’m sure a match would have lit because the salmon just about blew up when I dropped it on the griddle. Wow did it get hot!

In all seriousness, you really have to be careful when you drop it on. The salmon, or whatever you would be cooking with this method, really spits and crackles due to the extreme heat of the cast iron. You might even want to wear goggles or something, no joke.

ALSO, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS INDOORS!!!

I ended up cooking the salmon about 4 minutes on each side.

Be sure to be careful when you flip the salmon filet. It is really big and hard to flip. I had to use both a grilling spatula and tongs to flip mine.

While It is definitely a little work to make this, in the end I really think it is a fairly easy grilled salmon recipe. If you have a little experience with a grill and are careful, I don’t think you’ll have too much trouble.

The end result is absolutely delicious and as good or better than I have ever had in a restaurant. We really love it.

I hope you feel the same!!! Good luck!!!