How to Sauté Salmon

Salmon can be prepared in so many different ways, from grilled to smoked to baked. One of the simplest ways to cook salmon is sautéing it.

Cooking time varies by the type of salmon you have — sockeye salmon cooks the quickest and king salmon cooks the slowest due to their differing fat contents: less in sockeye, much more in king. Skin-on salmon portions will cook a bit more slowly than skinless salmon. But if you ever had crispy salmon skin, it's totally worth the wait.

Our simple three-ingredient, three-step recipe to sauté salmon serves two and takes less than 15 minutes: just 5 minutes to prep and another 8 minutes to cook (and two of those eight minutes is letting the fillet rest).

READ MORE: Our Favorite Salmon Recipes

First, preheat your skillet over medium-high heat. Then take two Alaskan sockeye salmon fillets and put them in a re-sealable storage bag with a mixture of 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil and one teaspoon of your favorite marinade and coat the fish. Then sauté the fillets in the pan until they're opaque throughout, which will take 6 to 8 minutes per inch of thickness. Finally, remove the pan from the heat and let the fillets rest for 2 to 3 minutes before serving.