Sous Vide Salmon: Temperature and Time by Thickness

Sous vide salmon cooks at 120°F (48.9°C) for fish that is very moist, tender and flaky. A fillet 1 in (2.5 cm) thick needs at least 45 min in the bath, is at its best between 45 min and 1 hr, and should come out by 1 hr.

That setting does not pasteurize the fish, so the salmon you buy and the time limit both matter. Every time on this page comes from the calculator.

Salmon temperature and texture

The bath temperature sets the texture.

The default is 120°F (48.9°C). Choose 110°F (43.3°C) for salmon that is soft and buttery and close to raw in the center, or 115°F (46.1°C) for fish that is translucent and just starting to flake. Choose 130°F (54.4°C) for a firm fillet that is still moist and flaky.

The 140°F (60°C) setting is fully firm and opaque, and drier than the lower settings. It is in the list because it is the one salmon setting that pasteurizes the fish.

Douglas Baldwin's guide to sous vide cooking says salmon is best between rare at 110°F (43.3°C) and medium-rare at 120°F (48.9°C). Anova's sous vide salmon guide covers the same textures and stops at 130°F (54.4°C). The fish temperature chart puts salmon beside tuna, cod and halibut. Shellfish is handled differently: shrimp are not timed by thickness, and their default is 135°F (57.2°C) for 15 to 30 minutes.

How long to sous vide salmon, by thickness

Measure through the thickest part of the fillet.

At 110°F (43.3°C), 115°F (46.1°C) and 130°F (54.4°C) a 1 in fillet also needs 45 min and comes out by 1 hr.

How the calculator sets these times

On the four settings that do not pasteurize, the minimum is the time for the center to come within about 5°F (2.8°C) of the bath temperature, by the calculator's heating model, rounded up to the next 5 minutes. A fillet that tapers gets closer than a flat piece. The best window runs from the minimum to 15 minutes later.

The maximum is 1 hr. When the minimum is over 45 min, the maximum is the minimum plus 15 min: 1 hr 20 min for a 1.25 in (3.2 cm) fillet and 1 hr 40 min for a 1.5 in (3.8 cm) fillet at 120°F (48.9°C). It is never more than 2 hr 30 min. The maximum is for texture and, at these temperatures, for safety. Fish left longer turns soft and mushy.

This rule is the calculator's own, and no published table gives it. Bringing the center of a 1 in fillet to within 1°F (0.5°C) of a 120°F (48.9°C) bath would take 1 hr 15 min, which is past the 1 hr maximum.

Anova's guide gives 30 to 45 minutes for thinner fillets and 45 minutes to an hour for extra-thick ones. The calculator sets the time by thickness, so its minimum can be shorter or longer than that: 20 min for a 0.5 in (1.3 cm) fillet and 1 hr 25 min for a 1.5 in fillet. Baldwin's rule of thumb is that doubling the thickness increases the heating time about four fold. The calculator's own table rises less steeply: 45 min at 1 in is a little over twice the 20 min at 0.5 in.

The calculator covers salmon from 0.5 to 1.5 in (1.3 to 3.8 cm). Cut a thicker piece into portions no more than 1.5 in thick.

The pasteurizing setting

At 140°F (60°C) the minimum is the pasteurization time, which is built on the fatty fish values in Baldwin's Table 3.1. A 1 in fillet needs 1 hr 45 min and comes out by 2 hr.

Do not shorten that time. This temperature pasteurizes the fish only because it is held for the full minimum time shown. The hold is also what makes this setting firmer and drier than the others.

Skin and brining

The calculator has no separate setting for skin. Anova's guide cooks salmon skin-on and sears the skin crisp after the bath. If you want the skin off, it says to wait until after cooking, because cooking weakens the bond between skin and flesh. Baldwin's recipe removes the skin before the bath and crisps it separately.

Brining is optional. Baldwin's guide explains that the protein albumin leaches out of salmon and coagulates on the surface. He lessens it with a brine of 10% salt in cold water (100 g of salt per liter) for 10 minutes in the refrigerator.

Anova's guide tested wet and dry brines against unbrined salmon and found the brined fish firmer and better seasoned. It recommends the dry method: salt the fish and rest it for about half an hour.

How to sous vide salmon

The steps below are specific to salmon. The guide on how to sous vide follows a first cook from start to finish and covers the equipment.

1. Heat the bath. Set it to 120°F (48.9°C), or to the temperature you chose above.
2. Salt the fish. For the dry brine, rest the salted fish in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
3. Bag in a single layer. Anova's guide adds a couple of teaspoons of olive oil per fillet and says a zipper-lock bag is enough for salmon, because the cook is short and the temperature low. The water displacement method pushes the air out without a vacuum sealer.
4. Cook for the time that matches the thickness. Keep the bags in a single layer, fully under the water and not overlapping. Crowded or overlapping bags heat more slowly, and the times shown will be too short for them.
5. Take the fish out by the maximum. Anova's guide lifts it out by hand or with a fish spatula and blots it dry with paper towels.
6. Sear the skin, or serve as it is. Anova's guide heats oil in a skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, sets the fillet skin side down, presses gently with a spatula for about 1.5 minutes, then flips it briefly.

Cooking salmon from frozen

Frozen salmon goes straight into the bath. On the settings that do not pasteurize, the frozen times are 1.55 times the thawed times.

At 120°F (48.9°C) a frozen 1 in fillet needs at least 1 hr 10 min and comes out by 1 hr 25 min. The right-hand column of the tables above has the frozen minimum for every thickness.

At 140°F (60°C) a frozen 1 in fillet needs 2 hr 30 min. The pasteurization time is longer from frozen by an allowance that is the calculator's own rule, because no published table covers pasteurizing from frozen.

Freeze fish in a single flat layer so the thickness is the same as when thawed. The guide to cooking from frozen covers other foods.

Is sous vide salmon safe?

The settings from 110°F (43.3°C) to 130°F (54.4°C) are below 131°F (55°C), the lowest temperature in the pasteurization tables this calculator uses, so the fish is not pasteurized.

Because the fish is not pasteurized, use fish sold for eating raw that has been frozen to kill parasites. Freshness alone is not enough. Wild salmon often carries parasites.

Baldwin's guide, citing a U.S. food safety advisory committee, says the prevalence of the parasite Anisakis simplex may exceed 75% in various types of fresh U.S. commercial wild salmon. He recommends either freezing the fish or pasteurizing it.

The FDA's seafood page gives the same rule of thumb for raw fish: eat fish that has been previously frozen. It adds that freezing kills parasites but does not kill all harmful germs, and that cooking seafood thoroughly is the safest route.

That page gives no freezing time. The FDA's guidance for seafood processors lists three treatments as sufficient to kill parasites:

• -4°F (-20°C) or below for 7 days in total.
• -31°F (-35°C) or below until solid, then 15 hours at that temperature.
• -31°F (-35°C) or below until solid, then 24 hours at -4°F (-20°C) or below.

Baldwin's guide shortens this to below -4°F (-20°C) for at least 24 hours. By the FDA's figures, 24 hours at that temperature is enough only for fish that was first frozen solid at -31°F (-35°C). Fish frozen at -4°F (-20°C) from the start needs 7 days.

The USDA safe minimum internal temperature for fish is 145°F (62.8°C), listed on FoodSafety.gov. Every salmon setting is below that.

For anyone in the groups named in the warning, the 140°F (60°C) setting is the one to use. The article on whether sous vide is safe explains the 131°F (55°C) line.

Salmon from the lower settings cannot be cooked ahead. The meal prep guide covers chilling and reheating for foods that are pasteurized.

Common problems

White film on the surface. This is albumin, the protein Baldwin describes leaching out and coagulating on the outside of the fish. A short brine lessens it.

A thick fillet is cooler in the middle. At the minimum time the center is within about 5°F (2.8°C) of the bath, not at the bath temperature. A 0.5 in fillet at 120°F (48.9°C) comes within 1°F (0.5°C) in 30 min, inside its 1 hr maximum, so thinner portions heat through more completely.