Air-Fryer Salmon Patties

The case for canned salmon as a respectable dinner ingredient has been made by every food writer since at least the 1970s, and yet it persists as an underrated pantry staple. Wild-caught canned salmon (pink or red — pink is mild, red is richer) gives you the omega-3s and protein of fresh salmon at a quarter of the price, in a shelf-stable form. The trick is to treat it as the base of something — bound into a patty, folded into pasta, mixed into chowder — rather than eaten straight from the can like tuna.

The patty here is the standard mid-century-American recipe (egg, panko, scallion, dill, lemon, mustard) executed in the air fryer for a properly crisp exterior. The mixture is wetter than a meat patty so the binding matters — refrigerating the shaped patties for 10 minutes before cooking helps them hold together. The air fryer at 400°F gives you a deep golden crust on both faces in 8 minutes flat.

The photo shows the plated dinner: 5 patties on an oval cream plate, with steamed asparagus and two lemon wedges. Simple, clean, unfussy. The kind of dinner you make when you want fish, you don't want to pay $24/lb for fresh, and you don't want to be in the kitchen for an hour.

A note on the salmon: bones-in or boneless cans both work. The bones in canned salmon are fully soft (from the canning process) and contain calcium — mash them right into the mix. If you can't get past the idea, buy the boneless. Same recipe.