Blackened Salmon Tacos With Pineapple Pico de Gallo

Name: Blackened Salmon Tacos With Pineapple Pico de Gallo
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 12 corn or flour tortillas; 1 ½ teaspoons salt; 1 ½ teaspoons garlic powder; 1 ½ teaspoons onion powder; 1 teaspoon smoked paprika; ½ teaspoon dried Mexican oregano; ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ½ teaspoon ground cumin; 1 ½-2 pounds salmon (skin on, cut into four evenly sized pieces); 3-4 tablespoons canola oil; Additional desired toppings; 2 cups diced pineapple; 1 jalapeño (stemmed, leave in seeds); ¼ cup finely diced red onion; 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro; 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 lime (juiced)

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Give your next taco night an extra tropical touch with these blackened salmon tacos with pineapple pico de gallo! After coating with a flavorful blackening seasoning, this salmon is seared to perfection, making for the most delicious fish tacos that can be prepared in about 30 minutes. Serve with an ice-cold margarita, and you're in for one tasty meal that's perfect for company.

A white plate with three blackened salmon tacos with lime wedges, cilantro and the pineapple pico de gallo around it.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Ingredients
Step-by-Step Instructions
Best Toppings
Recipe FAQs
Expert Tips
Perfect Pairing
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Tastes like summer wrapped in a tortilla: Fish tacos always scream summer, but with that fresh pineapple pico de gallo, it will make you feel like you’re enjoying this dish right on the beach. You will want to put this recipe on repeat all summer long.

Perfect for casual parties: Turn this dish into a taco bar for an interactive, low-key meal. Once we blackened the salmon, we flake it with a fork, put out some warm tortillas and an assortment of toppings, so everyone can load up their tacos just the way they like them.

Great for easy entertaining: This recipe is as simple as stirring together a few spices, rubbing the mixture all over the salmon and then cooking in a hot skillet. It takes hardly any time and requires very little effort. Your hosting duties have never been so simple.

Related: If you love these tacos, make sure you also try these lobster tacos, Greek lamb tacos and crispy chorizo tacos.

Ingredients

Salmon: You can use your favorite salmon variety that best fits your budget. Atlantic salmon is readily available and more affordable than Chinook and sockeye. That said, Chinook and sockeye are considered better quality. You can’t go wrong with any variety.

Tortillas: Feel free to use flour tortillas or corn tortillas. Both work well. It’s simply a matter of preference.

Blackening seasoning: We use a mixture of salt, garlic powder, onion powder, smoked paprika, Mexican oregano, cumin and cayenne pepper. Of course, you’re also welcome to use a store-bought blackening seasoning, but homemade spice mixtures are always so much more flavorful.

Pineapple pico de gallo: For this, we need pineapple, jalapeño, fresh ginger, red onion, cilantro, lime juice and salt. If you’d like another fruit salsa option, my tropical pico de gallo or mango-habanero salsa are also excellent with these tacos.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Before we prepare the blackened salmon, we wrap the tortillas in foil (photo 1) and then pop them into a 350-degree oven for 10 minutes.

A stack of tortillas on aluminum foil before wrapping and warming in the oven.

Step 2: Now we stir together the various spices in a small bowl to make the blackening seasoning and rub the spice mixture all over the salmon pieces. This is what gives us the blackening crust, so rub generously (photo 2).

The salmon coated in the blackening seasoning on a cutting board before cooking.

Step 3: In a 12-inch cast-iron skillet, we pour in the canola oil and heat it over medium-high heat just until it begins to smoke. We carefully place the salmon seasoning-side down, turn down the heat to medium and cook until the crust blackens, about three to five minutes (photo 3).

The salmon cooking in a cast-iron skillet with the seasoning side down to create the blackened exterior.

Step 4: Once the seasoning side blackens, we flip the salmon and continue to cook until the salmon easily flakes with a fork (photo 4).

The salmon now flipped in the cast-iron skillet to finish cooking.

Step 5: Now we remove the salmon from the skillet and flake into bite-size chunks (photo 5).

The salmon broken up into bite-size chunks after cooking and before putting into the tortilla.

Just like that, we’re ready to pile the salmon into warm tortillas and pile it high with our favorite toppings. Serve with a Texas margarita, some coconut-lime rice and enjoy every delicious bite. You may also want to check out this handy guide on what to serve with fish tacos to complete the perfect meal.

Bonus: For more Mexican-inspired favorites, you'll love these creamy poblano enchiladas.

Best Toppings

Of course, the recommended pineapple pico de gallo is perfect, but let’s not stop there. After all, taco toppings are part of the fun. Here are a few of my favorite ideas, but feel free to get creative and put your own spin on the toppings.

Mexican crema or sour cream
Guacamole, fresh avocado slices or avocado salsa
Shredded green cabbage or red cabbage
Fresh lime juice
Chopped tomato
Chopped cilantro
Pickled red onions or radishes
Cotija cheese
Sliced green onion
Hot sauce

A plate of blackened salmon tacos with a yellow napkin and a bowl of pineapple pico de gallo in the background.

Recipe FAQs

What does it mean when fish is blackened?

Blackened fish is not burned. This style of cooking simply means the meat was coated in a special seasoning and then cooked in oil that just begins to smoke until the outside reaches a dark brown to black exterior for a crisp texture. Chicken and shrimp are also popular options for blackening, and it’s a common cooking technique with Cajun cuisine.

When is salmon finished cooking?

While I love slow-roasted salmon served at medium rare, I recommend cooking the salmon to medium, which is an internal temperature of 130-135 degrees. I tried the salmon in this recipe at both medium rare and medium and found the texture worked better for tacos at medium.

Note that the USDA recommends cooking salmon to 145 degrees, but that will leave you with dry, unsatisfying salmon. No one wants that. Plenty of world-renowned chefs cook their salmon between medium rare and medium.

How long can you store leftovers?

As long as you keep the cooked salmon in an airtight container in the refrigerator, you can store the leftovers for three to four days. You can use the salmon for another taco meal, or it’s great on a salad.

An aerial view of the blackened salmon tacos on a plate with cilantro and limes around it.

Expert Tips

Prepare pineapple pico de gallo ahead of time: If you opt to make the pineapple salsa, you can make it a few hours or even two or three days in advance. Not only does this give time for the flavors to meld, but it makes entertaining even easier.

Let the salmon sit at room temperature 30 minutes before cooking: This takes the chill off the salmon and allows the fish to cook more evenly.

Cut the salmon slab into pieces: If your salmon came in one big slab, I recommend cutting it down into four pieces. Otherwise, the fish will take much longer to cook.

Remove the tortillas from the oven after 10 minutes: Even if you’re still working on the tacos, remove the tortillas after 10 minutes. The foil will keep them warm. If the tortillas stay in the oven for too long, they will dry out.

Use fresh spices: After six months, dried spices start to lose their potency. Replace your spices once they’re past their peak quality.

Perfect Pairing

If you’re looking for a beer pairing, a juicy IPA is perfect. These fruit-forward IPAs nicely complement the pineapple pico de gallo, and it counters the richness of the salmon. Plus, the hops help enhance the spice.

For a wine, you’ll adore a crisp sauvignon blanc. This wine comes with a nice acidity to cut through the fatty salmon, and it offers citrusy lime notes to perfectly accent the fish and salsa.

Of course, you also can’t go wrong with a little tequila, such as my tequila sour, tequila lemonade or triple citrus tequila smash. If a margarita is more your style, I have plenty of options for you. You’ll especially love a fruity margarita, like my pineapple-coconut margarita, raspberry margarita, jalapeno-mango margarita or blackberry margarita. This pineapple rum punch or Hawaiian mai tai are also perfect if tequila isn't your thing.

When you need a summery Mexican dinner, you will love these blackened salmon tacos with a fresh pineapple pico de gallo with its simple preparation with an explosion of tropical flavor. Bring on taco night.

Cheers!

A hand grabbing a blackened salmon taco on a white plate with lime wedges in front of it.

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Comments

5 from 86 votes (81 ratings without comment)