Chinese Steamed Fish with ginger and scallions and soy sauce is an easy, delicious, healthy fish recipe. I use salmon fillet- after a very quick marinade, the fish is steamed and drizzled with a flavourful sauce that is delicious with rice. This Chinese style steamed fish fillet is ready in only 25 minutes, making it one of my weeknight staple dishes.
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🥘 Ingredients
You will need a few simple ingredients for this healthy fish dinner salmon recipe:
- salmon fillet, skin on: fresh and frozen salmon both work. However, if using frozen please thaw it overnight in the fridge first. (You can steam salmon fillets from frozen but the texture will suffer a lot -the fish will taste tougher and nowhere as delicious. (If you really have no choice but to steam from frozen, the steaming time will increase. It took me 13 minutes to fully cook a 2.5 cm/ 1 inch thick fillet. Depending on the thickness of your fillet, the steaming time may increase/ decrease.)
- mirin: This gives the fish some sweetness. If you don't have it you can substitute with an equal amount of Shaoxing or Sake and a dash of white sugar.
- Fresh ginger: Chinese people use ginger to help cover potential fishy flavours of fish recipes. We're grating the ginger- if you're not sure whether you're doing the right thing, you can see what the grated ginger looks like in the photo below.
- Vegetable oil: You will need neutral vegetable oil for authentic Chinese flavors, not olive oil.
- light soy sauce: If possible, get the Chinese soy sauce for seafood (it will be labelled as such and comes in a bottle similar to soy sauce.) If not, you can use regular soy sauce.
- Spring onions: For restaurant quality presentation, slice the spring onion lengthwise so you get long thin strips.
- Red chilies: Adding some sliced red chilies will make the dish look more appetising.
🔪 Step-by-Step Instructions
1a. Take your fish out of the fridge and place at room temperature (we don't want to steam from frozen.)
1b. Grate 1 inch of ginger- mix the grated ginger (and juice) with 1 Tablespoon of mirin.
1c. Place the fish in the mirin-ginger marinade for 10-15 minute. (Turn the fish so that it is fully coated then leave it flesh down in the marinade. i.e. when you look at the top of the fish, you should see the skin.)
1d. Whilst the fish is marinating, slice the scallions and chilies for garnish.
1e. Steam the (thawed/ fresh) salmon fillet (along with its marinade) for about 7 minutes. (This is for a 2.5 cm thick (about 1 inch) fillet. If your fillet is thinner/ thicker, please increase/ decrease the time accordingly.)
Note: if you don't have a steamer, you can steam in a walk. You will need a heat-proof plate and a stand to place the plate on in the wok. If you need a photo of the set-up, let me know in the comments.
2a. Whilst the fish is steaming, slice the spring onion and chili garnish (if using.)
2b. Heat 1-2 Tablespoons of neutral vegetable oil in a pan. When hot, CAREFULLY pour 2 Tablespoons of seafood/ soy sauce into the pan- watch out as it may sizzle and splatter.
2c. Plate the cooked salmon then pour the sizzling sauce over the fish fillet.
🥡 How to Store
I do not recommend storing cooked steamed fish as reheating it will make it less silky and juicy.
🥗 Suggested Accompanying Recipes
Enjoyed this easy Asian steamed fish Recipe? Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟rating in the recipe card below! If you REALLY liked this Chinese seafood dish, please consider supporting it by buying me a bottle of soy sauce! 🙂 (No obligation though!) Thank you and have a great day!
Chinese Steamed Salmon (25 min)
Equipment
- steamer You can use a wok to steam
Ingredients
- 1 Salmon Fillet Skin on, thawed/ fresh
Marinade
Sauce
- 1½ Tablespoon neutral vegetable oil
- 2 Tablespoons seafood soy sauce Substitute: Chinese light soy sauce
Garnish
- 1 sprig scallion sliced lengthwise
- 1 big red chili sliced lengthwise
Instructions
- Take your fish out of the fridge and place at room temperature (we don't want to steam from frozen.)
- Grate 1 inch of ginger- mix the grated ginger (and juice) with 1 Tablespoon of mirin.
- Place the fish in the mirin-ginger marinade for 10- 15 minutes. (Turn the fish so that it is fully coated then leave it flesh down in the marinade.) Whilst the fish is marinating, slice the scallions and chilies for garnish.
- Steam the (thawed/ fresh) salmon fillet for about 7 minutes. (This is for a 2.5 cm thick (about 1 inch) fillet. If your fillet is thinner/ thicker, please increase/ decrease the time accordingly.) If you don't have a steamer, you can steam in your walk- see the Step by Step photos above.
- Whilst the fish is steaming, slice the spring onion and chili garnish (if using.)
- Heat 1-2 Tablespoons of neutral vegetable oil in a pan. When hot, CAREFULLY pour 2 Tablespoons of seafood/ soy sauce into the pan- watch out as it may sizzle and splatter.
- Plate the cooked salmon then pour the sizzling sauce over the fish fillet.
- Eat immediately- steamed fish tastes best when hot. Serve with a bowl of white rice!
Notes
Note: the nutritional information is an estimate automatically calculated using the WPRM recipe maker and I am not responsible for its veracity.
Nutrition
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CC says
Was looking for a healthy dinner and this hit the mark- so tasty and easy too
Zen says
So glad you enjoyed this Soy Sauce Fish Recipe, CC! It goes really well with the Japanese salad 🙂