Harissa Glazed Salmon
Updated Nov 05, 2025
This Harissa Glazed Salmon recipe is flaky and made with just 5 ingredients featuring a sweet heat sauce with harissa paste and honey. Pan-seared in 10 min!
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Harissa Glazed Salmon is soo good!
When I’m in the mood for something with a little kick but don’t feel like doing much, I make this harissa glazed salmon. It’s literally just harissa, honey, lemon, and oil mixed into a quick glaze that turns the salmon all sticky and caramelized in the pan. It’s got that sweet heat thing going on, and dinner’s ready before I’ve even finished cleaning up the counter.
Happy Cooking!
– Yumna
Harissa Glazed Salmon Ingredients
- Salmon: I recommend skin-off salmon fillets because you’ll want to get the harissa sauce all over the salmon and not have any of it wasted on the skin. Use similar-sized salmon fillets to allow them to all cook at the same time.
- Harissa: This popular Mediterranean condiment is made with chili peppers, roasted red peppers, garlic, and spices, and it packs a punch of flavor and adds a bit of heat.
- Honey: You could also use maple syrup.
- Lemon juice: Fresh has the best flavor.
- Oil: Choose a neutral oil like extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil that adds fat content with a light flavor, allowing the other ingredients to shine. Harissa usually has oil in it, so you don’t need it for the marinate, only for cooking in the pan, so it doesn’t stick.
- Salt and pepper to taste
How to Make Harissa Glazed Salmon
Harissa Glazed Salmon Recipe
This 5-ingredient Harissa Glazed Salmon recipe is flaky and has the best sweet heat sauce with harissa paste and honey, pan-seared in 10 minutes!
Ingredients
- ¼ cup harissa
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 4 (6-ounce) skinless salmon fillets preferably center cut
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- Rice for serving
- Parsley for garnish
Instructions
- In a small bowl, stir together the harissa, honey and lemon juice.
- Heat the oil in a large heavy-bottom pan over medium heat. Season the salmon filets on both sides with salt and pepper.
- Add the salmon to the pan and cook until golden brown on the bottom, about 3-4 minutes. Flip the salmon and pour in the harissa-honey sauce. Cook, spooning the sauce over the salmon, until the salmon is glazed and reaches your desired temperature (about 2 more minutes to reach 125° for medium-rare).
- Transfer the salmon to a large plate, spooning any remaining sauce out of the pan and over the salmon. Serve with rice and parsley, if desired.
Notes
My Top Tip: Use a hot skillet. Before adding the salmon, heat the skillet up to medium-high heat with oil. This will crisp up the flesh and sear it perfectly.
Storage: This salmon is best enjoyed fresh, but leftovers will keep in the fridge up to 3 days. To reheat, simply cook in a skillet over low heat until warmed through. You can also reheat in the oven or air fryer at 200°F until warm.
Nutrition
Serving: 6oz salmon, Calories: 338kcal, Carbohydrates: 17g, Protein: 34g, Fat: 14g, Saturated Fat: 2g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g, Monounsaturated Fat: 6g, Cholesterol: 94mg, Sodium: 595mg, Potassium: 914mg, Fiber: 0.5g, Sugar: 15g, Vitamin A: 185IU, Vitamin C: 6mg, Calcium: 26mg, Iron: 2mg
Nutrition information provided is an estimate. It will vary based on cooking method and specific ingredients used.
Did You Make This Recipe?
Recipe Tips
- Use a hot skillet. Before adding the salmon, heat the skillet up to medium-high heat with oil. This will crisp up the flesh and sear it perfectly.
- Start the salmon top-side if cooking with skin-on (presentation side) down. Although it’s a standard recommendation to start cooking salmon fillets skin side down, we’re going to do the opposite because we’re only flipping the salmon once. Once flipped over, the skin will sear and crisp up while glazing the fish with the harissa honey sauce. Then, you can transfer the finished salmon to a plate for serving without flipping again.
Serving Ideas
Comments
It turned out perfect. The glaze is sooo good, Iโm going to try it on chicken wings too.
Yum, that sounds so good! You’ll have to let me know how the glaze turns out on chicken wings when you try it. So happy you liked the recipe, Kerri! Thank you!!
We served it with millet (and some butter) and crisped the skins separately. Timing guideline was perfect in my cast iron.I also made Yumna’s very easy roasted garlic which turned out perfectly creamy and delicious. I love adding super healthy fresh herbs to these dishes for extra color, flavor and healthfulness. The spiciness was too much for my little one – I served hers without extra sauce from the pan and removed the obvious pepper flakes. The mild-medium sweet heat from the harissa glaze is perfect for my taste. She ate a good sized dollop of the roasted garlic!