Gordon Ramsay’s salmon burger is 400g of fresh salmon, a quarter puréed to bind and the rest finely diced for bite, shaped into patties and fried until golden, then built into toasted brioche buns with sriracha mayo. Prep takes 25 minutes plus an hour of chilling, and it serves 4.
Ramsay has never published a salmon burger, so I built this from two of his recipes. The patty itself comes from his Make It Easy salmon fish cakes, where he purées a quarter of the salmon in a food processor and folds the finely diced rest through it, bound with an egg yolk. The bun, sauce and build come straight from his Ramsay in 10 bacon cheeseburger, down to the sriracha mayonnaise.
The purée is what holds everything together. Blitzed salmon turns sticky as it breaks down, so it glues the diced pieces without flour or a whole egg, which is why his fish cakes never crumble. The other non-negotiable is his double chill, 30 minutes before shaping and 30 after, because warm salmon patties fall apart the moment they hit hot oil.
Gordon Ramsay Salmon Burger
Course: DinnerCuisine: BritishDifficulty: Medium4
25
minutes10
minutes640
kcal1 hr 35 min
Salmon patties built on the purée-and-dice binding trick from Ramsay’s Make It Easy fish cakes, finished as a burger the way he builds his quick bacon cheeseburger: toasted brioche, crisp lettuce and a sharp sriracha mayo. No potato, no falling apart.
Ingredients
- For the patties:
400g salmon fillet, skinned
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 egg yolk
3 tbsp natural breadcrumbs
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Groundnut oil, for frying
- For the sriracha mayo:
4 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tsp sriracha
- To build:
4 brioche burger buns
1 Little Gem lettuce, leaves separated
2 tomatoes, thickly sliced
Sliced gherkins (optional)
Directions
- Soften the onion: Fry the chopped onion in the olive oil until soft but not coloured, then set aside to cool. Warm onion would start cooking the raw salmon mix.
- Make the binder: Check the salmon for small bones, removing any with tweezers. Purée 100g of it in a food processor until sticky and smooth.
- Mix and chill: Finely dice the remaining 300g of salmon and fold it through the purée with the cooled onion, egg yolk, breadcrumbs and a good pinch of salt and pepper. His original coats the cakes in breadcrumbs instead, though folding a few through does the potato’s job in this no-potato version. Cover and chill for 30 minutes.
- Shape and chill again: Form 4 patties slightly wider than your buns, since they shrink a little in the pan. Chill for another 30 minutes to set the shape, which is the step that stops them breaking up.
- Mix the sriracha mayo: Stir the mayonnaise and sriracha together with a little pepper. Add more sriracha if you like proper heat, or swap it for Dijon the way he suggests in the book.
- Fry the patties: Heat a thin film of groundnut oil over a medium-high heat. Fry the patties for 3 to 4 minutes each side until golden, flipping once only and never pressing them.
- Toast the buns: Halve the brioche buns and toast them cut side down in the pan, because an untoasted bun collapses under a juicy patty.
- Build: Spread sriracha mayo on both halves, lettuce on the base first to protect the bun, then a seasoned tomato slice, the patty, gherkins if using, and the lid.
FAQs
Does Gordon Ramsay actually have a salmon burger recipe?
No, and I searched all 22 of his cookbooks to be sure. The closest he comes is the salmon fish cakes in Make It Easy, a recipe from the kids’ chapter where he suggests shaping them like little fish with a red pepper eye, “guaranteed to raise a smile.” That recipe holds the binding technique this burger runs on, so I tell you openly this page joins his fish cake method with his burger build.
The original is built on 600g of mashed Desirée potato, which makes a soft, round cake rather than something that survives a bun. Drop the potato, size the patty up, and the same salmon technique becomes a proper burger, while his salmon cakes stay the right choice when you want the classic.
Why does the salmon need to be skinned?
Because skin only earns its place when it can crisp, and buried inside a patty mix it just turns to chew. His fish recipes treat crispy skin as the whole point of a fillet, so when the fish is diced and bound instead, the skin comes off first.
The other prep rule comes straight from the book: run your fingers over the fillet and pull any pin bones out with tweezers before it goes near the processor. A hidden bone in a diced patty is far worse than one in a whole fillet, because nobody expects it in a burger.
Can you make the patties ahead or freeze them?
The mixture actually improves from waiting, since his method is built on chilling anyway, so shaping the patties the night before and leaving them covered in the fridge works perfectly. Raw shaped patties also freeze well between squares of baking paper, then defrost overnight in the fridge before frying.
Cooked is a different story, and I’ll be honest: fried salmon patties are at their best within the hour. They’ll keep for a day in the fridge, but reheated salmon dries fast and the crisp crust never comes back, so cook only what you’ll eat.
What sauce goes on a salmon burger?
The sriracha mayo in the card is his, from the ten-minute bacon cheeseburger, and he names mustard as the swap if chilli isn’t your thing. Two tablespoons of shop mayo work fine, though starting from his homemade mayonnaise, whisked thick with mustard and lemon already in it, gives the sauce a sharper backbone.
The other route is the classic: his tartar sauce with its chopped gherkins, capers and crème fraîche is built for exactly this job, cutting rich fish with acid and crunch. Salmon in a bun is still fried fish at heart, so the old pairing holds.
What do you serve with salmon burgers?
Chips, though salmon suits a lighter version than deep-fried: his oven chips with smoked paprika bake while the patties chill, so both land on the table together. A sharp green salad keeps the plate from feeling heavy.
And if building this makes you crave the original instead, his proper fish and chips scratches that itch the traditional way, beer batter and all. This burger is really that dinner folded into a bun.
