Gravlax Recipe (Beet-Cured Salmon)
- Preparation 20 min
- Refrigeration 48 h
- Servings 8 to 10
- Freezing Absolutely
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🩷 Shocking pink, and you never turned the oven on!
You peel back the wrap after two days and you just stand there looking at the color. A deep, almost purple pink that has worked three or four millimeters into the flesh. You slice it thin on the bias and every slice has that vivid border around an orange center. It is a showstopper, and the best part is there was not one second of cooking. Salt, sugar, beet and two days of patience. Make it once and you will look like a chef!
🍊 Pink grapefruit, fennel seed, Quebec gin
The base comes from my third cookbook, and I reworked it until it tasted the way I wanted. The zest of two pink grapefruits, coarsely crushed fennel seed, and gin instead of vodka. Why gin? Because vodka is engineered to taste like nothing, that is the whole point of it. Gin brings its juniper and its botanicals right into the salmon. And the beet does more than color: it leaves a faint earthy sweetness underneath. It is genuinely delicious.
🥂 From Christmas Eve to an office party
It is good year round and it travels. Slice it ahead, vacuum seal it, and you show up at someone’s place with something nobody else brought. On a bagel, on pumpernickel, on a cracker, or straight into your mouth. My favorite way is still the big platter: slices fanned out, capers everywhere, fresh dill fronds, red onion and a squeeze of lemon. It stops the room.
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🐟 The freshest salmon you can get your hands on
This is the only real requirement in the recipe. I always buy a wild salmon fillet, as fresh as possible, and farmed when wild is not available. At the fish counter, ask what came in that morning and take a center-cut piece, the one with the same thickness end to end. A fillet that tapers badly at one end will cure faster there and you will end up with two textures in the same piece.
🫐 A COOKED beet, not a raw one
This is my small change and it makes a difference. Cooked beets are sold vacuum-packed in the produce section. I take a medium one, about the size that fits in your hand, and grate it finely. I find it colors better than a raw beet, and you skip peeling a raw one that stains everything it touches. After 48 hours the pink has worked three to four millimeters into the flesh.
🍸 Gin, never vodka
Plenty of recipes call for vodka or aquavit. Vodka is, by definition, built to taste like nothing, so it brings nothing to a cure. Gin arrives with juniper and botanicals, and you can taste it in the flesh after two days. I use a Quebec gin, we make excellent ones. Three tablespoons, poured over the top right before you seal the wrap.
⚖️ The weight, and flipping every 12 hours
Both, not one or the other. The weight presses the cure into the flesh and helps the water come out: a cutting board with two cans of maple syrup on it is exactly what I used, and it weighs just about right. And flipping every 12 hours means four times over two days, so the liquid pooling in the dish bathes both faces evenly. Skip it and one side comes out saltier and more colored than the other.
🔪 Slice down to the skin and leave it there
I never lift the fillet off its skin before slicing. I set it skin side down and slice very thinly on the bias, going down to the skin without cutting through. It anchors the whole piece while the knife works, which changes everything when the slices are this thin. The slices come away on their own and the skin stays on the board. You do not serve it.
🎄 The platter that stops the room
Forget neat little rows on a serving dish. Take your biggest platter, fan the slices out overlapping slightly, then scatter capers everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Fresh dill fronds over the top, thin slivers of red onion, the pink grapefruit segments and the sliced fennel. A squeeze of lemon at the last second. People will photograph the platter before they touch it.
📅 Make-ahead prep
This is a recipe that exists only as make-ahead, so plan the whole thing. Count two full days of curing, and buy the salmon the morning you start. The day before serving, once it is rinsed, you can slice the whole fillet already: sliced, it keeps beautifully. Segment the grapefruit ahead too, slice the red onion and fennel on a mandoline and hold them in ice water so they stay crisp. On the day, all that is left is building the platter.
❄️ Five to seven days in the fridge, or the freezer
Once rinsed and patted dry, gravlax keeps 5 to 7 days in the refrigerator, well wrapped. What I do with leftovers is vacuum seal them and freeze them: it comes back beautifully, and it means I have some on hand when people drop by unannounced. Slice it before freezing, it is far easier to thaw in portions.
✅ What to serve with my beet-cured gravlax
On a holiday table it never travels alone. What it wants around it are other cold bites that get made ahead the same way. My watermelon bites with cucumber and smoked salmon play the same fresh and salty register, and my prosciutto wrapped scallops bring the one hot item on the tray. If raw fish is your thing, have a look at my salmon crudo with soy and sesame for a version that takes ten minutes instead of two days, and my homemade pickled beets if you have beets left over.
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Cure
- 80 ml (⅓ cup) coarse sea salt
- 80 ml (⅓ cup) sugar
- 1 medium cooked beet, finely grated
- Zest of 2 pink grapefruits
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) fennel seeds, coarsely crushed
- 1 tbsp (15 ml) peppercorns, coarsely crushed
- 1 bunch fresh dill, coarsely chopped
Salmon
- 1 very fresh salmon fillet, about 800 g (1 ¾ lb), pin-boned, skin on
- 3 tbsp (45 ml) gin
To serve
- Bagels, pumpernickel bread or crackers
- Sour cream
- Fresh dill
- Capers
- Pink grapefruit segments
- Fresh fennel, thinly sliced
- Red onion, thinly sliced
- Lemon juice
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Preparation
- In a bowl, combine the coarse salt, sugar, grated cooked beet, grapefruit zest, fennel seeds, crushed peppercorns and chopped dill.
- On a work surface, lay out a large double layer of plastic wrap. Spread half the mixture down the center, the length of the fillet.
- Set the salmon fillet on top, skin side down, then cover it with the rest of the mixture, pressing lightly so the cure sticks everywhere. Pour the gin over it.
- Wrap the salmon tightly in the plastic, squeezing out any air.
- Set it in a dish, cover with a cutting board and place a weight on top, two cans of maple syrup for instance.
- Refrigerate for 48 hours, flipping the fillet every 12 hours. Each time there will be pink liquid pooled in the dish, which is exactly what you want.
- Unwrap the salmon and rinse it gently but thoroughly under cold water, until nothing is left clinging to it. Pat dry with paper towel.
- Set it on a board and slice it very thinly on the bias with a sharp knife, going all the way down to the skin without cutting through it. The skin anchors the fillet while you slice, and it stays behind on the board.
- Serve on bagels, pumpernickel or crackers, with the sour cream, fresh dill, capers, grapefruit segments, thinly sliced fennel and red onion, and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Smoke. Both start from the same move, a salmon fillet buried in salt and sugar to firm it up and preserve it. But smoked salmon then goes through a smokehouse, hot or cold, and smoke drives the flavor. Gravlax never sees smoke: it stays in its cure with dill and aromatics, and the dill, the spices and whatever else you add are what come through. The texture differs too. Gravlax is firmer and meatier, smoked salmon silkier. The word is Scandinavian and means roughly buried salmon, because it used to be buried in sand with its salt.
Technically yes, it is never heated. But it is not raw the way a tartare is. Salt and sugar pull water out of the flesh over 48 hours and transform it completely: it goes firm and dense, it changes color, and it slices like smoked salmon rather than like fresh fish. That is exactly why you want the freshest fillet you can find, and why I recommend buying it the same day you start the cure.
5 to 7 days in the refrigerator once rinsed and patted dry, well wrapped. Past that it keeps firming up and gets saltier and saltier. If you have leftovers, vacuum seal and freeze them: it comes back beautifully, and it is handy to have a stash when people drop by. Slice it before freezing, it is much easier to pull out in portions.
Yes, absolutely, and it is what I do. Slice the whole fillet the day before, vacuum seal it or put it in a tightly sealed container, and it travels without a problem. That is what makes this dish so practical for an office party or a dinner somewhere other than your own place: all the work is done before you leave, and you only build the platter when you arrive.
On bagels, pumpernickel or crackers, with sour cream, capers, red onion and a squeeze of lemon. To round out a holiday tray, my watermelon bites with cucumber and smoked salmon and my prosciutto wrapped scallops are also made ahead.
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