Air Fryer Teriyaki Salmon (Gluten-Free)

Teriyaki done right is a glaze applied at the last possible moment to something hot enough to set it into lacquer. Done wrong, it's fish drowned in sweet sauce and cooked until both give up. The air fryer is surprisingly good at the right version — 400°F of moving air sets a shiny, sticky coat in two minutes flat — but only if you respect the order of operations: cook the fish first, glaze it late. Brown sugar hits its burning point long before salmon hits doneness, and a basket that smells like a campfire is how you learn that once.

The glaze itself is five pantry ingredients and two minutes on the stove, and we'd push you to make it rather than buy it even if allergens weren't in play — but here they are: bottled teriyaki sauce is nearly always built on wheat-based soy sauce, plus whatever else the label admits to. Tamari, soy sauce's wheat-free cousin, gets you the same deep salt-umami backbone and keeps the dish genuinely gluten-free. Check for the certification mark; a few tamaris still sneak wheat in. Soy and sesame stay squarely in this recipe, though — that's the dish, and we've declared both.

For doneness we hold the same line as our plain salmon: pull at 125–130°F and let carryover land it around 135°F, moist and just set. A fast thermometer matters even more under a dark glaze, because the lacquer hides every visual cue you'd normally read.

Serve it the Seattle way — over a mound of hot rice that catches the extra sauce, scallions on top, no apologies. The skin, glazed and crisped at the edges, is not a byproduct. It's the cook's tax, and we suggest collecting it before the plate reaches the table.