This spicy salmon poke bowl is like deconstructed sushi except healthier since it has a variety of vegetables in it like edamame, avocados, cucumber and pickled red onions!

Salmon poke bowl with diced raw salmon, sliced avocado, edamame, pickled red onions, julienned cucumbers and nori seaweed strips in a white bowl

If you like sushi and spice, you’ll also love this spicy salmon poke bowl! It’s much easier to make than sushi (since you don’t need to do the extra step of making the rolls or nigiris) and it tastes just as great! Plus you get the added bonus of eating more vegetables than regular sushi.

If you’re ok with preparing and eating raw fish at home, this recipe would be perfect for you. It’s significantly more economical to make it at home AND you can be creative and put whatever vegetables you want in it AND as much as you want. In this recipe, I’ve incorporated the main vegetables you’d find in a poke bowl like edamame, avocadoes and cucumber.

Ingredients

Salmon Marinade

Salmon – Choose farm-raised salmon rather than wild salmon, since it has a lower risk of having parasites in it.
Soy Sauce – This adds umami to the salmon poke bowl and makes it taste savoury.
Lime juice – This cuts the fat in the salmon and makes it taste refreshing. You can also use lemon juice instead.
Salt – You can use either table salt or kosher salt. I used table salt for this recipe, so if you’re using kosher salt, you can add a bit more to taste.
Sesame oil – Use the dark kind of sesame oil, since it will have a richer and nuttier taste with a strong aroma that compliments this dish well.

Poke Bowl Ingredients

Toasted sesame seeds – I usually use store-bought, but you can also toast your own on the stove top.
Salad greens – This is an optional ingredient, but where I live in Canada, restaurants always serve poke bowls with some type of salad greens such as arugula and spring mix.
Edamame – I use frozen edamame without the shells on.
Avocadoes – Use ripe ones that are at their creamiest state.
Green onions – These are optional, but they’re great as a garnish for visual appeal.
Cucumber – These add a nice crunch to the salmon poke bowl.
Nori – Cutting the sheets into small strips serves as a visually appealing garnish at the end, resembling confetti, but edible.
Cooked White Rice – I like to use sushi rice or calrose rice for poke bowls since it resembles sushi, but you can use long grain white rice as well.

Pickled Red Onion Ingredients

Ingredients for pickled red onions, including half a red onion, vinegar, salt and sugar

Although you probably won’t find this in a typical poke bowl, I added pickled red onions to this recipe. It adds more colour to the salmon poke bowl. Also, it helps cut the fat in the salmon, avocado, and spicy mayo (see below) and makes the bowl taste very refreshing.

Red onions
White vinegar – Pickles the red onions quickly for this dish
Sugar – balances out the sourness of the white vinegar
Salt – brings out the flavour of the red onions

Spicy Mayo Ingredients

Ingredients for spicy mayo, including kewpie mayo, sriracha, lime, garlic powder, black pepper and salt

Sriracha – A very spicy and sour hot sauce that goes well with kewpie mayo and salmon, as it cuts the fat in those components and makes it taste refreshing.
Garlic Powder – Adds more savoury flavour.
Black Pepper – Adds a bit of a kick
Salt – Brings out all the flavours in the spicy mayo
Kewpie Mayo – A Japanese mayo that will blow your mind away, as it adds a lot of umami flavour to the dish and has a slight sweetness to it that sets it apart from other mayos. You can substitute with other mayos, but it won’t be the same without kewpie mayo in my opinion.

A bottle of kewpie mayo on a rustic surface

How to Prepare / Purchase Salmon for Salmon Poke Bowl

Use farm-raised salmon instead of wild salmon, since it has a lower risk of having parasites in them. To be on the safe side, freeze the salmon for a week in your freezer. Or if you want to be even safer, buy frozen farm-raised salmon like the one below. The freezing process helps to kill parasitic eggs in the salmon. Some home freezers are not cold enough like commercial freezers to fully kill parasitic eggs in the salmon in a week. According to the FDA, freezing at -20°C (or -4°F) for 7 days is enough to kill parasites.

I’ve frozen farm-raised salmon at home for a week and sometimes two weeks and I’ve never personally gotten sick or got anybody else sick from consuming it raw. However, I’ve become a fan of buying frozen farm-raised salmon since I don’t even need to wait a week to use it.

How to Make Spicy Salmon Poke Bowl

Pickling Red onions

Slice a red onion in half, and then slice the one half again in half. Slice the red onion to get quarter slices.

Slicing red onion on a wooden cutting board with a knife

Mix white vinegar, salt, and sugar in a bowl until the salt and sugar are dissolved. Add the red onion slices in the bowl and set aside.

Mixing red onion slices in pickling solution in a glass bowl with chopsticks

Marinating the Salmon

After thawing the frozen salmon, slice the salmon into bite-sized pieces and place them in a medium-sized bowl.

Dicing raw salmon with a knife on a wooden cutting board

Add all the marinade ingredients to the salmon (i.e., soy sauce, lime juice, salt, and sesame oil) and then gently mix until the pieces of salmon are well-coated in marinade. Set it aside.

Mixing diced raw salmon with marinade ingredients in a glass bowl

Making Spicy Mayo

In a small bowl, mix all of the spicy mayo ingredients together until well-combined.

Mixing spicy mayo ingredients with chopsticks in a small glass bowl

Preparing and Assembling the Salmon Poke Bowl

Slice the green onion at an angle for better visual appeal. This will be used as a garnish.

Slicing a green onion at an angle with a knife on a wooden cutting board

Slice a cucumber in half widthwise. We’ll only be using half of a cucumber for this recipe. Slice the cucumber in half again lengthwise.

Then, slice it at an angle with the flat side down.

Slicing cucumber with a knife on a wooden cutting board

Finally, slice each piece into matchsticks. You can stack one or two pieces of cucumber on top of each other to do it faster.

Slicing cucumber into matchsticks with a knife on a wooden cutting board

Boil the frozen edamame according to the manufacturer’s instructions. If there are no instructions, boil them for five minutes and then drain and set aside.

Boiling edamame in a stainless steel saucepan on an electric stove

Slice the avocados in half and remove the seed with a knife by hitting the seed with a knife and then twisting it out of the avocado. Carefully remove the seed from the blade of the knife. I usually use the edge of a cutting board to help me release the seed from the knife. Scoop out the avocado halves with a spoon. Slice the avocado halves length-wise.

Slicing avocado halves with a knife on a wooden cutting board

Assemble the spicy salmon poke bowl. Put rice at the bottom of the bowl. Arrange the salad greens, edamame, avocado, cucumber and pickled red onions around the perimeter of the bowl. You can fan out the avocado for visual appeal. Place the diced salmon in the middle and sprinkle sesame seeds, nori strips, and green onion on top. Drizzle the spicy mayo all over the salmon poke bowl.