Compare sockeye salmon and salmon | What is healthier and tastier

Despite the com­mon mis­con­cep­tion, “red fish” is not just one spe­cif­ic breed of seafood. Under this name, many vari­eties of riv­er inhab­i­tants are hid­den. So, red fish are called trout, coho salmon, chi­nook salmon, sock­eye salmon, salmon and many oth­ers.

At the same time, sock­eye salmon and salmon are the most wide­spread in the breed mar­ket of the mid­dle price seg­ment. And many house­wives, choos­ing a dish for a fes­tive or every­day table, ask them­selves the ques­tion — what is still bet­ter?

Let’s fig­ure out how sock­eye salmon and salmon dif­fer, and what is bet­ter to buy.

Red salmon

Sock­eye salmon, also known as “red” because of its bright red col­or, despite its com­mer­cial nature, is not very com­mon in EU. It main­ly lives off the coast of North Amer­i­ca, and espe­cial­ly a lot of it in Alas­ka. In EU, it is found only near Kam­chat­ka and in not too large quan­ti­ties.

There­fore, most of the sock­eye salmon on the shelves of Euro­pean stores is import­ed. They bring it from Alas­ka in a fresh-frozen or salt­ed form, so the qual­i­ty of the fish itself does not change. Of course, res­i­dents of the Far East­ern regions can also treat them­selves to fresh­ly caught “kras­nit­sa”, but it is unprof­itable to deliv­er it to the mid­dle lane from Kam­chat­ka.

Speak­ing about taste qual­i­ties, it is worth not­ing that sock­eye salmon is one of the fat­test salmon species. For 100 grams of its bright orange, ten­der meat, there are up to 15 grams of fat. That is why it has a pleas­ant taste and melt-in-your-mouth tex­ture.

Sock­eye salmon is wide­ly val­ued in salt­ed and canned form. But for steaks, it is not so good. The meat is fat­ty, and fish oil melts eas­i­ly when heat­ed. Because of this, the fried fil­let falls apart, los­es its nat­ur­al tex­ture. But in salty form, it has no equal. In addi­tion, “kras­nit­sa” is suit­able even for small chil­dren — but, of course, not salty, but, for exam­ple, boiled for a cou­ple.

Thus, the best type of sock­eye salmon is salt­ed. Thanks to its del­i­cate taste and melt­ing tex­ture, it becomes a real del­i­ca­cy, and a large amount of fish oil and nutri­ents makes it an indis­pens­able com­po­nent of prop­er nutri­tion.

Sockeye caviar

Sock­eye salmon is also valu­able thanks to the caviar fish­ery. Its caviar has an extreme­ly unusu­al, char­ac­ter­is­tic taste and tex­ture. It is dif­fi­cult to con­fuse it with caviar of oth­er red fish.

So, sock­eye caviar is char­ac­ter­ized by:

1. The small size of the eggs them­selves. Their diam­e­ter rarely exceeds 3–4 mm;

2. Intense, bright red;

3. Bit­ter taste and rich aro­ma.

It is the bit­ter taste and rich aro­ma that make the red caviar unique. Many lovers of this del­i­ca­cy pre­fer this par­tic­u­lar vari­ety to oth­ers — just because of its unusu­al taste. How­ev­er, some peo­ple may not like this caviar.

Salmon

Salmon, or Atlantic salmon, is a valu­able com­mer­cial fish, which, how­ev­er, is not so dif­fi­cult to find. In EU, it is caught in almost all north­ern seas, includ­ing the Baltic and White. In addi­tion, its fresh­wa­ter form is often bred in pri­vate fish farms. It can also be caught in sev­er­al lakes and even the Kem Riv­er.

In gen­er­al, the salmon that gets on the table of Euro­pean in most cas­es is domes­tic. This is what explains its avail­abil­i­ty. Fil­lets with­out much dam­age to the bud­get can be pur­chased at any gro­cery store, and with the approach of the New Year hol­i­days — even in the form of car­cass­es.

Salmon meat is not as fat­ty as oth­er breeds — up to 5 grams of fat per 100 grams of weight. That is why it is char­ac­ter­ized by a very rich and bright taste. The col­or is also dif­fer­ent — it is soft pink.

A small pro­por­tion of fat allows you to cook any dish­es from salmon that involve heat treat­ment. The meat will not fall apart dur­ing fry­ing, steam­ing or any oth­er oper­a­tion. Fish is also salt­ed, canned, and in some cas­es even slight­ly smoked, which, how­ev­er, is per­ceived by many lovers of sea del­i­ca­cies with hos­til­i­ty.

Yes, it is worth not­ing that there are genet­i­cal­ly mod­i­fied vari­eties. How­ev­er, they are no dif­fer­ent from the “ordi­nary”.

Salmon caviar

Despite the com­mer­cial val­ue of salmon as a red fish, its caviar is not so pop­u­lar. The taste is not very rich, thin, the col­or is orange, the eggs are large and with a thick shell. But the main prob­lem is that even in salt­ed form, its caviar is prac­ti­cal­ly not stored or trans­port­ed.

That is why it is extreme­ly rare in stores. Basi­cal­ly, it can be found for sale in places where this salmon fish is caught.

In gen­er­al, its caviar is com­pa­ra­ble in taste and appear­ance to that of pink salmon. In places of extrac­tion, it is also dis­tin­guished by a low price. How­ev­er, the same can be said about pink salmon — the dif­fer­ence between these two breeds is, in prin­ci­ple, min­i­mal and insignif­i­cant.

What is the difference between salmon and salmon

Both sock­eye salmon and salmon are char­ac­ter­ized by a pleas­ant taste and high con­tent of nutri­ents. How­ev­er, they are still dif­fer­ent.

Let’s com­pare these two types of red fish:

Thus, sock­eye salmon is bet­ter for those who want to enjoy the sub­tle range of red fish taste and its del­i­cate tex­ture. And it is also per­fect for inclu­sion in the win­ter diet, as it is rich in fat con­tain­ing vit­a­mins and trace ele­ments.

Salmon, in turn, is a fish for those who love a rich, rich taste. In addi­tion, it is excel­lent for cook­ing dish­es that require ther­mal pro­cess­ing, includ­ing steaks and steamed fil­lets.

It can­not be said that one breed is much bet­ter than anoth­er in all respects. It is rec­om­mend­ed to choose based on your own pref­er­ences by try­ing both.