Cedar Plank Salmon on the Ooni Pro

Cedar plank Salmon is one of those summer-time treats that really shines in the Ooni Pro (formerly the Uuni Pro). We love cooking with wood as a fuel, but using a cedar plank as a cooking surface is something else. In this cook, we used lump charcoal so we could easily get the oven up to speed fast. Be sure to check out the video, but read on for more details.

The first you are going to want to do is get that cedar plank soaking in water. If you skip this step, your plank may end up just being another piece of charcoal. And directly touching your salmon, it would burn it beyond recognition. Let it soak for at least an hour (more time soaking won’t hurt it).

At this point it might be a good idea to make whatever marinade or sauce you would like with your salmon.

Once the cedar plank is soaking and the salmon is marinating, it’s time to head out to the Ooni Pro. Time it so that the charcoal is pre-heated by the time the plank is done soaking. So, if you plan to soak the plank for 30 minutes, that’s just about the right amount of time to heat the charcoal up. If you want to soak it longer, wait a little bit before heading out to light up the charcoal.

A little bit of lump charcoal goes a long way, so don’t over-do it. We filled a large charcoal chimney about a quarter of the way. While that heated up, we also poured about the same amount of unlit charcoal into the wood/charcoal tray of the Ooni Pro. Once the chimney charcoal was good and hot, we poured it on top of the unlit charcoal. This lets us get heat going right away when we pour it into the oven, but the unlit charcoal also begins to heat up as well – giving a longer burn with sustained high heat.

The Ooni Pro then started to heat up. Because we only had one cedar plank, we thought we would try cooking on cast iron. So, while it was heating up, we put the Sizzler Pan (a cast iron skillet also available from Ooni) in the oven to pre-heat.

When the oven got up to about 450 degrees Fahrenheit, we were ready to get cooking. We took the Sizzler Pan out to make room for the cedar plank. Since it was out, we decided to oil the pan and put in one piece of the salmon. Then we slid the cedar plank into the oven about 10 or 11 inches from the flame. We didn’t want it to blacken too quickly. Then we slid the cast iron in next to it and put the oven door back on.

About 6 minutes later, we turned both the cast iron pan and the cedar plank around to get a more even cook. We aren’t sure this is necessary, since the Ooni Pro distributes the heat so well across the top of the oven, but we didn’t want to chance it, so we turned the salmon.

Another 6-7 minutes later, the salmon was ready. Time of cook will be different with different oven setup and different amounts of charcoal, so understand when salmon is done and watch for it.

The salmon turned out beautifully. The sauce/marinade caramelized nicely (thanks to the brown sugar) and the salmon flaked, but held together nicely.

Using the Ooni Pro was a pleasure for this cook. The temperature control and even dry heat from the charcoal made it easy to predict when to turn the salmon and when it was about done. The cedar plank definitely left its mark on the flavor profile of the salmon as well. Combined with the slight smoke from the plank as it dried out and began to burn, the cedar plank salmon did not disappoint.

We recommend the Ooni Pro highly. We might classify this not so much as just a pizza oven, but rather an outside oven. Its versatility makes it a go-to ‘round here at WoodCookers central.

Here is a list of the equipment we used in this cook:

Ooni Pro – BUY HERE

Ooni Sizzler Pan – BUY HERE

Cedar planks – BUY HERE