What salmon is in Minecraft
Salmon is a passive fish mob that swims in rivers and cold oceans. Kill one and it drops raw salmon, a food item you can eat right away or cook for a bigger meal. It is one of the easiest foods to stock up on early, since most starting areas have a river running through them.
Salmon come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. The size only changes how the fish looks. A small salmon and a large salmon drop the same raw salmon and behave the same way. Large salmon are big enough to be hard to miss, which makes them easy targets when you are short on food.
Like other fish, salmon cannot survive on land. If one flops out of the water it starts taking damage and dies within a few seconds, so they stay in their schools and keep to the water.
Where to find salmon
Salmon spawn in water, and they favor cold and temperate biomes. The most reliable places to look are:
- Rivers and frozen rivers
- Regular oceans and their deep variants
- Cold oceans and deep cold oceans
- Frozen oceans and deep frozen oceans
Rivers are the easiest source. Almost every world has one near spawn, and salmon gather there in small schools. If you build near a river, you have a food supply a few blocks from your door.
You will not find salmon in warm or lukewarm oceans. Those biomes spawn tropical fish, pufferfish, and cod instead. If you are diving in bright blue water full of coral, you are in the wrong place for salmon.
How to catch and collect salmon
There are three ways to get salmon, and each one suits a different goal.
Killing them for raw salmon
The simplest method is to hit a salmon until it dies. It drops one raw salmon, and a player kill also gives a little experience. If the salmon is on fire when it dies, for example from a Fire Aspect sword or a flaming arrow, it drops cooked salmon instead, which saves you a trip to the furnace.
Fishing for salmon
You can also reel salmon in with a fishing rod. Raw salmon is one of the common catches in the fish pool, alongside cod. Fishing is slower than spearing a school by hand, but it works from dry land or from a boat, and you do not have to chase anything underwater.
Scooping a salmon into a bucket
Use a water bucket on a salmon and you get a bucket of salmon. Place that bucket anywhere and the fish pops back out into the new water, alive and well. Bucketed fish never despawn, so this is how you move a salmon into a home aquarium or a decorative pond.
Cooking salmon and its food value
Raw salmon is edible, but it is a weak food. It restores one hunger point, half a drumstick on the hunger bar, and almost no saturation, so it does not keep you full for long. It works in a pinch, but cook it whenever you can.
Cooked salmon is a different story. It restores six hunger points, three full drumsticks, plus a healthy amount of saturation, which puts it among the better foods you can get without farming crops or hunting larger animals.
To cook raw salmon, put it in a furnace, a smoker, or on a lit campfire. A smoker cooks it about twice as fast as a furnace, so it is worth building one if you eat a lot of fish. A campfire cooks up to four items at once without any fuel, which is handy at a riverside fishing camp.
Salmon versus cod
Salmon and cod are the two plain fish in Minecraft, and players often mix them up. They behave almost the same: both swim in schools, both can be caught, bucketed, or killed for food, and both work for taming cats. The real differences come down to where they live and how they look.
Cooked salmon restores six hunger points, the same as cooked cod, so as a meal they are even. The split is the biome. Cod prefer normal and cold oceans and never appear in rivers, while salmon are the river fish and also range into the coldest oceans. If you are standing on a riverbank, the fish you see are salmon. Out in open ocean you may find both.
Salmon also come in three visible sizes, while cod are always one size. The size has no effect on drops or behavior, but a large salmon is a clear, easy target when your food bar is running low.
Other uses for raw salmon
Salmon is not only food. Raw salmon is one of the two fish that cats and ocelots care about, the other being raw cod.
Taming and breeding cats
To tame a stray cat in a village or a swamp hut, hold raw salmon or raw cod and wait for the cat to approach, then feed it until hearts appear. Once you have two tamed cats, feeding them raw salmon again puts them into love mode so you can raise a kitten.
Gaining an ocelot’s trust
Ocelots in the jungle cannot be tamed, but you can still win them over. Hold raw cod or raw salmon and let an ocelot come close to feed. Build up enough trust and it stops fleeing from you, which makes jungle trips far less jumpy.
Salmon behavior and mechanics
Salmon swim in loose schools and try to keep their distance from you. In open water they scatter when you swim at them, so cornering a school against a wall or in shallow water makes them much easier to catch.
They are also prey. Axolotls hunt salmon and other fish, and guardians near ocean monuments will attack them too. If you are farming salmon close to an axolotl, expect a little competition for the catch.
Schools spawn together, so where you see one salmon you usually see several. That makes a single river bend a better hunting spot than open water, where the fish spread out and bolt the moment you get close. Push a school into a corner or a one-block channel and you can clear it in seconds.
A salmon that is not named or bucketed will eventually despawn once you wander far enough away, the same as most passive mobs. If you want a specific salmon to stick around, name it with a name tag or keep it in a bucket until you place it where you want it.
Tips and common mistakes
- Cook before you eat. Raw salmon barely dents your hunger bar, while cooked salmon is a real meal. Carry a campfire or smoker on long trips.
- Use a river as your pantry. Building near a river gives you a steady, low-effort food source a few steps from home.
- Bring a bucket if you want a pet fish. The only way to keep a salmon alive in your own pond is to bucket it. Killing and replacing it does not work, because the dropped item is food, not a live mob.
- Watch the biome. For salmon specifically, head to rivers or cold oceans, not the warm tropical water where cod and tropical fish live.
- Do not plan to breed them. Fish cannot be bred in Minecraft, so your supply always comes from finding more salmon, never from raising them.
Frequently asked questions
Can you tame a cat with salmon?
Yes. Raw salmon and raw cod both work for taming and breeding cats. Hold the fish, wait for the cat to come to you, and feed it until hearts appear.
How much hunger does cooked salmon restore?
Cooked salmon restores six hunger points, or three drumsticks on the hunger bar, plus a good amount of saturation. Raw salmon only restores one hunger point, so cooking it is almost always worth the time.
Where do salmon spawn in Minecraft?
Salmon spawn in rivers, frozen rivers, and the colder ocean biomes, including normal, cold, and frozen oceans and their deep versions. They do not spawn in warm or lukewarm oceans.
Can salmon be bred?
No. Fish cannot be bred in Minecraft. To get more salmon you have to find and catch more of them. The closest thing to keeping one is scooping it into a bucket of water.
How do you get cooked salmon without a furnace?
Cook raw salmon on a lit campfire or in a smoker, or kill a salmon while it is on fire. A salmon that dies burning drops cooked salmon directly, with no cooking step needed.
Is raw salmon safe to eat in Minecraft?
Raw salmon will not poison you, so it is safe to eat in an emergency. The catch is that it barely fills your hunger bar, so it is far weaker than the cooked version. Treat it as a backup, not a main food.
Do salmon despawn?
A wild salmon can despawn if you travel far from it. One that you have placed from a bucket will not despawn, and naming a salmon with a name tag also keeps it from disappearing.
Salmon is the food you fall back on before steak and bread are easy to come by. A river near your base, a bucket for the cat you want to tame, and a campfire to cook on are usually all you need to put salmon to work.