Salmon Spawn Egg is a creative-only item that lets players spawn a live salmon anywhere in a Minecraft world without fishing or waiting. Using Salmon Spawn Egg on any block — floor, wall, or ceiling — instantly spawns the fish, which appears in one of three random sizes (small, medium, or large). Salmon Spawn Egg was added to Java Edition in 1.13 (snapshot 18w08b) and to Bedrock Edition in 1.4.0. Survival players can never obtain, craft, smelt, or loot a Salmon Spawn Egg; the egg appears only in the Creative inventory's spawn-egg tab. Salmon Spawn Egg stacks to 64 per slot and is non-renewable (a finite, command-only item that cannot be farmed endlessly).

Beyond spawning salmon for aquariums, fishing-farm decoration, or ocean-build ambience, Salmon Spawn Egg works inside a dispenser, which fires the egg and spawns the fish automatically — useful for mapmakers building underwater mob-arenas or decorative streams. Salmon Spawn Egg can also program a monster spawner through commands to produce salmon continuously. Mapmakers rely on Salmon Spawn Egg for adventure-map quests that need a guaranteed fish source, and aquascaping builders drop salmon into custom ponds without the randomness of fishing rods. Because salmon come in three sizes, spawning several Salmon Spawn Eggs in one pool creates a natural, varied shoal that a single rod-cast could never match.