8 Quick and Easy Salmon Recipes for Dinner

If you’re like me, salmon is what you buy when you want dinner to feel like an occasion and still be on the table before you lose interest.

I have overcooked more fillets than I’d like to admit.

What separates the ones I’m proud of from the ones I serve anyway is almost never the fish.

It’s whatever went on top of it.

1. Lemon Soy Glazed Salmon

Soy sauce, mirin, lemon and brown sugar, thickened with cornstarch and cooked in a cast iron pan.

Twenty minutes, serves four.

Mirin is the ingredient that makes this taste like a restaurant glaze and not just sweetened soy sauce.

It keeps for months once opened.

Char the lemon halves in the pan while the fish rests and squeeze them over at the table.

2. Maple Pecan Salmon

Maple syrup, brown mustard and chopped pecans over salmon, roasted with asparagus and lemon on one sheet pan.

Thirty minutes, serves four.

Pecans burn faster than fish cooks, so add them partway through and not at the start.

A pinch of cayenne goes in with the maple, and it is what keeps the whole thing from tasting like dessert.

3. Broiled Salmon with Molasses Glaze

Molasses and honey with paprika, chili powder, garlic and a little cinnamon.

Twenty minutes, serves four.

The cinnamon sounds wrong with fish and it is doing real work, rounding out the molasses so the glaze is more than sweet.

Broiling is fast and unforgiving, so stay in the room.

Watch the glaze, not the clock, because sugar under a broiler goes dark in seconds.

4. Grilled Honey Lemon Butter Salmon

Twelve minutes for three servings, with honey, lemon juice, butter and parsley.

Honey on a grill burns quickly, so brush it on in the last couple of minutes once the fish is nearly done.

Oil the grates, not the fish.

5. Honey Garlic Salmon

A five-ingredient sauce of honey, garlic, soy sauce and lemon juice, cooked in one pan.

Twenty minutes, serves four.

Spoon the thickened sauce back over the fillets before they go to the table, since most of it stays in the pan otherwise.

6. 15 Minute Herby Salmon with Parmesan Crust

A crust of Parmesan, butter, dill, parsley and garlic goes straight onto the fillets before they bake.

Fifteen minutes, and the recipe stretches to six servings, which makes it the one to cook when the table is full.

Use fresh dill and parsley here.

The crust is mostly herbs, so dried ones leave it tasting of cheese and nothing else.

7. Pan-Seared Salmon with Lemon Butter

Ten minutes, serves four, and five ingredients: salmon, butter, lemon, parsley, salt and pepper.

The butter browns in the pan and the lemon goes in at the end.

This is the method worth learning before any of the others.

Skin side down first, and leave it alone until it releases on its own.

If it sticks when you go to flip it, it is not ready.

8. Grilled Salmon With Crispy Skin

Three ingredients: skin-on salmon, avocado oil, salt and pepper.

The recipe card says five minutes of prep and ten to twenty on the grill, so call it twenty minutes, serving four to six.

Buy skin-on fillets for this one, because the skin is the whole point.

Dry it thoroughly and start it skin side down on a hot, oiled grate.

Tips for Cooking Salmon

Take the fillets out of the fridge fifteen minutes before cooking so they are not fridge-cold in the middle.

Pat the surface completely dry, because wet fish will not brown.

Cook skin side down for most of the time in a pan, since the skin protects the flesh from the direct heat.

Salmon is done at around 125°F to 130°F for medium, and it keeps cooking after it leaves the heat.

The flake test works too, with the fish separating easily but still looking slightly translucent in the center.

Notes on Buying and Storing

Farmed salmon is fattier and more forgiving, while wild is leaner and overcooks faster, so take a few minutes off for wild fillets.

Frozen fillets are fine and often fresher than the counter, and they thaw overnight in the fridge.

Center-cut pieces are an even thickness and cook more predictably than tail pieces.

Cooked salmon keeps three days in the fridge and is very good cold, flaked into a salad or a rice bowl.

Reheating almost always overcooks it, so eating the leftovers cold is the better plan.