Stupid Simple Skinny Salmon | Re-Post

Hello wonderful people!! I’m currently traveling and can’t wait to share my trip recap with you when I’m back! In this post about my top skin foods, I promised you a tutorial on my method for making salmon, so in this post I’m going to show you. I have to admit, I’m a little hesitant to even call this a “recipe” because it’s sooooo freakin simple, but simple is always the most relevant quality of a recipe for me when I’m cooking. The simple dishes and preparations are the things that become staples in my meal rotation. You all know how I feel about fats and different kinds in cooking, so one of my biggest pet peeves is restaurant dishes dripping in oil. I don’t avoid oil or fats by any means, but most restaurants just aren’t using good ones. More often than not, it’s a cheap vegetable oil like soybean or canola that gets thrown into a pan at an extremely high heat in about triple the amount you’d use when cooking for yourself. Salmon is such a fatty fish already (the good fats!) so it renders a lot of high quality delicious oil when cooking. I never understand why restaurants add a shit ton of gross oil on top of that. One way to avoid needing oil when cooking salmon is to bake it instead of cooking it in a pan or skillet. It will stick in a skillet, so the oil is necessary to avoid that. When baking, that’s not an issue and it’s much cleaner because you can line the baking sheet with parchment like I have done in the photo below and throw it away when you’re finished. Here is a step by step description of what exactly I do:

STUPID SIMPLE SKINNY SALMON

1) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

2) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

3) Place salmon on the parchment lined baking sheet.  I like using approx 5-6oz fillets – cooking too large of a piece will make it tougher for an even doneness because the outer edges will cook faster than the thick center. More often than not, I just ask the guy at the fish counter for roughly 1lb of salmon cut into 6 oz fillets. Otherwise, I just eyeball it and cut it myself.

4) Now here’s the super simple flavor secret. Sprinkle a generous amount of coarse sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and rosemary on top of the salmon. That’s it. No oil, no sauce, no marinating. Just a healthy amount of those spices. I like to sprinkle a bunch on top, flip it over on all sides and pick up the remnants that fall off. The spices stick really nicely to the salmon and infuse it in the oven with a delicious aromatic flavor. You can tweak it up and do whatever you like though – a squeeze of lemon and dill, fennel oregano, or parsley would be delicious too. It’s really up to you!

5) Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes depending on your desired done-ness.

6) Using a spatula, put it on your plate, and eat it. I always eat an avocado with my salmon OR an avocado salad. The salmon is always tender and flaky because all of it’s natural oils are released when it cooks and keeps it moist. MMMMM!Ok! I hope that helps some of you who may not know how to cook fish or have never tried have a super simple and non-intimidating way to start! Try it and let me know what you think!