Salmon is one of my favorite dishes to cook for dinner. This Quick and Easy Baked salmon is my go-to way of cooking salmon for a weeknight dinner. However, before I learned how long and what type of salmon to buy, it was perhaps my least favorite thing to cook. I would often overcook the salmon, dry it out, it was always a guessing game for how long to bake the salmon in the oven. Needless to say, I would often grab ground beef in the grocery store rather than a salmon fillet for ease of cooking. Thankfully, I kept buying salmon fillets, kept trying different recipes, and I finally found a way to cook salmon that is amazing! Amazingly quick and easy.

What I like the most about this salmon recipe is you are able to tailor it for each person at the table. As you are cutting individual fillet steaks for individual plating, you have the option to reduce or increase the sodium and pepper for each person. The best example I have is myself. I have to have less sodium on everything I eat to combat high-blood pressure, so in this example I would not put any salt on my salmon fillet. This reduces the sodium by a ton for me, yet doesn’t affect the amount of salt I can put on for the family. Win-win, I get to maintain my blood-pressure and my family gets to eat good-tasting fish.

Tips for cooking Quick and Easy Baked Salmon

Steelhead not Atlantic Salmon – If you have a choice, then buy steelhead fish not atlantic salmon. Atlantic is probably the cheapest, but it is the easiest to overcook, doesn’t taste as good, and is pretty much always farmed. Nothing against atlantic salmon, it is just hard to cook without screwing it up in my opinion. Steelhead is a great fish that is orange in color like salmon, and is a ton oilier. It is much more forgiving of overcooking, and just tastes better.
Cut the salmon in thin 1-inch strips – This by far is what changed from me cooking bad salmon to cooking great tasting salmon. In Japan, the salmon is cut at a diagonal with the flesh on both sides of the fish and skin on the bottom. What this allows you to do is create an equal thickness of your salmon fillets. That means all of your salmon is going to cook at the same time.
Kosher salt – I prefer Kosher salt because it has big chunks of salt that just taste better without having that table salt taste.
Broiled not baked – The trick for me is broiling not baking. That way you get to eat much quicker! With your salmon cut thin, that allows you to cook faster and more consistent.

What to eat with baked salmon

Spinach – I prefer to eat baked salmon with a stir-fried green vegetable. Garlic spinach, bok choy, broccoli, they are all great with baked salmon.
Rice – I feel like you need a starch with salmon because it is lighter than meat. I always choose steamed rice, but a baked potato, or wild rice is great too.
Pilaf – If you don’t feel like rice, then pilaf is what I grew up eating salmon with too.

If you have more time, or what a baked salmon that is sweeter than I would try Teriyaki Salmon or this Baked Salmon with Brown Sugar. I also really really like this way of cooking Shioyaki Salmon from Justonecookbook.