Baked Salmon and Vegetables

Baked Salmon and Vegetables is another one of my favorite go-to recipes when I have company over.  It’s fast, absolutely delicious, and easy to adapt the recipe and amount of food to the number of people coming over.  Salmon is a healthy fish, with plenty of benefits, and properly seasoned and selected even my picky eaters enjoy these vegetables.

When baking fish, there are a few things to keep in mind.  First and foremost, fresh fish makes a huge difference.  If you can smell the fish, it isn’t fresh any more!  This recipe works with any type of fish, but salmon tends to have it’s own heavy flavor, where a fish like halibut will need additional seasoning to really stand out.

The other thing, and I cannot stress this enough, is to be very careful about overcooking the recipe.  It only takes about 10 to 11 minutes to back a regular filet of salmon.  Anything past that, and the fish will quickly get rubbery and tough.  Properly cooked salmon will flake easily with a fork, and I encourage you to check the progress of the fish the first time or two until you have a feel for your oven and heat accuracy.

Seasoning is always to taste.  I kept this simple, but feel free to add whatever you like, in the quantities that you prefer.  I use the same seasoning over the vegetables as the fish, but you certainly don’t have to do so.  As use as many or as few vegetables as you like!  It’s hard to write quantities here.

Let’s cook!

Ingredients for baked salmon and vegetables:

• 2-4 medium filets of salmon
• 1 medium zucchini
• ½ bunch of asparagus
• 1 yellow squash
• Garlic powder
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika
• 1-2 Tbs. olive oil

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Cover a large baking sheet with a single sheet of aluminum foil. Prepare the rest of the meal as the oven preheats, so the fish has time to come to room temperature.

Step 2: Slice the zucchini and squash into thin, bit sized pieces. Trim the hard ends off of the asparagus. Lay out the salmon filets on the edges or corners of the sheet, and fill in the middle with vegetables.  Lightly brush or drizzle the oil over fish and vegetables.

Step 3: Season to taste.  I used about 1 – 2 tsp of salt, pepper, and paprika, and probably 2 – 3 tsp of garlic powder.

Step 4: Bake for 11 minutes at 450 degrees F, checking at about 9 minutes. Be careful not to overcook!

Enjoy!