Salmon Chopped Salad

Our family has recently rediscovered cabbage, so we’ve been eating cabbage salads every week.  I’m not sure how we ever forgot about cabbage, but the crunch, the color, the healthiness – it’s really a great base for a summery salad.  Last week I shared my chopped chicken salad, this is sort of a variation on that, but it has a little more ginger and a little less peanut.  I made it for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law for a light, summery dinner, but it’d also be a great lunch.

It’s also a good time to point out that I’ve started measuring lime juice in tablespoon and teaspoons recently and not in actual limes.  I much prefer fresh limes, but in the recent lime crisis, I just can’t afford $1.79 per lime, so I bought a big jug of lime juice and I’ve been using that for everything except gin & tonics, which call for true lime wedges.  I typically think a lime yields 2T of juice, but I also don’t really measure things like lime juice with any accuracy anyway.

Salmon Chopped Salad

for the salmon:

1lb. salmon filets (for me, this usually means 2 filets, and I cut each in half to make 4 equal pieces)

1T lime juice (half a lime)

2T soy sauce

2 cloves of garlic

small cube of fresh ginger

1/2 tsp sriracha

salt and pepper

for the salad:

half a head of purple cabbage

6ish cups of spinach (I like there to be about the same amount of cabbage and spinach)

4 green onions

3 carrots

1 mango

handful of cilantro

3T toasted sesame seeds

for the dressing:

2T lime

1/3 cup olive oil

2 tsp sesame oil

1/3 cup soy sauce

2T honey

1T garlic powder

1T ginger (I use granulated)

1 tsp (or more) sriracha

1. Preheat the oven to 400.  Mince the garlic and ginger.  Stir the lime juice, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and sriracha together to create a glaze.  Brush the salmon on both sides with the glaze and create a packet of foil to bake the fish in.  Bake the fish for 8-10 minutes, until the fish flakes easily with a fork.

2. Chop the cabbage, carrots, green onions, and spinach.  Peel and dice the mango.  Toss together in a large serving bowl.  Chop the cilantro and sprinkle on top.

3. Combine the dressing ingredients together and whisk until well combined.  Serve the salad with the warm fish on top, drizzled with dressing, topped with sesame seeds.

Nutrition: 539 calories for 1/4 of the salmon, salad, and dressing.  25g fat, 18g sugar, 33g protein.

 

Edited to add:

The lime crisis is over!  Use real limes – they’re cheap again!

 

Miso Salmon

In the past decade of dating/being married to my husband he’s made a lot of requests in the food department.  I enjoy a challenge and, with the exception of one ill-conceived and poorly executed pesto, he’s always been happy to eat everything I make.  Lately he’s suggested more seafood and I have been trying some new fish dishes.  We cook with shrimp a lot, but other fish is not my wheelhouse – I am not experienced enough to make substitutes well based on what’s available.  I also have been generally opposed to salmon – it seems like salmon got trendy in the early 2000s and it was everywhere and generally poorly prepared and I just got tired of it.  I never buy it, but it was on sale at the grocery store and Ross wanted more fish, so I gave it a try.

This dish might be the single easiest dinner I’ve ever made.  It takes 3 minutes of prep the night before and 10 minutes of cooking the day of.  That’s it.  I’ve served it with rice and with quinoa, usually with grilled asparagus on the side.  It’s insanely good.  The miso paste may be hard to find, I located it at Whole Foods.  It’s fermented soybean paste – so it stays good forever in the refrigerator.  Whether you’re a long time salmon lover or a salmon skeptic, give this a try.  Mostly because you can make it in 11 minutes.  You do need to marinate it overnight, so keep that in mind.

Miso Salmon

adapted from Keepers by Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion

2/3 cup red miso paste

2 Tbsp red wine vinegar

3 Tbsp brown sugar

1lb of salmon filets (at my grocery store, this means 2 long filets so I cut eat in half to get four pieces)

1. Place the miso paste, vinegar, and brown sugar in a large ziploc bag or tupperware and mix together until combined.  Add the fish, making sure to coat all sides, and place in the refrigerator overnight.

2. When you’re ready to eat, line a rimmed baking sheet with foil, spray or brush with a little olive oil, and heat the oven to 400.  Arrange the salmon pieces on the foil skin side downand bake for 6 minutes, flip them over, and bake an additional 4 minutes, until you’re just able to flake the fish with a spatula.