I have been really bad lately about not cooking. I have been trying to get in more time at the gym, typically going on the way home from work, and by dinnertime I'm tired and don't feel like coming up with something for dinner, so we resort to the easy, less healthy meals. I have decided to make more of an effort to plan my meals in advance, try to coordinate ingredients for the week, and even prep part of the meal in advance. For example, I have several meals planned for this week that include rice, so I cooked a bigger pot of it and put the rest in the fridge for later this week. (I recently discovered how much I like brown rice, and now I prefer it over white. Did you know brown rice (non-instant) takes 45 minutes to cook? Making it in larger batches can be a big time saver.) Same thing can be done for other starches like pasta and potatoes as well as cooked vegetables. Hopefully I can keep this up healthy meal planning long enough for it to become a habit!
I haven't had fish in a while, so I thought fresh salmon would be a good start to my healthy meal planning. I paired it with some brown rice, glazed carrots, and corn on the cob. (Both the carrots and corn on the cob were done in new ways also, and worthy of a quick blog post, but I didn't think to take pictures of those processes! Drat!) This is another idea I saw on Pinterest, but I've seen it before. Publix had cuts of salmon on sale this week, which is what I originally intended to pick up, but it turns out that buying it by the pound with the skin still on was still cheaper. Supposedly, cooking it with the skin on is healthier, too, because the healthy omega fats that you hear about are contained mostly in the skin and are released during cooking - a healthy benefit that would be lost if the skin was removed first. The skin also helps hold the fish together while cooking, and can usually be peeled off easily after it's cooked.
Makes 1 foil pack
Ingredients
- fresh salmon (only 1 piece per foil pack)
- fresh lemon
- pepper
- butter
- foil
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Lay salmon (skin side down) on a large piece of foil. Sprinkle with pepper. Slice lemon and place on top. Add a few pats of butter on top. Wrap tightly, and place in a pan (to catch drips if it leaks.) Bake for 25+ minutes, until cooked through. (Salmon should turn from a clear pink to an opaque pink when it is cooked.)
When I checked my salmon at 25 minutes, it was still uncooked on the outside. So I turned the oven up to 400°F and it still took another 15 minutes to bake. The salmon was a larger piece, though (1lb), so smaller pieces might be cooked enough at 25 minutes. I would recommend just checking at 25 minutes, but allow yourself more time if it needs to cook longer. You don't want to overcook fish if you can help it, because it tends to dry it out, but the nice thing about the foil pack and butter is that it traps in the moisture (essentially steaming it) and it doesn't dry out as easily. Also, if you use salmon with the skin still on, the skin will stick to the foil and peel right off of the meat. And foil makes the cleanup so much easier!
Preheat oven to 350°F. Lay salmon (skin side down) on a large piece of foil. Sprinkle with pepper. Slice lemon and place on top. Add a few pats of butter on top. Wrap tightly, and place in a pan (to catch drips if it leaks.) Bake for 25+ minutes, until cooked through. (Salmon should turn from a clear pink to an opaque pink when it is cooked.)
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| What it looked like before wrapping it up |
When I checked my salmon at 25 minutes, it was still uncooked on the outside. So I turned the oven up to 400°F and it still took another 15 minutes to bake. The salmon was a larger piece, though (1lb), so smaller pieces might be cooked enough at 25 minutes. I would recommend just checking at 25 minutes, but allow yourself more time if it needs to cook longer. You don't want to overcook fish if you can help it, because it tends to dry it out, but the nice thing about the foil pack and butter is that it traps in the moisture (essentially steaming it) and it doesn't dry out as easily. Also, if you use salmon with the skin still on, the skin will stick to the foil and peel right off of the meat. And foil makes the cleanup so much easier!
The Verdict
Very tasty! It had a nice mild flavor and wasn't dried out. It could have used a little more pepper (or maybe even a mix of different peppers instead of just black pepper), and maybe squeezed the lemons on top just a little before baking. This dish was healthy, easy to make, and had easy cleanup. I would probably make this recipe again, but I will definitely use the foil pack technique again!
