This is one of those dishes that looks much more impressive than it is. Baked salmon salad with quinoa and cherry tomatoes is surprisingly simple to make. Quinoa takes about an hour to make and can utilize a wide assortment of fruits and vegetables that you have on hand. And baking a salmon merely requires lemons, olive oil, and about 12-15 minutes in the oven.
while packing a lot of flavor and protein. If you already have the quinoa prepared ahead of time, you can bake the salmon and put the salad together in no time at all!
I decided to make this for lunch a couple of times this week. Salmon was a great deal, I had Spicy Sweet Potato Quinoa in the fridge, and cherry tomatoes were ripening on the vine. So, it seemed only fitting to combine all of these together.
Plus, with everything that can be prepared ahead of time, it was incredibly easy just to toss together on the run. It's maybe the easiest lunch meal that I've made in weeks!
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Variations of Salmon Salad
A lot of my recipes come out of utilizing leftovers and making one dish stretch as far as possible. This week most of my meals are revolving around quinoa.
The first time I had the salmon whole, much like a steak, on top of the lettuce and quinoa. In subsequent recipes, I paired it down a little bit more and shredded the salmon for a more traditional salad. Either way it's absolutely delicious! Although salmon tends to look its best while fresh. And, while still edible for several days after cooking, doesn't quite have that sheen after the first day.
I also greatly enjoy making these kinds of salads. I'm constantly making salmon, scrambling eggs, or frying up tofu.
The rich, oily taste of salmon pairs well with the nutty flavor of quinoa and garden vegetables that you have around. I have cherry tomatoes and mesclun ripening at the moment, so I tossed this recipe in with lemon baked salmon and Spicy Sweet Potato Quinoa.
Cook Sweet Potato Quinoa. This takes less than an hour and requires a rice cooker or stove. You can also easily create a different flavor profile or utilize the produce that you have on hand. I almost always keep a batch of quinoa in the fridge for exactly this purpose.
Bake Salmon
Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place salmon skin-side down on a griddle or baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and add a dash of salt and pepper. Slice a lemon and place evenly on top of the salmon.
Bake salmon for 12-15 minutes, or until the salmon begins to flake. Salmon tends to be cooked when it loses the bright color and you can take a fork and it easily separates. Larger cuts of salmon may take upwards of 20 minutes. Smaller, individual portions may take less time. It's best to begin checking after 10 minutes of cooking and adjust the cooking time to the doneness of your filet.
Assemble Salad
Place a serving of quinoa along the bottom of a plate. Sprinkle with lettuce. Add salmon. Top with diced cherry tomatoes.
Tips, Tricks, & Notes
For more information on baking salmon, check out my articles on The Fundamentals of Oven Baked Salmon and Barbecue Salmon. I'm particularly fond of cooking on a well-seasoned cast iron griddle because you don't need additional oil or foil to to keep it from sticking. But there are certainly ways around this if you don't want to dedicate an entire cast iron pan to fish! Cooking salmon is also more of an art than a science. No two filets are going to cook in the exact same amount of time and there are definitely some tips and tricks to nailing the cook on fish.
This Page Contains Edited Images
As a general rule, I don't like to edit my images and I am firmly against alteration of images in food blogs. It's not faking entirely is just as rampant a problem in the recipe realm as anything else! Cooking is a very visual art and you can tell when a lot of foods are cooked based on the color. So, when this is altered and you can't use the coloration as a gauge, it makes it quite difficult to follow some recipes. I have an entire article about Food Styling and Unrealistic Expectations of Recipes.
Because of this, I try very hard not to alter any of my photos. I like to take photos with natural sunlight during the day. Ordinarily this is very true to color and I don't edit the photos at all. However, since my place is very warm with a lot of yellow lighting, sometimes my camera overcompensates and ends up with an unnatural blue tone. In the following images on this page, I adjusted the levels and hue to try and make this more true to color. In the interest of transparency, these are the before and after photos.
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