Healthy Recipes: Easy Peasy Lemon “Squeezy” Salmon

Three things, you’ll find out quickly about me:

  1. That I’m a giant nerd, hence the title.
  2. I love to cook.
  3. I don’t like a lot of chit-chat before blogs get to the actual information I need; making me scroll down thousands of times to get to the actual recipe LOL so I’ll say as little as possible about my extra thoughts on this and get straight to it:

I like to just go with the flow of things when I’m cooking, I used to be very insecure about my cooking and needed to follow every step and read it at least 3 times before attempting it but these days I’m finding a lot more confidence in my sight and sense of smell and taste. As the child of an African woman known for “the touch” when she’s cooking… I try my best to embody that type of energy and confidence when I’m cooking too. Often times I’ll spend many nights consistently just looking up several different recipes or flavor inspos and then just trying different things out on my family as my guinea pigs.

So if you’d ask me why certain flavors go so well together, or why I’d think to put together this-and-that; like my mom, my response would probably be that I don’t actually have a clue… they just do 😉

Personally, my intake of food consists of a lot of African food: beans, rice, fish, poultry, etc. But other than that I try my best to follow the Mediterranean lifestyle— when it comes to eating. I say lifestyle because it’s not a diet. It means more vegetables, fruit, healthy fats like olive oil and nuts, lean proteins like salmon and other seafood, and less red meat and processed foods. This is a simple, healthy, and QUICK recipe done with my most favorite protein ever…. salmon.

Health Benefits

Salmon is an excellent source of healthy fats and protein. It can be used as a substitute in any dish for any red meat and is much healthier for you especially when bought wild versus farm-raised.

Some of the benefits that come from eating salmon regularly are:

  • Mood and cognition enhancement: salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids
  • Lowers risk of Diabetes: can induce sugar absorption which reduces blood sugar levels and the dangers of diabetes.
  • Lowers the Risk of Heart Disease
  • Lowers Inflammation
  • High in Vitamin D

Below, I’ve written out the recipe I use as my salmon night go-to recipe that I use every single week at least once a week. Healthy and delish! Enjoy! 

Ingredients

  • Fresh Salmon (Wild Caught if possible, if they don’t have it fresh they may have it frozen, check!)
  • Salt & Pepper
  • Garlic Powder
  • Lemon
  • Olive Oil
  • Dill (Just my preference, again I don’t know why flavors work together they just do LOL)

I put a lot of seasoning when I cook. They tend to fall off in the cooking process anyway so I say the more the merrier.

Directions

  • Cut salmon filets if you have a long filet about four fingers wide, then pat dry.

  • Season it up on both sides with the salt, pepper, garlic powder, and dill.

  • Cut a lemon in two halves and set aside

  • Pour olive oil in pan fully, enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Turn on Med-High heat.

  • When oil starts to bubble— it is hottttttt

  • Carefully place the filets skin down (leaving space between filets)

  • Immediately move the filets around lightly using tongs to get the olive oil and fish juicy so that it is less likely to stick to the pan.

  • Cover with a splatter screen.

  • Again, it will be hot, hot.

  • After 1-2 minutes squeeze fresh lemon on top of the filets and then cover again quickly.

  • Cook skin down 6-7 minutes (I like salmon done-done, so you can adjust this time to your taste)

If you like it more cooked like me:
After 6-7 minutes skin down flip salmon, squeeze the lemon on the other side (skin side is now up) and leave it on med-high heat for 2-3 minutes.
Then take it off the burner and set aside.


If you like it less cooked:
after 6 minutes (or a few minutes less) skins down, flip the salmon, squeeze the lemon, and then take it off the burner. The hot pan will do the rest of the cooking for that side. 

Wala!

Tip:

I like to use a cast-iron but I hear the lemon juices can ruin the iron on the pan if you use too much, if you use a cast iron try to just squeeze the lemon directly on the filets the best you can.

Serve with a side of Kale Salad and mini baked potatoes or onion-rice (basmati is my fave).  recipes coming soon