In episode 44 we are making Baked Cajun Salmon for dinner. Susie shares this super easy 20 minute dinner that is perfect for any weeknight! If you have a well stocked spice cabinet you can absolutely make this salmon! Pair it with a side dish of roasted green veggies and some dirty rice for an excellent dinner recipe.
Transcript
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Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I am your host, Susie Weinrich.
Susie Weinrich: All right. I have such a killer recipe for you today. If you have a really well-stocked spice cabinet and your family likes fish or seafood, you’re going to love this recipe. You can get it on the table in about 20 minutes. It’s mostly hands-off cooking, which is an extra bonus when you’ve got your hands full.
Tips and Tricks: Tonight we’re making Cajun Salmon for dinner. You are especially going to love it if you like Cajun flavors, which we love Cajun flavors here at this house. I always say that smoked paprika is probably one of my very favorite spices.
This Cajun salmon definitely has a strong flavor of smoked paprika. So I don’t have a lot of tips for this recipe. Really, it’s pretty much straightforward. You want to make sure that you’re buying fresh salmon. The recipe calls for skinless salmon. But really when you bake the salmon, it flakes off the skin pretty well. So it’s not totally necessary to have skinless because honestly, sometimes I find it hard to find skinless salmon at the grocery store.
Cajun Salmon Recipe: So let’s get on to making this full recipe. It’s so easy. So you’re going to start by preheating the oven to 400 degrees. Then make sure that you have an oven rack that’s right in the center of your oven. Then you’re going grab a large baking sheet, probably a large-rimmed baking sheet, and give it a good spray with a non-stick cooking spray. Or you can grease it with just olive oil or canola oil. Canola oil. That’s hard to say. Then you are going to make your Cajun seasoning mix. So this is where your spice cabinet’s going to come in.
In a small bowl, you want to mix together two teaspoons of brown sugar, one teaspoon each of smoked paprika, kosher salt, garlic powder, and onion powder. Then you’re going to do half a teaspoon each of black pepper and dried oregano and a quarter teaspoon each of cayenne pepper and dried thyme. Now, mix that all together. The one tip I have here is whenever you’re making a seasoning mix that has brown sugar, you want to make sure that that brown sugar gets mixed all the way down in and you don’t have any clumps left. Also, if you like more of a spicy flavor in your Cajun seasoning, add a little bit more cayenne pepper or some red pepper flakes.
Now you’re going to take about one and a half tablespoons of olive oil and brush that on all sides of the salmon. Now again, if you have skin-on salmon, you don’t have to worry about putting any olive oil on the skin side because you’re not going to put any seasoning on that side. So rub the olive oil on all sides if you’ve got skinless. Then you’re going to sprinkle that Cajun seasoning on all sides of your salmon. You’ll place the filets on that prepared baking sheet and pop it in the oven for about 12 to 14 minutes. You always want to cook your salmon until it is firm, but it’s not dried out.
Salmon only needs to be cooked to 135 degrees internal temperature. So if you have an instant-read thermometer, this is a great time to use it and make sure that you’re not overcooking your salmon.
When you serve your Cajun salmon, I have an excellent recipe for a Cajun aioli that makes a great dipping sauce for your Cajun salmon. Not necessary, but if you’ve got a little extra time, it’s actually a super easy recipe.
As far as side dishes go, I recommend a roasted green veggie that you can just cook in the oven right alongside the salmon, so maybe roasted asparagus, roasted Brussels sprouts, or roasted broccoli. Then add rice or a pilaf on the side. Zatarans is a brand that you can buy in the store. They have just boxed dirty rice or Cajun rice that you can buy that would be excellent on the side. Or on Mom’s Dinner, I have a recipe for a Skillet of Dirty Rice and Beans that would be so good with this Cajun salmon. The dirty rice and beans have a little bit of smoked beef sausage in it that would just be an amazing addition to this dinner. So whatever you choose to put together, your Cajun salmon is going to be the star and it’s going to be delicious.
That does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. As always, I will link all of the recipes that I talked about in this episode right in the show notes for you, so when you are ready to make dinner, you’ll have all of the recipes you need.
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Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier.
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