Lemon & Dijon Baked Salmon

We are most definetly the quintesetial chicken for dinner kind of family. I love finding new ways to cook it and its always been my safe go to source of protein. But like everyone else sometimes you get tired of chicken for dinner everynight. 

So the other night I thought it be fun to try something new. Salmon! Usually I make salmon during the summer snice its easy to just pop it in some foil with veggies and throw the packet on the grill . during the winter months this would not be my go to source of protein but I needed a change! 

The whole day while moe was at work I was thinking of  a super heathy salmon dinner and couldn’t wait to run to the store to get this meal started…cause well I much rather have spent my day with logan at the library than dragging him to the store with me 2 weeks in a row.

Moe gets home and off to the market I go on the hunt of some great salmon…this was actually not hard to find…and I love that our local store has fresh cuts of fish.  

Now salmon and any type of fish sometimes makes me nervous…how do you know its fully cooked…what if what you think is fresh really isnt so fresh….what if this meal is a complete bomb of a meal and makes the whole house smell like fish and doesn’t even taste as good as I thought it would…these my friends were the thoughts that go through my head before cooking last nights dinner. 

I wasnt just gonna plop these cuts of fish onto a pan and pop it in the oven to bake, nope were gonna marinate these babies. One think you need to know about our house is we LOVE garlic, so for this repcie I took about 4 cloves of garlic minced them up real nice and combined them FRESH parsley, a little olive oil and about a tablespoon of dijon mustard, and the juice of ½ a lemon.  This marinade alone smells amazing! By this point the fear of screwing this meal up is subsiding…cause well I cant imagine this marinade being bad on anything, probably even go well my beloved chicken. 

So once this marinade is all mixed up I took a cookie pan one with the edges not a flat one covered it with aluminum foil (for easy clean up, this mamma would rather play legos then spend her night scrubbing dishes) place your salmon on the pan and lather on that marninade. Popped that tray into the oven for about 15 minutes at 450….finished up the brown rice that was cooking and broccoli that was steaming…and cleaned up the counters….DING done…

Seriously I have no idea why I get so nervous about new dishes cause this one came out amazing! Not a crumb was left on our plates and the hosue didn’t smell like fish! Success my friends! Not only was this meal good for us but it was a step outside our dinner time comfort zone! Like ive said before if I can cook this type of delicious meal so can you!

BAKED LEMON & DIJON SALMON

Ingredients

1 lb Salmon 

2tbsp of FRESH chopped parsley

1tbsp of HONEY dijon mustard 

2tbsp (or so) of olive oil 

Fresh lemon juice from ½ a lemon

4 cloved of minced garlic (more or less depending on how much garlic you like) 

HOW TO:  

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees 

Line your baking tray with aluminum foil for easy clean up

For your marinade: 
Combine garlic, parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, and dijon mustard. Whisk it all up together. Also I didn’t use any additonal salt we’re trying to cut down on our salt intake and the djion mustard did the trick but feel free to add salt and pepper according to your taste.

Take your salmon and give it a goor rinse dry it and place it on your aluminum covered tray. 

Now slather on that marinade get it all around and don’t be shy. 

Put it in the oven and bake for 15 minutes till the salmon is cooked through and no longer pink. 

You can serve this with your favorite veggies, mashed potatoes, rice, or brown rice like we did. So good! 

FYI: this recipe was adapted from the following blog: http://natashaskitchen.com/2015/05/07/baked-salmon-with-garlic-and-dijon-video-recipe/