Description
This festive Christmas Baked Salmon recipe features a luscious honey butter glaze, a creamy dill sauce, and a colorful holiday tapenade topped with pomegranate seeds. Perfect for holiday gatherings, it's baked to tender perfection and finished under the broiler to caramelize the edges, creating a vibrant and flavorful main course that is best served warm or at room temperature.
Ingredients
Scale
Salmon
- 1.5 kg salmon side (skin on, bones removed)
- 2 1/4 tsp cooking/kosher salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
Honey Butter Glaze
- 150 g unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup honey
- 3 garlic cloves, finely minced
Creamy Dill Sauce
- 1 1/2 cups full fat sour cream
- 1/2 cup fresh dill, finely chopped
- 1/2 eschallot, finely grated
- 1 1/2 tbsp lemon zest
- 1/2 tsp cooking/kosher salt
Holiday Tapenade
- 1 cup dried cranberries
- 1 cup orange juice
- 1 cup slivered almonds, toasted
- 1/3 cup parsley, roughly chopped
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Finishing
- 1 pomegranate, seeds only
- 1/4 cup parsley, roughly chopped
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 lemons, cut into 6 pieces each (for serving)
Instructions
- Creamy Dill Sauce: In a bowl, mix sour cream, fresh dill, grated eschallot, lemon zest, and salt until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until needed.
- Holiday Tapenade: Heat orange juice in a saucepan over high heat until hot. Turn off the stove, add dried cranberries, cover, and let them plump for 15 minutes. Drain in a colander and cool. In a bowl, combine plumped cranberries, toasted slivered almonds, parsley, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Stir well and set aside at room temperature.
- Preheat Oven and Prepare Salmon: Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Line a baking tray with a large double layer of foil and top with baking parchment paper. Place salmon on the paper, folding the foil sides up slightly to prevent glaze from leaking.
- Make Honey Butter Glaze: In a saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter and add honey and garlic. When mixture starts foaming, reduce to medium and let foam for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and pour glaze evenly over the salmon.
- Season Salmon: Sprinkle salt and black pepper over the salmon, concentrating most salt on the thicker part of the fillet.
- Wrap and Bake: Cover salmon with a smaller piece of parchment paper, then seal with foil, folding and sealing edges to form a parcel that is not completely airtight. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.
- Uncover and Prepare for Broiling: Remove salmon from oven, unwrap foil and parchment paper from the top by folding the sides down to expose the salmon surface, ensuring parchment paper does not catch fire during broiling.
- Broil to Caramelize: Switch oven to grill/broiler on high. Place salmon on the middle shelf and broil for 7 to 10 minutes until edges and top caramelize nicely. Check doneness by prying flesh or using an internal temperature probe (54°C/130°F for medium cooked). Adjust time if necessary.
- Transfer and Cool Salmon: Use foil overhang to transfer salmon to serving platter. Slide foil and parchment out from underneath allowing juices to pool on the platter. Loosely cover salmon with foil and let cool for at least 15 minutes up to 1 hour for room temperature serving.
- Assemble and Serve: Spread a thick layer (~0.8 cm) of Creamy Dill Sauce over salmon. Pile the Holiday Tapenade on top, scatter pomegranate seeds and remaining parsley, then drizzle lemon juice. Serve with extra lemon wedges for squeezing. Cut into portions and encourage using the honey-butter sauce mixed with sour cream.
Notes
- Use a whole side of salmon with skin on and bones removed for best cooking and presentation.
- If only table salt is available, reduce the salt amounts by 25% as it is finer than kosher salt.
- Toast almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly until fragrant and lightly browned.
- Salmon can be checked for doneness by prying open the flesh or using a thermometer: 43°C for rare, 49°C for medium-rare, 54°C for medium.
- Substitute trout for salmon or use fillets with adjusted cooking times (10 minutes baking then 10 minutes broiling).
- For dairy-free alternatives, use ghee or margarine instead of butter, and hummus instead of sour cream.
- Tapenade and sauces can be made up to 24 hours in advance; keep almonds separate until serving.
- Serve salmon warm or at room temperature; do not serve piping hot to avoid melting the sour cream layer.
- Leftovers will keep for 3-4 days refrigerated and are best eaten at room temperature without reheating in microwave or oven.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 serving
- Calories: 350 kcal
- Sugar: 8 g
- Sodium: 400 mg
- Fat: 22 g
- Saturated Fat: 8 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 12 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 8 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 30 g
- Cholesterol: 75 mg
