This Baked Salmon recipe is easy! Coat some salmon filets with teriyaki sauce and then top with chopped fresh scallions and fried onions and then bake for an easy, delicious main entree. The tender and juicy salmon is slighly carmelized and the scallion and fried onions become a flavorful and crunchy layer.
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How to serve and what to do with leftovers
I buy salmon every week and either bake or pan fry it for our dinner. This recipe involves a quick marinate in teriyaki sauce. Chop some scallions and sprinkle them on the salmons with fried onions. The toppings help to insulate the salmon from drying out. This baked salmon recipe is so juicy, tender, and flavorful.
Baking dinner in the oven frees up some stovetop space to make other dishes at the same time. My recipe for Garlicky Cabbage takes about 5 minutes to prep and 10 minutes to stir fry which is just enough time to get it done while the salmon bakes in the oven. Or serve this baked salmon over salad greens with your favorite dressing as an easy summer salad entree.
This is another cook once, eat twice recipe because cooking two pieces of salmon filets is more than enough for dinner for our family of 3-4.
- The leftovers are great for lunch when packed with more rice and more veggies.
- Or use it to make salmon fried rice by making Easy Vegetable Fried Rice with Eggs and adding the cooked salmon during the last few minutes.
- It’s also delicious in a musubi. Instead of using turkey spam, add the cooked salmon, with a little bit of sauce.
How to select a salmon filet
It’s easy to add salmon filets to your shopping list. If you’re not allergic to salmon, it’s a healthy option to eat weekly. But deciding wild vs. farmed and where is it from and which species might be more nuanced. I found some helpful guidelines from Washington State Department of Health.
Depending on where you shop, you might come home with different options and I will give recommendations on how to prepare them.
Whole salmon filets:
This is a visually gorgeous option, especially when you are making a main dish for a lot of people.
- The tail end will cook faster than the belly end. You might want to cover the tail end with extra scallions and fried onions and/or add a loose piece of foil for part of the baking time.
- But if you have people who like their salmon well done, they might appreciate the tail end. If you bake a whole salmon filet, allow additional time until the teriyaki sauce carmelizes and the toppings start to look slightly browned.
Boneless skinless filets:
Boneless, skinless filets are my favorite go-to, optimal for ease and taste. I love to buy them at Trader Joe’s for the price and great packaging.
- I look for the center cut pieces so that the salmon cooks more evenly. Center cut pieces have straight edges on both sides.
- This particular cut is easy to prep, all you need to do is rinse and pat dry.
- Typically this salmon is about 6 inches by 6 inches and weighs approximately 1 to 1.25 pounds.
- It takes about 18-20 minutes to bake depending on the size of the filet and how long it’s been out of the refrigerator before baking.
BBQ cut salmon filet:
Trader Joe’s also has a BBQ cut salmon that is boneless with skin and cut into 6-8 ounce pieces. Center cuts are the easiest to cook with because thickness is more even.
- Regardless of whether I eat the skin or not, I still want to remove the scales. Use a fish scaling tool if you have one. Otherwise carefully use a small serrated knife to scale, rinse well, and pat dry.
- These pieces are smaller so will require less time to bake (~15 minutes). Or you could place the salmon pieces closer together as if they were one piece of filet.
Avoid salmon with bones for this recipe:
Use your fingers to check for bones and remove them with fish bone tweezers or pliers. I do not recommend salmon steaks, which look like a cross-section of the salmon, for this recipe. I don’t mind eating fish with bones, but if the fish isn’t boneless, then I want to be able to check every bite for bones without the crunchy toppings.
Handle with care!
Avoid any pieces of salmon that look smushed, which is easy to check when they’re prepackaged. Don’t smush them on the way home either. When bagging your groceries, be sure to put the salmon on the top.
There was one time when I ordered a beautiful piece of salmon at a store with a seafood counter. The guy wrapped up the salmon with paper super tight and then gave it a squeeze. It didn’t seem like a good idea at the time but confirmed a bad idea when the cooked salmon had a mushy texture.
If you have a filet or BBQ cut of salmon with the skin on, handle the fish minimally. My strategy is to put a cutting board in the sink and place the salmon skin side up on a cutting board in the sink and scale with a small knife. This strategy gives you a stable safe surface to scale the salmon and contains the mess in the sink for easy clean up.
Allergy Aware Baked Salmon
This recipe is free of peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, dairy, shellfish, and sesame as written.
If allergic to wheat or avoiding gluten, you will need to look for a wheat-free and/or gluten free substitute for teriyaki sauce. You can omit the fried onions or use a gluten-free version.
This recipe is very similar to my other baked salmon recipe which is topped with top allergen free rice crispy cereal. I also recently confirmed that Mr. Yoshida Original Gourmet sauce is nut-free and sesame-free.
People with a soy allergy will need to make a batch of soy-free soy sauce and then use that to make a teriyaki sauce. Alternatively there are soy-free teriyaki sauces available but I haven’t checked to see if they are also nut-free brands.
Baked Salmon with Teriyaki Sauce, Scallions, and Fried Onions
Ingredients
- 2 1-pound salmon filets (boneless, skinless)
- 4 tablespoons teriyaki sauce/marinade
- 1 bunch scallions (chopped)
- 1/4 cup fried onions (more if desired)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and check that your oven rack is in the middle position. Line a rimmed baking tray with foil or parchment paper for easy clean up.
- Rinse and pat dry the salmon filets and place on the foil lined rimmed baking sheet. Coat both sides of the salmon with the teriyaki sauce and top with the chopped scallions and fried onions. See notes for prep ahead option.
- Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes until the teriyaki sauce looks carmelized on the salmon and the scallions and fried onion pieces look crispy and slightly browned.
Notes
Related recipes:
If you like this dinner recipe idea but can’t have salmon, you could try my recipe for Broiled Teriyaki Chicken Thighs Recipe. My chicken recipe has similar flavors, super fast, and also cooked in the oven.
Since we have to turn on the oven anyways, I think about what else I could cook in the oven at the same time. My recipe for Cheesy Roasted Cauliflower cooks in about the same amount of time.
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Love the flavors of teriyaki sauce. And the flavors from the fried onion…yum!
Thank you, I make this dish at least 1-2x a month!!