Baked Lemon Garlic Butter Salmon
Put a quick dinner on the table with this Baked Lemon Garlic Butter Salmon recipe. It’s easy to make and tastes delicious – perfect for busy weeknights!
- Prep: 10minutes mins
- Cook: 10minutes mins
- Total: 20minutes mins
- Servings: 4 servings
- Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
- 1.5 pounds salmon fillet
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic finely minced; more or less to taste
- ½ lemon juice only
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- black pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons butter diced
Instructions
- Prep: Preheat oven to 400°F. Place a large piece of aluminum foil in a large rimmed baking dish that will comfortably hold all of your salmon (the baking dish is to catch any drippings – way easier to clean than your oven!).
- Season fish: Lightly grease the foil with olive oil. Place the salmon fillets on top (they can be close together if using individual fillets, just not on top of each other). Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil and evenly scatter garlic on top. Drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle with Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Dot with butter. Seal foil over salmon.
- Bake: Bake for 10-15 minutes (depending on the thickness of your fillets) or until salmon flakes easily. Serve immediately.
Notes
Ingredient notes
- Salmon
You can either use pre-cut fillets or an entire side of salmon for this recipe.
The side of salmon tends to take an extra 5-10 minutes compared to the fillets. The exact baking time will always depend on the thickness of your salmon though.
Ingredient notes
- Seasoning: I enjoy the flavor of Italian herbs in this recipe, but feel free to switch it up to your taste. Parsley or dill are very delicious, too!
- Lemon juice: I used freshly squeezed lemon juice, but juice from a bottle works just as well.
- Butter: The butter forms rich and delicious juices to serve over the salmon. If you need the recipe to be dairy free, feel free to use a dairy free butter, or simply drizzle more olive oil over the fish.
Salmon cut that work best for this recipe:
You can either use pre-cut fillets or an entire side of salmon for this recipe.
The side of salmon tends to take an extra 5-10 minutes compared to the fillets. The exact baking time will always depend on the thickness of your salmon though.
Bake from frozen:
It works, even though it’s not my preferred thing to do because it tends to overcook the outside until the middle is done.
If you need to cook your fish from frozen, just follow the recipe. The salmon will take approximately twice as long to bake from frozen vs thawed or fresh.
Baking time:
The exact cooking temperature will greatly depend on the exact size and thickness of your salmon fillet.
It’s generally safe to say it takes around 15 minutes to cook salmon fillets in the oven at 400°F though.
An entire salmon side may take a little longer and small fillets may be done closer to the 10 minute mark.
You can tell the fish is done when it flakes easily with a fork. To be safe, check the internal temperature at the thickness part with an instant read thermometer.
Internal temperature
The USDA recommends cooking salmon to an internal temperature of at least 145°F to be safe for consumption.
You can see the full chart here.
I recommend getting an instant read thermometer, I love using mine and never have to worry about under- or overcooking dinner again.
Nutrition
- Serving: 1serving
- Calories: 328kcal
- Carbohydrates: 1g
- Protein: 34g
- Fat: 20g
- Saturated Fat: 5g
- Cholesterol: 108mg
- Sodium: 270mg
- Potassium: 842mg
- Vitamin A: 245IU
- Vitamin C: 2.1mg
- Calcium: 32mg
- Iron: 1.5mg
