Tender salmon in a soy-maple glaze with garlic and ginger, what more could you ask for? Be amazed at how fast you can whip up such a delicious meal!
Baked salmon is a great start to anyone’s cooking journey, because it’s easy to make, it tastes good, and it has a lot of health benefits. HOWEVER, there are many things to consider. Over-fishing, seafood mislabeling (a BIG problem in Canada recently), contamination, wild-caught vs. farm-raised, etc. These are just some of the many problems currently plaguing the fishing industry. I highly recommend you educate yourself on the subject before you dive right into it!
*Educational rant time, click here to skip to recipe*
What should I watch out for when buying salmon?
A friend once told me she was worried about buying meat as it didn’t have the word ‘fresh’ on the label. As consumers, we look out for labels we consider to be healthy, i.e. ‘fresh’, ‘sustainable’, ‘wild-caught’, ‘organic’. Considering there are no institutional definitions of these terms, they are pretty arbitrary. Don’t settle for a pretty label, go to your local store and ask them about the fishing practices of their sources. A report by non-profit Oceana Canada also revealed widespread mislabeling across the nation.
Something to keep in mind is that many grocery stores only carry Atlantic salmon, a mostly farm-raised species. This isn’t necessarily bad, farms with sustainable practices (i.e. no over-fishing, aquaculture systems, minimal bycatch, etc.) do exist. But on the flip side, they use a lot of land and resources, may not be the most hygienic, and aren’t the easiest to regulate. Depending on who you ask, sustainable fishing might be a thing of the past. In the case of land animals, if a species is endangered, is there any type of way to hunt that can be considered sustainable/ethical until populations rise again? And if that species lives in an area with heavily concentrated air pollution, can it be considered safe to eat?
If you understand all this and still would like to eat fish, opt for frozen unless you live by the sea. If you’re not coast-bound, there’s a very little chance that you are getting fish caught same-day. Even ‘fresh’ fish might be previously frozen and thawed! Check packaging on the frozen fish (vacuum sealed = best) to verify sources. This post is a great guide on buying frozen fish.
TL;DR, make informed decisions! Thanks for listening to my rant & hope you learned something useful, here’s the recipe!
Easy Peasy Soy-Maple Salmon
Ingredients
- 2 salmon fillets skin off
- 3~4 cloves minced garlic
- 1 thumb grated ginger
- 4 tbsp soy sauce
- 3 tbsp maple syrup or any sweetener
- 1 tsp sesame oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Line a baking dish with foil and place salmon in the center. Fold up the edges so the foil forms a little nest.
- Mix all the other ingredients together. Taste to see if it is to your preference, add soy sauce or maple syrup accordingly if it is too sweet or salty.
- Pour mixture over the salmon, making sure if doesn’t spill out of the foil pack. Pinch the edges of the foil pack together & seal it.
- Bake in the oven for 15~20 min. I found that the perfect time for me is 17 minutes, but it depends on your oven.
- You can choose at this point to open the foil packet and broil the salmon at the end if you want a bit of a char. I like my salmon soft and tender so I don’t usually.
- Serve with rice and roasted veggies.
- Enjoy!
Notes
If you make this recipe and tell me you made it I’ll probably explode internally :) Comment below or use the hashtag #izzypreps on Instagram!
