Seared Salmon with Herb Butter Pan Sauce and Lemon Dill Sea Salt
Justin Smulski
Salmon is a perpetual crowd-pleaser, and this recipe is a quick and easy way to make restaurant quality seafood at home. It’s also an excellent vehicle to showcase high quality sea salt as a flavor-packed garnish that ties everything together. The pan sauce is delicious with any combination of herbs and makes wonderful leftovers to reheat with veggies, rice, or pasta. Properly searing fish can seem like an impossible task at home, but with a few pointers you’ll be serving up professional quality sears in no time at all.
Ensuring that proteins are room temperature and completely dry before cooking is an important step to proper searing. Patience is key—don’t try to move the fillets too soon or you’ll end up with pieces of fish half-stuck to the bottom of the pan. Once that golden-brown crust begins to form (you’ll notice it creeping up the edges of the fillets), the protein will naturally release from the bottom of the pan and you can move, remove, or reposition without any issue. This is a skill transferable to just about any meat or fish at home—steak, pork chops, scallops, chicken, even tofu or tempeh. And all of these would be tasty, too, topped with a pan sauce made of butter, stock, and herbs. So make a few substitutions and dig in on just how versatile this recipe is.
Seared Salmon with Herb Butter Pan Sauce and Lemon Dill Sea Salt
Salmon is a perpetual crowd-pleaser, and this recipe is a quick and easy way to make restaurant quality seafood at home. It’s also an excellent vehicle to showcase high quality sea salt as a flavor-packed garnish that ties everything together. The pan sauce is delicious with any combination of herbs and makes wonderful leftovers to reheat with veggies, rice, or pasta. Properly searing fish can seem like an impossible task at home, but with a few pointers you’ll be serving up professional quality sears in no time at all.
Take the salmon pieces out of refrigeration about 20 minutes before cooking, pat dry with a paper towel, and lightly season with salt; drying and pre-seasoning helps develop an even and beautiful crust.
Coat the bottom of a large, non-stick, high-walled pan with a thin layer of canola oil (likely 1 to 2 tablespoons) and warm the pan on medium-high heat until the oil just begins to smoke.
Gently place each salmon fillet in the pan, leaving adequate space between the pieces. Once the pieces are in the pan, do not move them around—they will naturally release and be movable once a crust develops. Drop the temperature to medium after about 30 seconds, add the fresh thyme to the pan, sprinkle some cracked pepper and Fishermen’s Blend sea salt on the face-up side of each piece. Give each fillet a firm pat with a piece of folded paper towel to maximize surface area making contact with pan.
After about three minutes or so you’ll start to notice a golden-brown crust building up on the edges of the salmon pieces; the rest of the fillet will be still mostly raw. Carefully lift each piece out of the pan with a flat spatula and transfer to a baking sheet with a wire cooling rack. Place the seared side facing up; the rest of the fillet will be cooked in the finished sauce.
With the pan still on medium heat, add a few splashes of white wine to deglaze the pan. Stir vigorously a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to release the fond on the bottom of the pan built up during the searing process. Add the cubed butter, let it melt almost completely, then add the chicken stock and turn the temperature up to medium-high.
Once the chicken stock is bubbling and begins reducing, turn the heat back down to medium and add the onions, lemons, chopped parsley, and a sprinkle of Fishermen’s Blend lemon dill sea salt.
Cook on medium heat until the onions are just barely tender and the sauce has slightly thickened; add the salmon fillets back to the pan (seared side up) to finish cooking through—about four minutes or so.
Serve family style in the pan, with extra lemon and sea salt on the side.
