Slow-Roasted Salmon with Orange-Olive Salsa

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Yield: 4 (serving size: 1 fillet and 1/4 cup salsa)

Slow-Roasted Salmon with Orange-Olive Salsa

This slow, gentle roasting technique might just become your new favorite way to cook salmon. The low heat (only 250°F) keeps the flesh super-unctuous and oily-rich, and pretty much assures you won’t overcook the fish. The accompanying salsa is the perfect partner, with its bright pop of juicy citrus and meaty bits of buttery Castelvetrano olives (can we all just agree that they’re the best olives?).

prep time: 20 minscook time: 20 minstotal time: 40 mins

ingredients

  • 4 (6-oz.) salmon fillets (I used skin-on, sustainable farmed salmon)
  • Cooking spray
  • 1/2 tsp. kosher salt, divided
  • 1/4 tsp. black pepper
  • 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided
  • 2 navel oranges

  • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pitted Castelvetrano olives (about 16 olives)
  • 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
  • 2 Tbsp. slivered shallot or red onion
  • 1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper

instructions

  1. Let salmon fillets stand at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes to take the chill off. Preheat oven to 250°F.

  2. Arrange fillets in an 11 x 7–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with 3/8 tsp. salt and black pepper. Drizzle evenly with 1 tablespoon oil.
  3. Grate 1/2 teaspoon zest from one of the oranges; set zest aside. Remove peel and all pith from both oranges; slice between membranes to remove orange sections. Place sections in a medium bowl. Hold orange membranes over salmon in baking dish, and squeeze juice over fillets.
  4. Bake fillets at 250°F for 20 to 25 minutes, to desired degree of doneness. (Mine were to my liking right at 20 minutes.)
  5. Meanwhile, add olives, parsley, shallot, red pepper, orange zest, remaining 1 tablespoon oil, and 1/8 teaspoon salt to orange sections; toss gently to combine. Serve salsa with salmon.

NOTES:

Calories 397; Fat 27g (sat 5g); Protein 27g; Carb 11g; Fiber 2g; Sugars 8g (added sugars 0g); Sodium 538mg
Created using The Recipes Generator
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OK, so maybe you’re not sold yet on this idea. Let me try to get you there… Have you ever bought some beautiful salmon fillets, anticipating that oily, silky, fatty-in-all-the-good-ways texture, only to overcook the fish (even slightly) so that the texture falls flat? Yeah, that won’t happen with this slow-roasting method. It cooks the fish ever so gently so that it never loses that buttery silkiness you crave.

This recipe is pretty simple—not too much technique to explain. The hardest part is maybe sectioning the orange?? But even that isn’t hard. Just cut away all the peel and pith, and then cut between the membranes to extract the sections. Like this:

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After you’ve removed all the sections, don’t toss the membranes just yet. Hold on to these guys—

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And squeeze them over the fillets in the baking dish, like so:

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Then bake for a short 20ish minutes, and you’ll be delighted by the results. No. More. Overcooked. Salmon. I mean, just look at this texture!

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