While most sheet-pan dinners I dream up tend to feature proteins like chicken thighs or sliced sausage, I’m making it a semi-resolution to include more fish in the rotation this year.
Salmon is a great fish to use for sheet-pan meals because, unlike white fish fillets, skin-on, center-cut salmon fillets need a relatively long cook time (think 15 minutes instead of five). This means that you can truly embrace the sheet-pan dinner mentality of throwing everything into the oven at the same time. Thinner white fish are done before most vegetables turn tender, forcing you to stagger cooking times.
Another bonus is that salmon, with its bold flavor, can hold up to similarly feisty glazes and toppings. For this recipe, I brush the fish with a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil and umami-packed chili crisp. For the uninitiated, chili crisp is a Sichuan condiment made with spicy chiles, Sichuan peppercorns, and crispy mix-ins like fried shallots, garlic and nuts. The most well-known brand is Laoganma, but there are several on the market with various combinations of ingredients.
This sauce also gets rubbed into a sheet pan’s worth of kale, which I purchase pre-chopped to cut down on prep. The salmon fillets slip right in alongside the kale before heading to the oven.
By the time the outside of the salmon has caramelized and the flesh has begun to flake, the tops of the kale leaves will have frizzled and lightly charred, and the rest of the greenery will have become tender. Serve the dish with a side of steamed white rice and extra chili crisp on the side.
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