Sriracha salmon with Fennel garlic herb rice
Sriracha Salmon with Fennel Garlic Herb Rice! Flaky, buttery honey Sriracha roasted salmon served alongside a fluffy garlicky herb rice. An easy rice recipe full of caramelized fennel and onions, lots of lemon, and chopped pistachios for an added crunch. Enjoy this simple seasonal weeknight dinner in less than 30 minutes.
Butter makes salmon better.
My favorite way to eat salmon is roasted with honey siracha butter sauce. Most secrets in cooking include butter at some point. If you don’t know how to make frozen salmon taste good, my favorite trick to making it taste amazing is to smother it in butter. Buttery, spicy, and sweet makes my subpar frozen salmon taste super fancy, especially paired with garlicky herb rice. I made a version of this last week but made some tweaks. One is I added pistachios. Yes, adding pistachios to this rice side makes it more substantial and filling, and it has a nice nutty crunch. I got the idea and love for pistachios in rice from Molly Baz—a must-have crunch in an otherwise soft-textured meal.
Season every layer of the meal
To use leftover fennel from my fridge, I thought about the combo of fennel and onion together. These winter vegetables make a delicious combo when roasted alongside the salmon; they get roasted in some of the honey sriracha sauce and take on a caramelized richness that adds great depth of flavor to the rice. It transformed a simple rice side dish into a tasty, filling meal. My favorite simple way to roast any vegetable is with some olive oil, salt, pepper, and adobo seasoning. When seasoning veg, I always shoot for a little more than usual. When you think you’ve sprinkled on enough, give a little extra. Seasoning your food well is the key to creating delicious food. Give every layer of the meal the love it deserves.
Bright, lemony, nutty, rich, spicy, and sweet, it hits all the flavor boxes for a yummy, satisfying weeknight meal.
Dinner
Sriracha Salmon with Fennel Garlic Herb Rice
Cook Time: 25 minutes
INGREDIENTS
For the Sheet Pan
1 5-7 oz salmon filet
½ fennel, thinly sliced ¼ inch thick
½ yellow onion, thinly sliced ¼ inch thick
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Adobo seasoning to taste
Kosher salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
Honey Sriracha Sauce
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 teaspoons Sriracha
2 teaspoons honey
Garlic Herb Rice
1/2 cup basmati rice
1 tablespoon salted butter
1/2 cup mixed herbs (dill, chives, parsley, cilantro, finely chopped
Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
1/4 cup pistachios, roughly chopped
Kosher salt to taste
A few cracks of black pepper
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
To make the honey-sriracha sauce, mix melted butter, sriracha, and honey in a small bowl until combined and set aside.
Place thinly sliced fennel and onion on a sheet pan, drizzle them with olive oil, and season with salt, pepper, and adobo seasoning to taste. Add the salmon to the sheet pan and pat it dry with a paper towel. Spoon the honey-sriracha sauce over the salmon and roast for 20-22 minutes until the vegetables are caramelized and softened and the salmon is fully cooked. Beyond the point of translucency, until it flakes apart easily but isn’t dried out.
Meanwhile, as the salmon and vegetables are cooking, make the rice. Melt one tablespoon of butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Rinse the rice in a fine mesh strainer until the water is no longer cloudy to remove some of the starchiness. Once the butter is melted, add your rinsed rice and toast until the rice is slightly golden and smells toasty about 4-5 minutes. Add the minced garlic and sauté for 2 minutes until it is fragrant. Lower the heat to low and add the water. Cover the saucepan and cook until all the water is absorbed and the rice is cooked, for about 20 minutes. Once cooked, turn off the heat and let the rice steam for 5 minutes with the lid still on.
Fluff the rice with a fork and add chopped herbs, lemon zest and juice, chopped pistachios, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix gently with a fork, then add the roasted fennel and onions. Serve the salmon on top of a bed of fennel garlic herb rice, with an extra squeeze of lemon, and enjoy!
Notes
This recipe yields one serving of salmon and two servings of rice, so you can have leftover garlic herb rice. A rotisserie chicken would taste delicious too if you’re in a pinch.