Easy Honey Mustard Salmon

Looking for easy? Here is an easy, protein-rich meal. One thing that makes it easy is the double duty that the marinade plays, as it is also a great salad dressing. Shake it up, slather it on some salmon, grill it up, and pop it on a plate with some pre-washed greens and couscous and you have a meal. Bonus points because it is a meal with minimal dishes. I said ‘easy,’ didn’t I?

Couscous can be made in a bowl with no pan to wash. Since it absorbs the hot liquid you add to it, rather than cooking over a stove, it comes together with a huge amount of forgiveness if you take longer than expected. It is as simple as measure, stir, cover, wait, serve.

To make it a trifecta of protein, you can use protein greens (a mix of sweet pea leaves blended with spinach and baby kale) and every bite will be packed full of protein.

 Easy Honey Mustard Salmon

Instructions

Place the first 4 ingredients in a clean jar, add the lid and shake to combine. Alternatively, you can use a whisk and a bowl, but if you have extra, this will yield extra dishes.

Prep the Wild Salmon by removing any of the pin bones that were left intact and brushing it with some of the marinade, reserving the rest to dress the greens with when the salmon comes off the grill. It is much easier to cut the salmon before it is grilled, so either pre-cut the fillet or be fine with the fact that the family-style servings are a little more rustic looking.

While the Grill is heating up, measure out the couscous in a medium-sized bowl. Add 1 Tbsp of the Honey-Mustard that you just made. Stir it around so that it is distributed throughout the couscous, then add 1 cup of boiling water and cover with a plate or foil for at least 10 minutes. When ready to serve, remove the lid and break it apart with a fork (this is why a larger bowl than you think it needed comes in handy).

When your grill is nice and hot, you can either add the salmon on top of a pre-soaked cedar plank or place it straight on the grill. Either way, there is no need to flip it. When cooking on a grill and not an oven, temperatures will vary. Since fish come in varied sizes and thicknesses, cooking time will vary too. Generally, it takes about 8 minutes per inch of thickness when directly on the grill, or about 12 minutes when on a plank - but check it before then to avoid dry fish. When the meat begins to flake when poked with a fork, it is done - there should be a little translucency in the middle.

Just as the fish comes off the grill, toss the greens in the reserved dressing (using your judgment as to how wet you like your greens, and knowing that any leftover sauce will keep in the refrigerator for at least a week).

Serve the greens next to the couscous, with the fish overlapping each side item because a bite of Pride of Bristol Bay wild salmon is great with either.

 serves 4

AUTHOR PROFILE

Nancy Ingersoll is a recipe developer and food photographer in San Diego, California. Always up for adventure, she learned the art of sauces and soufflés from one of James Beard Award winner Roy’s Yamaguchi’s executive chefs, and her curious spirit has been fed with cooking classes domestically and abroad. Nancy is also known as The Creative Resource and you can find her work on nancyingersoll.com and on instagram as @thecreativeresource.