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One Pot Creamy Lemon Salmon Florentine Recipe – perfect pan seared salmon in a delicious lemon spinach cream sauce – an easy keto salmon families love.
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At Sweet C’s, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe – my goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.
I want each reader to walk away with a solid knowledge of each recipe, with all of the tips I’ve gathered from extensive testing of each recipe. I also answer questions my friends and family have asked about my recipes, to help everyone better understand the processes we use – and why!
Creamy Lemon Salmon Florentine
I love delicious, easy, and totally creamy meals that are packed with flavors like roasted garlic, lemon, and butter.
My husband and I have been on a major creamy-anything kick lately – and have been losing weight following a really low carb diet – even though we’ve been eating really rich, delicious and comforting food!
This creamy lemon garlic salmon florentine is a huge hit – its great on it’s own, but also makes a killer pasta or creamy rice dish.
It’s packed with flavor, and so easy to make in under a half an hour!
And if you love this deliciously easy keto salmon and spinach dinner as much as I do, be sure to check out my creamy shrimp Florentine dish – with all the flavor of this salmon, just with large prawns instead!
What is a Florentine Dish
While I’m calling this dish a florentine, it could also definitely be considered a creamy garlic tuscan dinner – with rich tuscan flavors of lemon and garlic – but I’m calling it a Florentine because it contains spinach – even though it has nothing to do with Florence Italy, as the name would suggest.
Using “Florentine” as a cooking method is a bit of a misnomer – since it refers to cooking dishes with spinach, and not actually food that originates in Florence, Italy.
Dishes made “a la Florentine” literally just mean dishes made with spinach.
The method is actually French, not Italian, but the result is the same – and many “Florentine” dishes contain Italian flavors that were widely popularized by Catherine de’ Medici, whose Florentine chefs made meals with Italian ingredients, catapulting their popularity in France.
Dishes made with spinach – Catherine de’ Medici’s favorite vegetable – became known as Florentine, probably because of her love for the dish.
If you’re a history nerd like me, it’s actually a fascinating story, and one I loved learning more about!
Tips and Tricks To Make Perfect One Pot Creamy Lemon Salmon FLorentine
Following these steps will help you get a creamy, velvety smooth sauce that you’ll wish you could drink with a straw on it’s own!
Use full fat butter. Using clarified butter, olive oil, ghee, or other butter substitutes can help encourage your sauce to break. Reach for the good stuff here – go for full fat butter.
Turn off heat to add cream. When adding cream, completely turn off heat to your dish, and whisk VIGOROUSLY to combine before returning to heat. This is essential for incorporating the cream into your dish without separating from the oil in the pan.
Use a nonstick pan to sear salmon. If using a cast iron skillet, be sure it is very clean, well seasoned, and very hot.
Salmon can be hard to flip, especially for beginners, so I reccomend a good nonstick pan.
Get pan scorching hot before adding salmon to pan. Salmon hitting the pan when it is cold, and then waiting for the pan to heat up, will NEVER release easily!
Let thaw naturally. If reheating from frozen, let salmon thaw naturally in fridge the night before.
Make more cream sauce. I find the cream can sink into your salmon when reheating, so if you didn’t freeze them separately for meal prep, I always plan on making more cream sauce to add to my dish for best results.
If you’re in a pinch and don’t want to whip up a whole new sauce, try 1/2 cup cream cheese + 1/2 cup heavy cream or milk + 1 tbsp garlic powder, whisked over medium high heat until velvety smooth.
Don’t microwave in your office. Don’t be that guy (or girl). Microwaving fish is strictly a no-no on the etiquette scale – but if you absolutely can’t be stopped from committing olfactory crimes against nature, use 2-4 slices of lemon to squeeze fresh lemon juice all over salmon before microwaving.
Reheat in oven or toaster oven for best results. Place fish in a foil pouch and bake at 350 until piping hot. Serve immediately and do not save any leftovers after being reheated once.
FAQs
You can use fresh or frozen salmon fillets. If using frozen salmon, make sure to thaw it completely before cooking. Wild-caught salmon is preferred for its flavor, but farm-raised works well too.
Yes, you can substitute heavy cream with half-and-half or a mixture of milk and a small amount of cornstarch for a lighter version. However, the dish will be less creamy.
Yes, you can substitute spinach with other leafy greens like kale, Swiss chard, or arugula. Just be mindful that tougher greens like kale may need to be cooked a bit longer.
Cook the salmon fillets on medium heat until they are just cooked through. Remove them from the pan while you prepare the sauce and pasta, and then add them back at the end to warm through without overcooking.
Yes, you can substitute the heavy cream with coconut milk or a dairy-free cream alternative. Use dairy-free butter or olive oil instead of regular butter, and skip the Parmesan cheese or use a dairy-free cheese substitute.
Absolutely! You can add vegetables like cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, or zucchini. Sauté them with the garlic before adding the spinach for a more complex flavor.
If the sauce becomes too thick, you can thin it out by adding a bit of pasta water, more cream, or broth until you reach your desired consistency.
This dish is best served fresh, but you can prepare the sauce and cook the pasta ahead of time. Store them separately and reheat gently, adding a little liquid to the sauce if needed before combining with the salmon.
Creamy Salmon with Spinach Serving Ideas
This easy creamy salmon with spinach is bursting with flavor – and great over rice or pasta!
Here’s a couple of my favorite ways to serve a Tuscan Salmon with cream sauce:
- Serve over a bed of wild rice for a rich, creamy rice that soaks up all of the delicious lemon cream sauce flavor!
- Serve with fettuccine for a creamy, florentine pasta that is full of vibrant color.
- Ladle over zoodles (zucchini noodles) or other veggie noodles (sweet potato, yellow squash, beet, or carrot would all work well) for a healthy, low carb pasta that will crush your carb cravings.
- Serve with cauliflower rice as a creamy power bowl that is full of nutrients and won’t slow you down.
- Serve with roasted vegetables (asparagus and broccoli are amazing with this sauce), and dip them in the extra sauce.
Other One Pot Salmon Dinners You’ll Love
If you love this delicious creamy salmon with spinach, you’re going to love my other simple, easy salmon dinners that are loaded with flavor, not carbs!
]Try these favorite salmon recipes next.
And be sure to click through and bookmark some of my all time favorite easy seafood recipes!
They are all insanely easy and packed with flavor! Check out Creamy Lobster Florentine, One Pot Spicy Lemon Garlic Chicken Strips , Cheesy Taco Skillet, Spicy Tequila Lime Chicken Fettuccine , and Tuscan Shrimp Linguine.
Try these:
I hope you love this deliciously easy creamy lemon salmon and spinach recipe as much as my family does.
We love this dish with my easy cauliflower rice recipe, or some pan fried broccolini – and air fryer french fries for the kids.
If you love this easy recipe please click the stars below to give it a five star rating and leave a comment! Pease also help me share on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest!
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One Pot Creamy Lemon Salmon Florentine
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp butter
- 4 salmon, Fillets about 6-8 oz each
- ¼ cup garlic, diced
- 2 tbsp Italian spices
- ¼ cup roasted red peppers
- 1 cup spinach
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- ½ cup stock or white wine
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ½ lemon, sliced into wedges
Instructions
- In a large nonstick pan, heat butter.
- Add salmon, skin up.
- Let skin brown, about 3-4 minutes.
- Flip and let salmon skin crisp, another 3-4 minutes.
- When salmon has browned on each side, remove from pan.
- Add garlic to pan, let brown and soften.
- Add roasted red peppers and italian spices.
- Stir to mix.
- Add in stock or wine, and lemon juice, and let come to a boil, stirring often.
- Turn heat off, and slowly add in cream, whisking vigorously to combine.
- Slowly return heat to medium high and add salmon back to pan, top with spinach and lemon wedges.
- Let spinach wilt, and salmon fully cook, ladling sauce over fish to help them cook.
- When sauce is thickened and salmon is cooked through, remove from heat and serve – with vegetables, over pasta, or with rice!
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Great recipe my family love it …
Nice only in the picture..but not palatable for me. I just add other ingredients to pass my standard
hi, what kind of stock do i use instead of the wine?
Fatima – you can honestly use any kind of stock you love, but I’d suggest vegetable or fish stock.
I would like to make this tonight,but recipe seems rather vague,like when to add wine and lemon juice.Hope you can help?
I’m not sure if it was a glitch in my recipe plugin – but it’s there when I looked, right before them cream. Hope that helps!