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Sheet Pan Lemon Garlic Salmon and Asparagus is a light, delicious, and easy dish bursting with lemon and garlic flavor!
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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.
Table of contents
If you’re looking for a delicious, easy, and incredibly flavorful meal your family won’t complain about, this simple, delicious dinner is for you.
We’re cooking a light, delicious salmon and fresh, flavorful asparagus on one baking sheet – reducing cleanup time, so you can get straight to dinner and out of the kitchen away from chores.
This dinner is simple, easy, and delicious – it works in a keto or low carb diet, and doesn’t use any complicated or fussy ingredients.
How To Tell When Baked Salmon Is Done
If the salmon meat is beginning to flake, but still has a little translucency in the middle of the deepest part of the filet, your salmon is done. It shouldn’t look very red and raw though, and it should be hot to the touch, not cold.
Once you cook salmon more and more, you’ll know how done it is by the look of the salmon and won’t need to check the middle.
The easiest way to avoid overcooking salmon is to watch for when your salmon turns pinkish-white – but remove before the white dots begin to appear.
What Types of Salmon Are There
Salmon can be tricky for home cooks just starting to get used to the fatty fish, because it can vary wildly in color, thickness, and appearance.
There are also considerable differences in wild vs farmed, coho vs sockeye salmon – making it even more confusing!
The handy guide below will help you pick a type of salmon that will fit your budget and flavor preferences:
King/Chinook Salmon
- Opens the Alaskan fishing season
- Shortest season of all wild-caught salmon, making demand high
- Largest at 11-18 pounds
- Most Omega 3 fatty acids
- Buttery flavor and texture
Sockeye Salmon
- More abundant
- More available in grocery stores across the United States
- Deep bright red orange color
- High fat and omega 3 content
Coho Salmon
- Smaller, less colorful salmon
- Later salmon season than King and Sockeye salmon
- Milder flavor
Chum Salmon
- Less oily
- Can vary wildly in quality and flavor
- Often used for canned salmon
Pink Salmon
- Most widely available
- Small – only 2-3 pounds
- Lighter color
- Less fat
- Often smoked or canned
Which Salmon To Use For This Recipe
While any type of salmon would work for this recipe, I recommend Sockeye salmon or Coho salmon filets – sockeye and coho have a good flavor and are a little less expensive than a Chinook salmon.
Since this salmon does use a sauce with a strong flavor, you can get away with a less expensive filet – sockeye or coho salmon will be fabulous.
If choosing a coho salmon filet, you might want to reduce cook-time slightly as they tend to be smaller and thinner filets that cook a bit faster than Chinook or Sockeye salmon filets.
Watch to see how your salmon cooks and pull from the oven when it turns opaque and pinkish-white, rather than going off a cook time.
Recipe FAQs
Salmon is done cooking at 125-130 degrees, when the meat has become lighter pink and opaque and is no longer translucent.
Salmon and asparagus can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to three days.
You can find our entire salmon recipe archives here.
What to Serve With Salmon and Asparagus
We love serving this dinner with soft butter dinner rolls, whole roasted onions, cauliflower rice, air fried broccoli, garlic roasted potatoes, and no knead bread – but have tons of delicious, easy, and family pleasing side dishes.
Of course if you’re looking for a heartier dinner option to add to round out a meal, try some of our favorite main dishes like our knockout pork tenderloin, air fryer chicken drumsticks, thai chili scallops, baked lemon garlic chicken breasts, or even a juicy prime rib!
This dinner is one of our favorite easy meals in part because the side dish cooks right along side our main – but if you’re looking to feed a hungry family, we’re rounding out some of our other favorite easy side dishes to serve with salmon and asparagus below:
You can find our complete side dish recipe archives here.
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Sheet Pan Lemon Garlic Salmon and Asparagus
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 bunch asparagus, woody ends trimmed off
- Salmon filet, 1/2 lb – 1 lb
- 1 large lemon, sliced into rounds or wedges
- 2 tbsp garlic paste or fresh minced garlic
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp fresh cracked pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Add salmon and asparagus to sheetpan, spreading out so nothing is too crowded.
- In a small bowl, combine oil, lemon juice, and garlic and mix well.
- Drizzle oil, lemon juice, and garlic mixture over salmon and asparagus.
- Layer lemon on top.
- Season well with salt and pepper.
- Bake 15-20 minutes, until salmon is opaque and asparagus is soft.
- Serve immediately, either on its own, or alongside roasted potatoes, rice, or a nice salad.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Tasty, easy and healthy!
Thank you
I made the sheet pan garlic lemon salmon and asparagus and must advise people that I think the recipe contains an error. It states 2 TABLESPOONS of salt. That is an extreme amount. Trust me, I found out the hard way. My husband soit it out due to the salty flavor. It should say 3/4 teaspoon of salt.
I had my recipe plugin go nuts – it changed a bunch of amounts. Thanks for the feedback, I’m changing this one now!
Recipe states 2 tsp not 2 tbsp. The recipe is correct
If I’m using fillets (3-4oz) because it is hard to find a decent slab of salmon, and I need 2-3 pounds of salmon as opposed to one, would you recommend any adjustments? I’ll need two sheet pans and think the best move is salmon on one, just over center oven, asparagus just below. Thank you!!
I’d just watch the cook on them (if you have an oven light) – when the salmon is a whitish pink, its done! When using filets vs a slab it will cook a lot faster so you just need to watch it a bit more – but in truth, we do the filet version often and it’s just as delicious!
How do you make that garlic paste? It looks amazing !
I actually buy it from our grocery store – I used the Gourmet Gardens brand, but I know of a few companies that make it. You can usually find it with refrigerated herbs!