by TANNER JOHNSON

For this month, I wanted to share a delicious healthy recipe that is on the weekly lineup every week in our house – Blackened Salmon. I’ve tried grilling salmon, smoking salmon, even baking in the oven and air frying but blackening it is by far the best tasting way in my opinion.

This isn’t really BBQ or grilling and can either be done on a cast iron skillet (or nonstick, stainless steel, whatever you prefer) or a griddle. I love cooking this recipe on my Blackstone Griddle. Any chance I get to cook outside and have less dishes to clean up inside after, is a win in my book. I’m able to blacken the salmon and cook veggies on the side all on one cooking tool and just have one thing to clean up afterwards.

For this recipe, I like getting a pretty large wild caught salmon filet but farm raised works fine too. In my opinion, wild caught tastes much better. 

Blackening season ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon Smoked Paprika
• 1 teaspoon light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• ¾ Tablespoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• ½ teaspoon dried thyme 
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano

Instructions:

• Mix seasoning ingredients together in a small bowl
• Pat salmon dry with a paper towel, leave skin on
• Rub salmon down with some olive oil to help the seasoning stick
• Sprinkle the seasoning mixture all over the salmon filet evenly and pat it down nicely so the seasoning sticks
• heat skillet/griddle to high heat – no cooking oil needed
• Once your cooking surface is nice and hot (a good way to confirm is to drop a tiny bit of water on and you want to see it dance around) place salmon skin side up and let cook for 3-4 minutes
• Flip salmon (skin side down) and cook for an additional 6-7 minutes or until your desired internal temperature is reached (I like pulling it around 130-135° internal) but it’s okay if you want to take it all the way up to 145° internal
• While I’m blackening the salmon I like to cook some diced up zucchini with some salt, pepper and soy sauce on the griddle.
• Serve the salmon with some white rice, veggie of choice and add more soy sauce, sriracha or some Japanese BBQ sauce to elevate the flavors even more. My favorite sauce for this meal is Bachans Hot & Spicy Japanese BBQ sauce (the regular Bachans is great too, and this sauce can be found at Costco and some other stores, such as Ace Hardware, Academy or local butcher shops)