Brown Sugar Teriyaki Salmon

Hooray for my first blog post! It took me forever to decide what I wanted to post first. I knew I wanted to post something that everyone would enjoy. So I chose... salmon! Now that may seem like a funny choice because not everyone likes salmon. They have their own opinions about it, whether they think it's too expensive, too fishy or too complicated. And that is exactly why I wanted salmon to be my first recipe. Because I am going to debunk all of those thoughts!

The first time I ever made salmon was about 2 years ago. In fact, before then I had never even been to the seafood counter, and to be honest I was kind of intimidated by the whole process. But I got my salmon filets and was very surprised that my total cost was about $10, especially considering most salmon dinners at a restaurant are around $25.

At this point in time, I still wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to cook this salmon. So I did what I do best, and decided to Google “Best Salmon Recipe Ever.” And sure enough, the second one from the top sounded pretty good to me, so that’s the one I went with.

Prior to this salmon experience, my favorite salmon ever was from The Cheesecake Factory, oddly enough. They have a miso salmon that has just a little Asian vibe to it and in a weird way it's kind of sweet and salty. Anyway, this particular recipe sounded somewhat similar with its soy sauce and brown sugar marinade.

So I made the marinade and let the salmon soak. When I was all ready to finally cook the salmon I realized the recipe said to put it on the grill. This was problematic because I certainly did not own a grill, and I wouldn’t have known how to use one even if I did.

Fortunately, a user left a comment on the recipe saying how she always cooks her salmon in foil packets in the oven. So that’s what I decided to do! And it turned out PERFECTLY!

Two years after making this dish for the first time, it is still one of my absolute favorites. I'm still amazed that it turns out perfect every single time. There’s no crossing my fingers and checking on it every 3 minutes to make sure it’s okay. I just stick the salmon in the foil, stick the foil in the oven, pull it out, and bam! Beautiful salmon.

And my personal favorite part about this recipe is that THERE’S ZERO CLEANUP! Seriously, all you do is wad up the foil packets when you’re done and toss it in the trash. It doesn’t get any easier than that! 

BROWN SUGAR TERIYAKI SALMON

Printable Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• ​1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 4 (6 ounce) salmon filets​

DIRECTIONS

1. ​Pour soy sauce, brown sugar, water, olive oil, and garlic powder in a bowl and stir to combine.
2. Pour that mixture into a gallon-size Ziploc bag.
3. Place the salmon in the bag, seal it, and turn it so the meaty side of the salmon is soaking in the mixture
4. Refrigerate the bag and let the salmon marinate for a minimum of 45 minutes to a maximum of about 4 hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit
6. Take a big sheet of aluminum foil and fold it so it forms a little packet. Make an aluminum foil packet for each individual salmon filet.
7. Spray the aluminum foil packet with cooking spray
8. Put one filet in one foil packet. Do the same for each filet
9. Put the foil packets on a baking sheet to give the foil packets a sturdier foundation
10. Bake the salmon for about 15 minutes.
11. The salmon is done when it is pale pink and flakes easily

(This recipe is adapted from a post I found on allrecipes.com)