Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner

This Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner is an easy baked salmon recipe with potatoes & asparagus, and a creamy lemon butter sauce. Learn how to bake sheet pan salmon and veggies for the BEST easy meal – ready in 45 minutes!

 

Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

If you’ve been around for awhile you’ll probably already know how much we love a good sheet pan dinner here at The Busy Baker. A sheet pan dinner is truly the BEST way to get dinner on the table without a lot of fuss and without a lot of dishes. This Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner is one of our favourite ways to enjoy a healthy meal on a busy weeknight, and we know your family is going to love it as much as ours does!!

This Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner is one of our favourite quick and easy weeknight meal that combines juicy salmon fillets with tender veggies like baby potatoes and asparagus. It only uses one pan but packs in a lot of zesty flavour form the lemon, garlic, and herbs.

A sheet pan dinner is one of the easiest ways to get a complete meal on the table with minimal fuss. Everything – and we mean everything: your protein, veggies, and even a starch – cooks together on one large baking sheet in the oven. It’s the ultimate easy weeknight meal because once everything is seasoned and arranged on the pan, the oven does the hard work for you. The result is a perfectly cooked meal with hardly any dishes to wash.

There are SO many reasons why we love this Baked Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner recipe. Here are just a few!

1. It’s a ONE PAN WONDER: With minimal clean-up you get protein, fibre, and carbs on the table in no time at all!
2. It’s QUICK to make: This sheet pan dinner is on the table in 45 minutes, and it tastes like it’s from a fancy restaurant!
3. It’s HEALTHY: It’s a well balanced meal full of nutrients and high in protein AND fibre.
4. It’s the perfect WEEKNIGHT MEAL: It’s quick and requires minimal effort – even the kids can make it! And best of all, there’s only one dish to wash!
5. It’s GREAT FOR ENTERTAINING: It’s a meal that looks impressive and tastes amazing, and it can be doubled and made on two sheet pans for a crowd!

We LOVE a good one pan dinner, and sheet pan meals make their way onto our weekly meal plan at least once a week! Here are some of our favourite one pan meals we think you’ll LOVE!

• Sheet Pan Steak Fajitas
• Sausage Sheet Pan Dinner
• Pork Chop Sheet Pan Dinner
• Italian Sausage Sheet Pan Dinner
• Easy Chicken Sausage Sheet Pan Dinner
• Easy One Pan Turkey Dinner
• One Pan Chicken Alfredo Pasta
• Easy One Pan Shrimp Fried Rice

Here’s how to make this Baked Salmon recipe the BEST it can be!

If you have the time, season and let the salmon marinate for a few hours in the fridge (or overnight) before cooking. This will enhance the flavours and tenderize the fish. It’s not a necessary step, but it does add a lot of flavour.

Give everything the space to roast. This prevents the veggies from steaming and becoming soggy.

If you’re using skinless salmon fillets, cut a few lemon slices and lay them down on the pan. Place the salmon over the lemon slices and cook them this way to prevent sticking to the pan and over drying. This also helps give the salmon a delicious lemon flavour.

For skin-on salmon, create nests for the fillets among the veggies on the pan, spray the pan with a bit of oil and lay the salmon fillets skin side down. This will help the fat under the skin render out and start to crisp up.

Use an instant-read thermometer to check the internal temperature of the salmon and remove it from the oven once it reaches 63°C / 145°F.

In a crunch, you could make this sheet pan dinner recipe on a pan lined with parchment paper but for better browning, fat rendering, and roasting we suggest that you skip the parchment paper. You’ll have a bit more of a mess to clean, but the added flavour and texture is worth it, in this case.

If you’re running into trouble with this recipe, here are some issues you might encounter and some solutions we recommend:

Check the internal temperatures of the salmon early and lower the cooking time if necessary. If your salmon fillets are thin or small and they cook before the veggies, remove the salmon to a plate and continue cooking the veggies until they’re done.

If your potatoes are not done at the same time with the fish and asparagus, remove the protein and veggies and return the potatoes to the oven and continue cooking them or broil them until done.

If you’re cooking too many veggies in one small pan and they steam and become soggy, try using two different sheet pans so you can spread out the ingredients. This recipe works for a standard large sheet pan, but be sure to avoid over-crowding if you’re using a smaller pan.

Melt the sauce just a little bit it in the microwave and blend it again with an extra 1/2 teaspoon of water to thin it out.

Add a little more melted butter and blend the sauce again. Taste it, and add more lemon juice and salt if needed to rebalance the flavour.

Here’s a list of all the basic kitchen equipment you’ll need to make this Baked Salmon recipe (paid links):

• large knife
• Cutting Board
• large sheet pan
• Microplane Zester
• Tongs
• Blender
• Garlic Press
• large mixing bowl

Here’s a list of the ingredients you’ll need to make this easy Baked Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner recipe (paid links):

• 4 salmon fillets
• 6 garlic cloves or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper use freshly cracked for best results
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 lemon juice and zest
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano optional
• 1 teaspoon olive oil

For the veggies:

• 1 pound asparagus or broccoli florets
• 1 pound baby potatoes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1-2 lemons juice and zest

For the lemon butter sauce:

• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1/2 lemon juice and zest
• 3/4 teaspoon dried dill
• 1 pinch salt and pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon water
• 2 garlic cloves

1. Vegetable Swap: Use broccoli, sweet potatoes, zucchini, carrots, Brussels sprouts, or any other veggies you like.
2. French: Add Dijon mustard and fresh herbs (like parsley and thyme) to the salmon marinade and swap out asparagus for French green beans.
3. Spicy: Add a pinch of cayenne pepper to the fish and a 1/2 teaspoon of chili flakes on the veggies. You can also add a pinch of cayenne or a dash of sriracha in the lemon butter sauce.
4. Asian-Style: Use broccoli and carrots and marinate the fish with soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar and rice vinegar. Top with sesame seeds and spring onions.
5. A Lighter Version: Skip the butter sauce and serve with a yogurt-based lemon dill sauce.
6. Mediterranean-Style: Swap out asparagus for cherry tomatoes and olives. Serve with fresh parsley.

Baking salmon is one of the simplest and most foolproof methods of cooking it. All you need is a baking sheet, a little oil, some seasonings, and the right oven temperature. For single-portion salmon filets (the kind you’d buy already cut into pieces at the grocery store or fish market), the key is to bake them until the flesh turns opaque and flakes easily with a fork, but still stays moist in the centre.

If you’re cooking individual filets like in this sheet pan dinner, simply brush them with a bit of oil, season to taste, and bake alongside your veggies. Because salmon cooks fairly quickly, it’s best to add it to the pan partway through if your vegetables take longer to roast (like potatoes do).

Cooking a larger side of salmon? The process is the same, but you’ll want to allow a few extra minutes in the oven since a bigger piece will take longer to cook through to the middle. Either way, the beauty of baked salmon is that it requires very little hands-on time. Just pop it in the oven and let it roast until it’s tender and flaky.

The hardest part is avoiding over-cooking it, so be sure to follow our guide below for how long to bake salmon.

The cooking time for salmon depends on both the size of the filets and the temperature of your oven. As a general rule, salmon bakes best at a moderate to high temperature, around 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius). This ensures it cooks quickly and evenly without drying out.

• Small single-portion filets (about 1-inch thick): Bake for 10–15 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius).
• Thicker filets (over 1½ inches): Bake for 12–16 minutes at the same temperature.
• A larger whole side of salmon: Bake for 20–25 minutes, depending on thickness, checking for doneness around the 18-minute mark.

The best way to know if your salmon is ready is to test it with an instant-read thermometer. Salmon is perfectly cooked at 145 degrees Fahrenheit (63 degrees Celsius). You can also flake it with a fork to test it for doneness. It should flake apart easily, and the centre should look opaque with just a touch of glossiness.

For this Baked Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner recipe, since the salmon bakes alongside potatoes and asparagus, you’ll roast the potatoes first, and add the asparagus later with the salmon so everything is done at the same time. It’s all about layering the cooking times so the entire meal is perfectly cooked from start to finish!

Lemon butter sauce is the BEST addition to baked salmon, and it’s SO easy to make. Here’s how to do it:

First, use a small blender, a mini food processor, or an immersion blender. This will help your sauce be EXTRA creamy and smooth.

Melt the butter, press the garlic, and zest and juice the lemon. Add these ingredients to your blender or food processor along with the dill, salt and pepper, and blend until smooth. Add up to a teaspoon of water as the sauce blends to help thin it out a bit. It will emulsify beautifully and you’ll be left with an ultra creamy sauce.

Serve it immediately over the salmon and veggies!

We hope you love this easy Salmon Sheet Pan Dinner as much as we do! Let us know in the comments below, what’s your favourite easy one pan meal that’s restaurant-worthy? We’d love to know!

• Air Fryer Salmon
• Easy Glazed Miso Salmon
• Air Fryer Salmon Bites
• Cucumber Appetizers with Smoked Salmon
• One Pan Teriyaki Glazed Salmon
• Easy One Pan Cajun Salmon
• Easy One Pan Maple Glazed Salmon