My Chef's Hat - Pan Seared Honey Glazed Salmon

Looking back through my posts, you would think I've been eating salmon all my life.  But for a long time when I was a kid, I refused to eat it.  I don't know why.  Maybe it was the color, maybe I just thought it would have a funny smell or taste.  Whatever the reason, I wouldn't budge on it.  But years ago, at the beach with my friend Denise, she made a very simply grilled salmon using only McCormick steak seasoning.  I fell in love, and for a long time only ate it like that.  Then a few years ago I started buying frozen blackened salmon at Sam's, and again, that was the only way I ate it.  But after a while I got bored and wanted to try some new things. 

A few weeks ago I found several different salmon recipes.  I went online yesterday and was going to do one that was a citrus grilled.  But then this afternoon, I changed my mind when I saw the Pan Seared Honey Glazed Salmon on the list.  The recipe calls for the salmon to be topped with a browned butter lime sauce.  Between that and the honey, I was sold. 

Here is the official recipe picture:

And here is my version:

I am officially in love!  The honey adds amazing flavor to the salmon.  The only down side is my own fault, because I over-cooked the salmon a little, but that's a simple fix. I seared the salmon in Pam instead of olive oil. 

The butter sauce has a lot of garlic, so don't make this recipe if it's for a date or if you're going on a date afterwards! As always, I used Smart Balance light instead of real butter or margarine. The recipe called for quite a bit of butter. I don't know if it's cause I used the fake stuff, but it cooked down to less than half its original amount, but that's okay. The recipe says to use raw garlic...I cooked the garlic in the butter for a few minutes and that still didn't get rid of all the garlic bite. I poured a little of the sauce over my green bean/asparagus/mushroom sautee, and that was really delicious as well.

I made this the other day again for Christmas dinner since my parents were here and they are vegetarian. I did the recipe more as written. I used canola oil to sear the salmon, and made the sauce with butter (but still used a lot less than called for). 

I liked this version even better than my first attempt. I will say it was quite a bit oilier though, so I need to scale back some on the butter sauce. But that was absolutely the only negative.

Will I make this again? Absolutely. I think adding a little white wine into the butter sauce would add great flavor. And maybe mince the garlic a little more so it doesn't have quite the bite.


Recipe found on Cooking Classy