Dinner

One-Pan Salmon with Lemon Butter

Potatoes first, salmon last, and the butter poured over as it reaches the table.

10 minprep

32 mincook

4servings

A salmon fillet in a pool of lemon butter with dill, a wedge of lemon and roast potatoes

Make it when

you want a whole dinner off one tray with twelve minutes of attention in the middle

Skip it if

you are cooking for the rest of the week — salmon is the one thing here that does not want reheating

The whole thing turns on one gap: potatoes want thirty minutes, salmon wants twelve. A tray that goes in together comes out with one of them wrong. So the potatoes roast alone, the tray comes out once, the fish and the beans go on, and it goes back. The lemon butter is made in the twelve minutes that takes — melted, off the heat, poured over the lot at the end.

What you buy

4 salmon fillets, skin on (about 600 g)
800 g new potatoes, halved
300 g green beans, trimmed
1 lemon
1 small bunch dill

And from the cupboard

60 g butter
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
0.5 tsp black pepper

Cold salmon the next day beats reheated salmon every time. Flake it into a lunch and leave the microwave out of it.

What you do

Heat the oven to 200 °C fan. Toss the potatoes with the olive oil, salt and pepper, spread them cut side down on a large tray and roast twenty minutes.
Take the tray out. Push the potatoes to the edges, lay the salmon in the middle skin side down, and scatter the beans around it. Twelve minutes more.
While it roasts, melt the butter with the garlic in a small pan over a low heat. Off the heat, squeeze in half the lemon and stir through most of the dill.
Pour the lemon butter over the tray as it comes out. The rest of the dill on top, the rest of the lemon in wedges.

Three things that decide it

The potatoes get a twenty-minute head start. Everything else on the tray cooks in twelve, and that gap is the whole recipe.
Salmon is done before you think it is. Take it out while the centre is still slightly translucent — it keeps cooking on a hot tray for a few minutes after.
The butter goes on off the heat. Melted gently and poured over at the end it stays a sauce; baked on, it splits and browns.

If you have not got it

Salmon: Trout fillets, same time. Cod wants ten minutes and a gentler hand — it flakes apart the moment you move it.
New potatoes: Any potato cut to 3 cm. Sweet potato works but browns faster: give it fifteen minutes alone, not twenty.
Green beans: Asparagus, tenderstem broccoli, or courgette in thick coins. All of them go on at the same moment the fish does.
Fresh dill: Parsley or chives. Dried dill is not a substitute here — leave it out rather than reach for it.

Ahead, and afterwards

The potatoes can be roasted a day ahead and finished with the fish. Cooked salmon keeps two days covered in the fridge and is better cold than reheated — flake it into a salad or a sandwich. Do not freeze it once cooked; it thaws dry.

If it went wrong

Dry salmon: Three minutes too many. Out while the middle is still slightly translucent, and let the tray finish it.
Potatoes still hard: They went in with the fish instead of before it, or the pieces were too big. Cut to 3 cm and give them their twenty minutes alone.
The butter split into oil: It boiled. Melt it gently, take it off the heat before the lemon goes in, and never let it bubble.

Three ways to change it

On lentils

Spoon the tray over a pan of warm green lentils. It stretches to five and it catches the butter that would otherwise sit on the tray.

Mustard and honey

A teaspoon each of Dijon and honey stirred into the butter, brushed on the fish for the last five minutes instead of poured at the end.

Capers instead of dill

Two tablespoons of capers in the butter, no herbs. Sharper, and it suits the potatoes even more than the fish.

Questions people ask

How long does salmon take in the oven?

Twelve minutes at 200 °C fan for a fillet around 3 cm thick, and it should leave the oven with the centre still slightly translucent. A thin tail piece wants nine or ten. The hot tray finishes it, so err early rather than late.

Can I cook salmon from frozen?

Yes. Pat it dry, add about half again to the time — eighteen minutes rather than twelve — and expect more liquid on the tray, which thins the butter a little.

Do I have to take the skin off?

No, and it is easier not to. Skin side down on a hot tray it crisps and shields the underside from overcooking. Lift the fillet off the skin with a spatula for anyone who does not want it.

Cooking it for a different number

Written for 4. For two, halve the 4 salmon fillets and leave the seasonings as they are — they scale badly by arithmetic and well by taste. For six or more, add half again rather than double, and use two trays or two pans instead of crowding one.

Or change the number once and let the shopping list follow. That is the one bit of this a person should never do by hand.