Hey guys! Welcome to the first food post I’ve worked on since I got told I needed to eat differently- Salmon Cake Salad. I’d been struggling a bit with what to eat and how to eat after being told my diet could help control symptoms of inflammation (more about what’s been going on for me in an upcoming post), but these salmon cakes and the accompanying salad was the first time I sat down and ate and felt like “Ok, this is going to be ok.”
For me, food is a major source of joy. There’s a food for every situation and you can celebrate with food, comfort with food, gift with food and receive love with food… It’s the best. So being told no butter, no refined wheat, cut the fat, etc etc was NOT something I wanted to hear. I love butter and pasta. And steak.
This salmon cake salad in a way gave me hope that my food didn’t have to be boring and disappointing. Sure there’s things I want that I shouldn’t have (like really, really shouldn’t and may be ill if I have), but this was like the gateway meal to thinking about what I can have rather than what I can’t. I used leftover salmon that was smoked, but canned will work beautifully in this application. I also made my own bread crumbs using bread I can eat- but use whatever is available to you and right for your dietary needs.
Salmon Cake Salad
Serves 4 for $11.61 , or $2.90 per serving
2 Cans of Salmon, drained, cleaned and flaked – $5.33 (wild Pacific pink salmon)
1/2 bell pepper (I used red), small diced – $1.84
1 jalapeno, small dice, seeded – $0.33
1/4 onion, small dice – $0.26
1 egg – $0.22
Bread crumbs to bind – n/e
2 TBS Roasted garlic aioli (or mayonnaise of your preference and garlic powder) – $0.26
Iceberg Lettuce- $1.97
2 Roma Tomato- $0.52
2 mini cucumber- $0.88
Pantry Staples: lemon juice, salt, pepper, olive oil and dijon/grainy mustard
Preheat your oven to 350.
To start, take your onion, jalapeno and bell pepper and saute in a pan until softened and cooked. While that’s going, prep your salmon and flake into a bowl. Add your sauteed vegetables, egg and half of your aioli and mix thoroughly. You want to do this before adding bread crumbs for ease. Once it’s mixed, add your bread crumbs until you can form loose patties. These don’t have to be firm patties at all because they’ll bind up as you cook them.
Once your mix is the right texture, prep a pan with an oven-safe rack to cook your patties on. You can see I used my copper pan for this. Once your patties are formed (I made 8, for sizing), pop them into your preheated oven for 20 minutes. The cooking time will vary depending on the consistency of your mix, but you want the patties to get nice and crispy. The meat is already cooked so once it’s crispy, it’ll be perfect to take out.
While my fish cakes were cooking, I made my salad- it was just shredded iceberg lettuce, a diced tomato and diced cucumber. The dressing was about a 1/2 tsp of the roasted garlic aoili, grainy dijon, salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice. I poured a bit over my salad to lightly dress it and then left the remaining in my ramekin to dip my salmon cakes in.
And that’s it! This was a delicious, easy dinner that is affordable to recreate and pretty dang healthy.
Comments are closed.