This cilantro lime salmon bake is the perfect end-of-summer meal! We top salmon with a creamy cilantro lime sauce, give it a quick bake, then top it with a fresh tomato avocado salsa for a one-pan meal that’s done in under 20 minutes!
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This recipe is…
This salmon is based on one of our long-time reader favorites, this herb-crusted salmon and potato bake. Funnily enough, I think that many people shy away from making seafood because it seems fancy or complicated, but in reality, it is one of the easiest ways to get a healthy dinner on the table fast! The quick bake results in perfectly tender, flaky salmon, the cilantro lime sauce provides amazing flavor, and the tomato avocado salsa takes it to the next level with fresh summer produce. You can eat it as-is or serve it with a lemon arugula salad or some rice or cauli rice.
Cilantro Lime Salmon Ingredients
This cilantro lime salmon has 3 main components:
- Salmon. Salmon is obviously the star of the show in this recipe, so you’ll want to find high-quality, fresh salmon to use. We personally love Pride of Bristol Bay as our source of wild-caught, sustainable Alaskan sockeye salmon! We’ve used a whole salmon filet here, but you can also use smaller portions of salmon if needed.
- Cilantro lime sauce. Next up is the cilantro lime sauce. We chose to make our own creamy version with cilantro, a bit of green onion, lime juice, and mayo. However, if you want to skip that step, you can easily substitute this storebought cilantro lime dressing instead!
- Tomato avocado salad. The final component of this dish is the tomato avocado salad, which really makes it feel like something special. You can make it while the salmon is baking by just halving some cherry tomatoes, slicing a red onion, chopping cilantro, dicing an avocado, and mixing it all together with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
How to Make Perfect Baked Salmon
The key to making baked salmon is to make sure that you don’t overcook it. In this recipe, we call for baking the salmon at 375 F for 13-15 minutes. This will result in a medium salmon. When you pull it out of the oven, you should see that the sauce has browned slightly, and when you put a fork in it it should easily flake apart and still be a deep pink color. If you decide to use smaller salmon fillets for this recipe, you can reduce the cooking time to about 7 minutes.
How to Reheat Leftover Cilantro Lime Salmon
If you find yourself with leftovers of this cilantro lime salmon, you have two options: first, you can chop up the remaining salmon and it over greens with some extra dressing and the tomato avocado salsa and eat it cold, or you can reheat the salmon. The danger with reheating salmon is that it overcooks quickly and can become rubbery, so we recommend putting it in an oven-safe glass container, covering the container with foil, and reheating at 275 for 5-10 minutes, until just warm.
More Favorite Salmon Recipes
Cilantro Lime Salmon Bake with Tomato Avocado Salsa
Ingredients
For the Cilantro Lime Sauce*
- ½ cup avocado oil mayo
- 1/3 cup fresh cilantro
- 2 tablespoons sliced green onion
- 2 tablespoons lime juice about 1 lime
- 2 tablespoons full-fat coconut milk may also use water
For the Salmon
- 1, 1.5 pound whole salmon filet*
- ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon cracked black pepper
For the tomato avocado salad
- 1 avocado cut into 1-inch chunks
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes sliced in half
- ¼ cup fresh chopped cilantro
- ¼ red onion thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- ½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 F.
- Blend all ingredients for the cilantro lime sauce until smooth, then set aside.
- Place the salmon filet on a rimmed baking sheet, then season with salt and pepper. Pour the sauce over the salmon, then bake for 13-15 minutes, until it flakes easily with a fork.
- While the salmon is baking, place all ingredients for the tomato avocado salad in a large bowl and toss to combine.
- Pour the tomato avocado salad over the salmon and serve!
Recipe Notes
- If desired, you can substitute 3/4 cup storebought cilantro lime dressing
- If using smaller portions of salmon instead of a large filet, cook for 6-7 minutes, until the salmon flakes easily with a fork
Nutrition
Excellent salmon recipe! This is good even without the avocado salad, but with cherry tomatoes from the garden, I won’t skip the salad. One tip: for the avocado salad, mix the olive oil and salt, and then toss that with the other ingredients. My son added the ingredients as they were listed. The salt did not mix in well, and those who served from the top of the bowl got a few very salty mouthfulls.
Glad you liked this one, Mary! Thank you for sharing!
The taste is amazing! Is the sauce supposed to be on the thinner or thicker side? Mine was pretty thin, still tasted great. I might cut back on the coconut milk next time for a slightly thicker sauce!
Mine was thin enough to run off the side of the salmon just a tad, but not super thin. It’s definitely not so thick that you need a utensil to spread it over the salmon with. I hope that helps!!
This salmon recipe is AMAZING! I saw it being made on the Fed and Fit Instagram story and knew I had to make it. It was a hit for my hubby and I! We will be making this all summer long!
Yay! So glad you guys enjoyed this, Meredith!
Think greek yogurt could sub for mayo? I’m not a mayo person but this looks fab!
We haven’t tried it, so we can’t say for sure, but I think it’ll work!
Making this for the second time today. Waiting for it to come out of the oven.. seriously drooling in anticipation because it was SO AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS the first time.
Wahoo!! Thanks for sharing this with us, Richelle!
Wahoo!! Thanks for sharing this with us, Richelle!
This salmon is fresh and so tasteful. Love it