Bake Your Salmon Under A Slab Of Cream Cheese And Thank Us Later

Salmon and cream cheese. It's a flavor combo you've learned to love in such yummies as lox and cream cheese or cream cheese stuffed sushi. However, you're doing yourself a disservice if you stop your salmon dinner experimentations at bagel toppings and stuffed seaweed rolls. Fresh salmon baked under a softened mound of cream cheese, flavored with some fish-friendly seasonings, is a dinner delight that works for so many reasons. It may even become the only salmon you'll ever want to eat.

Taste should be first and foremost why you try this seafood hack. Cream cheese has an acidic tanginess that complements fish in the same way that lemon does. Acids on salmon, like vinegar or lemon, firm up the fish's texture and augment its flavor profile. 

And that's just with cream cheese. We haven't even begun to talk about the herbs and spices that you can mix in. Dill, black pepper, lemon, and garlic make for good starters. Or here's one better. Flavorful pesto, plus a bit of fresh-grated Parmesan, kicks the flavor up a notch. Pesto is particularly yummy here because basil is a key ingredient in pesto. And as it turns out, basil, as well as rosemary and thyme, count among the tastiest seasonings to add to a salmon fillet, so it's hard to go wrong with this mix.

If you want to make this flavor combo, start by softening up the cream cheese until it's room temperature. That'll make the process easier when you mix in other flavors such as pesto, garlic, cracked pepper, and the like. And how about adding even more rich creaminess? Try a little Kewpie mayo on your salmon instead of your run-of-the-mill white stuff from your store's condiment aisle. Seasoned bread crumbs or crushed nuts bring a satisfying crunch to the fish.

Once your cream cheese mix is done, pat your fish dry. This makes for a more pleasant texture in the mouth. It also gives the cream cheese something to "grab" onto because the fish isn't moist to the point of being slick to the touch. One of the challenges with cooking fish is keeping the seasonings on the fish during the baking process. Mixing the seasonings and spices in with the cream cheese keeps the fish and the seasoning together by giving the spices a place to roost, in a manner of speaking. This is the second reason to try this salmon hack.

Finally, bake the fish on 425 degrees Fahrenheit. When it comes to baking the fish, each inch of thickness will require between four and six minutes of baking time. That's not much time, so keep an eye on it. Most fish fillets finish cooking in under 10 minutes, so don't cook the fish so long it becomes dry, thus robbing your tastebuds of the chance to try this succulent seafood surprise.