Creamy Lemon Salmon Pasta

This creamy lemon salmon pasta highlights the beauty of perfectly seasoned salmon filets served with a parmesan asiago lemon pasta tossed with peas. It’s a flavorful, delicious dinner that takes 30 minutes to prepare from scratch.

• Salmon filets – I used four wild, skin-on filets. They’re served whole with the pasta because I much prefer the texture of salmon when it’s not cooked to well done then flaked. You could definitely use skinless filets.
• Lemon – Fresh lemon is always best in my opinion. But use what you have!
• Roasted garlic – I always keep oven roasted garlic in the freezer and love the way it melts into the sauce. If you don’t already have it, it’s time consuming to prepare on a moment’s notice. Use minced garlic instead.
• Asiago & Parmesan cheese – My asiago cream sauce is one of my favorites, so I tried a combo of asiago and parmesan and LOVED the results. You can use just one or the other if you prefer.
• Heavy cream – This is one thing I don’t recommend you skimp on. The fat content of heavy whipping cream helps create the lusciousness of the sauce, and prevents breaking.
• Milk – You can use all heavy cream, or half and half here instead. We used whole milk.
• Peas – Either freshly shelled English peas or frozen peas will work.
• Pasta – I like this with a short pasta so you can scoop up peas along with it. We used a twisted pasta called gemelli, but you could use penne, bow ties, shells or macaroni.
• Salt & Pepper – I never cook without salt and this recipe does benefit from a few turns of freshly cracked pepper.
• Oil – You could use butter as well, but oil helps the salmon skin sear better so I use that. Grapeseed or canola would be my choice for this.

• Use a good pan – Since I made the salmon and sauce all in one pan, I opted for my cast iron skillet. An enameled cast iron pan or stainless steel would be my second choice.
  
  This gave me plenty of heat for a good sear, plus retained heat so I could emulsify the sauce without turning burners on and off a whole bunch.
• Let the pan COOL – I used my technique for cast iron salmon to cook both filets in the recipe. Then I built the sauce right in the same skillet. To do that without burning or curdling, turn the heat to LOW after you flip the salmon. Then let it cool further by removing the salmon and waiting 1-2 minutes before moving to the next step. This is usually when I am adding pasta to the boiling water.
• Don’t rush the sauce – Cream and cheese based sauces, especially those combined with acids like lemon juice, have an unfortunate habit of curdling. To avoid that, work over very low heat and be patient. It will come together before long, and the creamy result is worth it.
• Pay attention to the pasta and pea cooking times – Some pasta cooks faster than others and both fresh and frozen peas take just 3 minutes. Adding them at the same time to boiling waters will leave you with seriously mushy peas. Don’t do that to yourself! Add the peas in the last 3 minutes of your pasta’s cooking time.
• Don’t forget the salt – Don’t forget to liberally salt the pasta water. When it tastes like the ocean, you’ll have well seasoned pasta and peas to add to your sauce.
• Serve skin side up – If you take my recommendation of cooking whole skin-on filets, then don’t forget to keep them skin side up and serve them that way to avoid the skin going soft.