Do you find it difficult to get fish into your diet? I'm always trying to strike a healthy balance with our meals, but I struggle to include fish in our family meals regularly so I'm always looking for new ways to serve it up and include it in our diets. With this in mind I've got a really easy salmon recipe to share with you today, and it's so simple to make that my 7 year old actually put it together by himself, and very proud of it he was too!
I created this recipe after being contacted by Iceland, who enlisted my help in spreading the word about the #PowerofFrozen, which is challenging preconceptions and educating people about the value of frozen foods. I'm sure many of us associate frozen foods with convenience and saving money, but I know that I for one often assume that frozen food doesn't taste so great. The truth is though that modern freezing methods lock in the natural flavours in foods and retain the nutritional food benefits too, so I decided I was willing to give frozen food a chance - I do love a foodie adventure!
Iceland challenged me to shop in store for a healthy family meal, and I enjoyed the excuse for a really good foodie style browse rather than my usual quick in and out dash with the boys in tow. I have to be honest, in the past when I've shopped at Iceland I've nipped in for a quick pizza or some fish fingers, convenience foods that are at the rather less healthy end of the spectrum, so I was quite surprised at the large range of healthier foods that are also available once I started looking properly. I was particularly impressed at the large range of fish, all of which is really reasonably priced. I picked up the salmon fillets for this recipe (£6 for 4 fillets) and also some cod fillets and smoked haddock fillets (£4 per pack), which were on offer at 3 packs for £10, a great price and very convenient to have in the freezer for midweek meals. I'm feeling really inspired to get some more fish in our diet and look forward to creating more healthy recipes with these over the next few weeks.
Wandering further into the store I was absolutely amazed at the specialty meats available. From crocodile to kangaroo and ostrich, this was definitely something new I had to try! I picked up a pack of ostrich burgers and a pack of kangaroo burgers (£1.50 per pack of two) and tested them out on the family that evening. I was pleased to also find everything I needed to accompany the burgers in store - I bought wholemeal burger buns, new potatoes (for making homemade potato wedges) and tried frozen corn cobs too, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the cobs were super easy to cook and tasted really great! My boys love corn on the cob, so I'll be keeping some of these on hand in the freezer from now on. The burgers were a hit, especially the kangaroo burgers which were the clear winners on the taste front for all of us.
Now I promised you a recipe, so here it is; delicious and easy salmon and rice parcels. This recipe is great for using up leftover rice (I always cook too much!) but you can of course cook some rice especially for the recipe if you need to. I made four parcels, but it's easy to halve or increase the recipe quantities to suit your own family size if necessary.
Salmon and Rice Parcels
Ingredients:
- 500g cold cooked rice (or 200g uncooked)
- 4 Iceland Atlantic Salmon Fillets
- 16 cherry tomatoes
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 tbs soy sauce
- 2 tsp dried mixed herbs
- salt and pepper
- 2 lemons
Method:
Start by cooking the rice if starting the recipe from scratch. Otherwise, leftover rice works perfectly.
Preheat the oven to 200°C (Gas mark 6/390°F).
Take 4 large rectangles of tinfoil and fold them in half, then open and lay them out in a line, ready to be filled.
Divide the rice into 4 equal portions and pile in the middle of one half of each piece of tinfoil (see step by photos below). Place a salmon fillet on top of each pile of rice.
Slice each of the cherry tomatoes in half, then place them on top of the rice next to each salmon fillet, dividing equally between the four parcels.
Drizzle olive oil and soy sauce over each of the salmon fillets, then sprinkle generously with the mixed herbs and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Take one of the lemons and cut it into slices, then place three or four lemon slices on top of each salmon fillet.
Fold the tin foil back over the salmon and rice, press down gently around the salmon then roll up the edges to form a sealed parcel. Repeat with all four parcels.
Place the parcels onto baking trays and pop into the oven to bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, carefully unwrap one of the parcels and check that the salmon is cooked though - it should be light pink throughout. If it isn't quite cooked, pop back into the oven and bake for another 5-10 minutes.
Serve with a fresh salad or cooked vegetables, we had some more of the frozen corn cobs with ours, delicious!
I hope you enjoy this recipe, why not challenge your little one to give it a go themselves?
Grace
Disclosure: This blog post was commissioned by Iceland as a part of the #PowerofFrozen campaign. I was compensated for my time, however all opinions expressed in this post are my own.
Salmon and Rice Parcels
Ingredients
- 500 g cold cooked rice (or 200g uncooked)
- 4 Iceland Atlantic Salmon Fillets
- 16 cherry tomatoes
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 tbs soy sauce
- 2 tsp dried mixed herbs
- salt and pepper
- 2 lemons
Instructions
- Start by cooking the rice if starting the recipe from scratch. Otherwise, leftover rice works perfectly.
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (Gas mark 6/390°F).
- Take 4 large rectangles of tinfoil and fold them in half, then open and lay them out in a line, ready to be filled.
- Divide the rice into 4 equal portions and pile in the middle of one half of each piece of tinfoil (see step by photos below). Place a salmon fillet on top of each pile of rice.
- Slice each of the cherry tomatoes in half, then place them on top of the rice next to each salmon fillet, dividing equally between the four parcels.
- Drizzle olive oil and soy sauce over each of the salmon fillets, then sprinkle generously with the mixed herbs and season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Take one of the lemons and cut it into slices, then place three or four lemon slices on top of each salmon fillet.
- Fold the tin foil back over the salmon and rice, press down gently around the salmon then roll up the edges to form a sealed parcel. Repeat with all four parcels.
- Place the parcels onto baking trays and pop into the oven to bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, carefully unwrap one of the parcels and check that the salmon is cooked though - it should be light pink throughout. If it isn't quite cooked, pop back into the oven and bake for another 5-10 minutes.
- Serve with a fresh salad or cooked vegetables, we had some more of the frozen corn cobs with ours, delicious!
I hope you will want to try this quick and easy recipe, please pin it if you do! For more easy family friendly dinner ideas and recipes, check out the Family Friendly Meals section here on the Eats Amazing blog or pop over and follow the Eats Amazing recipes Pinterest board for fresh and seasonal inspiration all the year around!
Leave a Reply