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Healthy Lemon Salmon Spaghetti Recipe
I can’t believe February is already here! Time just flies!
Did you make a resolution to eat more healthy meals at home? I think we all subconsciously maybe do it. Have you been? Even if you think you could be doing better, there’s no problem at all! I’m sure this Healthy Lemon Salmon Spaghetti will totally have you wanting to eat at home! You’ll love our light lemon salmon and spaghetti because it features tender and flavorful salmon with a creamy lemon white wine sauce. The best part is that our lemon sauce is creamy but doesn’t use any cream! The magic comes from pasta water, white wine, and garlic!
Is salmon a pesky protein for you? I have to admit that it is for me too. Salmon is so tasty and excellent for your body, but after having some mess-ups with salmon, I really have to be in the mood to cook up a salmon! However, now that I’ve had some practice with salmon, I do look forward to cooking and eating it more often. If you’re struggling with cooking the perfect salmon, then this is the recipe for you to get over your fear and master the best salmon ever, and to enjoy it in our awesome Lemon Salmon Spaghetti! Try this recipe out as part of your Live to Cook one-month challenge and hopefully this will encourage you to cook more salmon too! You can get started for free today by signing up to my email newsletter, plus my latest recipes will be delivered straight to your inbox!
Watch the video to see exactly how easy it is for our incredible salmon spaghetti recipe! I’d really appreciate it if you subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already and hit the bell button to be notified when all of my video recipes go live along with my written ones! I love to share the videos so you’ve got a visual representation of how everything comes together to guarantee you success! Let’s get cooking!
Why You’ll Love This Light and Fresh White Wine Salmon Pasta Recipe!
- Fast: This salmon pasta recipe is definitely a perfect weeknight dinner! The longest part is cooking the pasta! The salmon cooks quite quickly, and the white wine sauce comes together in no time.
- Minimal ingredients: We’re using household staples to make our salmon and spaghetti recipe. You may only need to go out and get a fresh filet of fish and you’ll be good to go!
- Healthy: This salmon pasta ticks off all the boxes of a nutritiously balanced meal. Salmon is loaded with healthy fats, promoting brain, hair and skin health. Salmon is also an excellent source of protein to help keep you satisfied. We’ve got even more healthy fats by using olive oil to cook the fish and to make our lemon white wine sauce. Furthermore, depending on what type of pasta you use, you can benefit from the fibre in whole grains if that’s the type of pasta you choose to use.
- Customizable: I’ll provide variations later on in this post, but you can make some swaps to enjoy the core of this pasta dish with a unique touch each time so that it feels like you’re eating an entirely new meal!
- Budget-friendly: While salmon may be expensive, it’s the most expensive part of this entire recipe. Furthermore, one fillet can feed two people here. This dish will certainly be much less expensive than if you were to order a seafood pasta at a restaurant!
- Incredible flavors: This is of course the most important reason! It’s so so good! I describe this pasta as a creamy pasta without the cream!
What’s the Best Salmon for Lemon Salmon Pasta?▼
The best salmon to buy is wild-caught salmon, which comes from the Pacific. There are five types of Pacific salmon, which include King salmon (also known as Chinook salmon), sockeye salmon (red salmon), coho salmon (also known as silver salmon), pink (humpback) salmon, and chum salmon (can also be referred to as dog, keta or silverbrite salmon). On the other hand, farmed salmon is Atlantic salmon, and “Atlantic salmon” is the only one of its kind. Wild-caught salmon is more nutritious and tastes better, so opt for that if possible.
My preference is to go to the fish section of the grocery store and ask for my desired portion of salmon fillet (6 to 8 ounces) and for the belly piece. I find that the flat tail pieces are tough and not as flavourful as the soft belly. On the other hand, if you’re going to make this salmon pasta for serving a big crowd, I would recommend purchasing a whole salmon filet and cut out your own portions. At this point, an entire salmon will be more budget-friendly and will be easier to prepare. You could reserve the belly and tail to those who have a preference! To be honest, however, in this recipe it won’t matter that much if you use a tail or belly. The only difference is that if you use a belly piece for your pasta, the salmon chunks will be thicker than if you were to use the tail. The choice is much more significant if you’re cooking a piece of salmon to serve whole!
Be sure that your salmon is a vibrant pink colour when you’re at the grocery store or fish market. Furthermore, make sure that the fish smell isn’t too strong. Discoloured and fish with an off-smell indicate that it’s spoiled! Additionally, keep in mind that you may need to de-bone the flesh depending on where you’ve purchased your fish.
With all that, I think rainbow trout or steelhead trout may also be used in our salmon spaghetti - it’ll be just as delicious and nutritious! Furthermore, if you want to use frozen filets, that’s fine too! Just ensure to thaw your fish before cooking.
What pasta should I use for Healthy Lemon Salmon Spaghetti?▼
I’m using spaghetti here. For this recipe, I recommend any kind of long shape pasta, such as linguine, fettuccine, angel’s hair pasta, spaghettini or even cappellini! This is because long noodles are great to have the light sauce glue onto them, plus they’ll be perfect for holding onto your salmon pieces.
What if I Don’t Have Garlic Oiil?▼
Don’t let that stop you from enjoying this incredible Light and Healthy Salmon Pasta recipe! The simple substitute is to add olive oil to your pan. When it’s hot, mince in some fresh garlic cloves and there you go! If you’ve seen my other pasta recipes, you must have seen me do this plenty of times!
What Wine Should I use for Spaghetti with Salmon?▼
A good rule of thumb is to pick a wine that you would like to drink. You really want to avoid cheaper wines that are labeled as “cooking wine” sold at the grocery stores. You really want to invest in a good quality wine so that your dish is the best possible, right! However, while you shouldn’t cheap out, you also shouldn’t be spending too much! Trust me, back when I worked in the restaurant industry, they were not paying $40 or more for wine to cook with!
Sauvignon Blanc is now my go-to white wine for cooking. Not only is it budget-friendly, but it’s extremely versatile. I use Sauvingon Blanc in all of my recipes that call for white wine, such as my Bolognese Sauce, Indian-Style Bolognese, Spicy One-Pot Chicken & Rice, Lemon Garlic Shrimp Scampiand Homemade Chicken Gravy! These wines will also be excellent options for cooking:
- Pinot Grigio
- Chardonnay
- Marsala
- Dry Sherry
- Dry Vermouth
I find that wine is an excellent drink to serve with pasta for a truly memorable meal, so use some wine for your cooking and then drink up when your pasta is ready on the table!
How to Substitute The Wine in Salmon Pasta?▼
All you need to do is use any broth you have on hand. Options include vegetable broth, chicken broth, or even seafood broth if you want a bolder seafood flavour in the dish!
How Do I know the Salmon Is Cooked?▼
This all depends on your preference of “done-ness.” Mine is medium-rare, and for this pasta, you’ll want to probably go on the less-cooked side. My tried and true method to check if the salmon is cooked is to poke it. After poking it, if you notice that the spring back is similar to when you poke the tip of your nose, that means your fish is ready!
If you’re still not confident after this method, then you can’t go wrong with using an instant read thermometer. If cooking a large filet of salmon, the cook time can be adjusted. Keep cooking until the thickest part of the salmon is at an internal temperature of 125-130 F for a medium salmon. If you are looking to cook your salmon to well-done, cook until it reaches an internal temperature of 158 F at the thickest part, as advised by Health Canada.
What Do I Do With the Salmon Skin?▼
I’m going to pan-sear the salmon in this recipe, which will result in a crispy skin salmon. However, once the salmon is cooked, we will discard the skin since we don’t want skin in the pasta.
If you’ve nailed the crispy skin on the salmon (which if you follow my recipe you will!), then you can actually eat the skin like chips if you like the taste of it! You could also feed it to your dog if you feed your dog treats like that :)
Can I Make this Recipe Gluten-Free?▼
Of course! In fact, I actually made this recipe gluten-freeby default, since none of the ingredients besides durum wheat semolina pasta contain gluten, and in this recipe I used gluten-free corn spaghetti. Other gluten-free spaghetti options include lentil, chickpea, or quinoa. I opt for the corn spaghetti because
How do I Thicken the Lemon Pasta Sauce?▼
While the sauce is slightly cooking down and combining with the starchy pasta water and melting Parmesan cheese, the lemon white wine pasta sauce will thicken on its own. To further thicken the sauce, you could always add more grated Parmesan cheese or simply start with less pasta water. If you simmer the pasta for too long, this might result in it being overcooked.
Tips for Amazing Healthy Lemon Pasta
- A fish spatula is your best friend to handle the fish with care without the risk of breaking it while flipping or handling.
- Cook on the skin side down for 80-90% of the way. This will keep your fish juicy and tender since the skin will protect the fish while it gets crispy. It’s a great snack if you are into crispy salmon skin - just make sure to have it fresh.
- The sauce would be thinner than other sauces. You can always adjust this to your preference by thinning it out with more pasta water as needed or by adding extra parmesan to thicken it. Simmering the pasta for too long will result in both the pasta and salmon becoming overcooked.
Equipment for Light Lemon Salmon Pasta
- Non-stick pan: Used to cook our salmon, and will help get the skin nice and crispy.
- Sieve: To drain the pasta once it’s cooked.
- Pot: A large pot to cook the pasta.
- Stainless steel pan: To cook the salmon and the lemon sauce. We’ll add the drained pasta into the sauce at the end of the recipe.
- Cutting board: To cut your cooked salmon and to remove the skin.
- Microplane: To grate Parmesan cheese.
- Sharp chef’s knife: To cut your salmon and to chop the parsley.
- Lemon presser: To squeeze the lemon juice out of your lemon.
- Spatula: To mix all the ingredients in the lemon white wine sauce.
- Tongs: To transfer the drained spaghetti and to toss the spaghetti and salmon into the lemon white wine sauce.
- Fish spatula: An essential tool for cooking salmon. I always joke that I use the fish spatula for other things more often than actual fish, but when it does time to cook some fish, I’m really blessed to have it! You can even use it for pizza bagels and pancakes- basically it’s awesome to flip and maneuver delicate things!
Ingredients for Lemon Salmon Pasta
Scroll to the bottom of this post or click the “Jump to Recipe” button for the FULL PRINTABLE recipe card to see complete ingredient quantities and to save the recipe instructions for later. The recipe card also allows you to scale all the ingredient quantities based on how many portions you want to make. By default, we’ve got 2 portions in this spaghetti with salmon recipe.
- Salmon: One fillet of salmon. The flavours of the salmon will seep into the pasta, totally transforming the dish!
- Spaghetti: Or any long pasta shape.
- Garlic-Infused Olive Oil: We’ll use our homemade garlic olive oil to cook the salmon and the pasta sauce. If you don’t have homemade garlic oil on hand or don’t want to make it yourself, you can simply use store-bought garlic olive oil.
- Sun-dried tomatoes: These add a nice Mediterranean flair to the pasta, providing a warm flavour throughout.
- Lemon: A half lemon, freshly squeezed.
- White wine: Substitute with broth of choice if you don’t want white wine.
- Chilli flakes: To taste. Adjust based on how much spice you want in your pasta.
- Parmesan cheese: I always suggest that you get a block of Parmesan cheese and grate it yourself for the freshest results. I’ve always hated boxed pre-grated Parmesan - it has no taste!
- Parsley: Freshly chopped parsley mixed into the pasta.
- Salt and pepper: To taste of course!
How to Make Light Salmon Pasta
Bring a pot of water up to a rolling boil for your pasta and once boiling, season the water with salt. Cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente. Then set aside and reserve 1/2 - 1 Cup of pasta water.
Heat a non-stick pan and heat on medium heat and add 1 Tbsp of garlic infused oil in. Once hot, add the salmon, skin side down on the pan and season the fish with salt and pepper. If the oil starts to smoke, lower the heat to prevent the skin from burning.
Cook the salmon for 8-12 minutes, skin side down or until you can visually see the fish cook on the side until around 80% of it is cooked (turned white/opaque).
Flip the salmon on the flesh side down using a fish spatula and cook the top side. For a medium cooked salmon, just cook on the top side for 60-90 seconds and turn it back over to the skin side.
Remove the salmon from the pan, remove the skin and break the fish into smaller chunks. Set aside for now.
In the meanwhile, heat a pan on medium heat and add the rest of the garlic infused oil + any oil leftover from the salmon pan. Add chilli flakes, sun-dried tomatoes and lemon zest. Saute until aromatic.
Add lemon juice and wine and bring the sauce to a simmer.
Add the cooked spaghetti and toss well. Then top with chopped parsley and 1/2 Cup of grated parmesan cheese. Mix well to combine and if the sauce needs to be thinned out, add a splash of the reserved pasta water.
Taste and adjust for seasoning, then serve with more grated parsley and the rest of the parmesan cheese.
Serving Suggestions for Healthy Lemon Salmon Spaghetti
There’s only green on this plate from the parsley. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you would like some more greens to your meal, you may love to pair our seafood spaghetti with my Chicken Caesar Salad! We aren’t making a typical caesar dressing; instead, we’ll be using my Homemade Greek Yogurt Caesar Dressing to keep the meal light! For a simple veggie side dish, my Quick Sautéed Garlic Butter Broccoli will be perfect (and yes, you can use garlic-infused oil in here instead of minced garlic and butter)!
If you want appetizers to serve the pasta as a main dish, here are some ideas that will be excellent to tickle your guests tastebuds!
- Fried Mozzarella Sticks
- Air Fryer Mini Puff Pastry Sausage Rolls
- BBQ Chicken Sheet Pan Nachos
- Air Fryer Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings
- Cheddar Jalapeno Samosas
You can’t go wrong with bread! You can have garlic bread, Baguette, or a fluffy dinner roll to scoop up any leftover sauce on your plate and in the pan!
Variations of Lemon Salmon Spaghetti
- Pasta shape: Explore with different pasta shapes and see what’s your favourite! If you’ve already got some other pasta shapes that have been sitting in your pantry for far too long, then I encourage you to use them! As I explain in my 5 top tips to spark creativity in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!, I will always suggest to use up ingredients that are itching to jump out of the fridge, pantry or freezer before taking the time and money for new ingredients. Got rigatoni or bowties? They will be just fine here!
- Protein: If you want to try all the other components of this pasta dish and try a different protein, this pasta would also pair really well with chicken, shrimp, or scallops. You could even used canned salmon to save some time.
- Herbs: Don’t have parsley on hand? No problem! Basil will also be a perfect touch to finish up your Lemon Salmon Pasta!
- Veggies: Want some more veggies in this salmon pasta? Go for it! I think red peppers, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and/or broccoli would be excellent in our lemon spaghetti dish!
Storing Leftover Healthy Lemon Salmon Pasta
I don’t particularly consider this Healthy Lemon Salmon Pasta a recipe that will meal prep well, to be totally honest. The lemon salmon spaghetti really does taste the best when it’s fresh out of the pan. However, if you know you won’t have time to cook much in the coming days and want to have some leftovers, then simply store them in an airtight container in the fridge. I wouldn’t keep this pasta for longer than 3 to 4 days.
Reheating Salmon Spaghetti
You can simply reheat your Light Lemon Salmon Pasta in the microwave. Make sure that the pasta is in a microwave-safe bowl, plate or container, and place it in the microwave for 2-3 minutes, stirring at 30 second intervals to ensure that the pasta is evenly and completely warmed through. If possible, I recommend you keep the salmon separated from any leftover pasta, and reheat them separately. Salmon is very delicate and it will reheat quickly, so if you do it for too long, it will become hard and dry.
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