Sheet-Pan Salmon With Cabbage and Mushrooms

Name: Sheet-Pan Salmon With Cabbage and Mushrooms
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 1/2 medium head green or red cabbage (about 2 1/2 pounds; 1200g), cut through core; 5 tablespoons (75 ml) extra-virgin olive oil, divided; 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika; 2 1/2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt, divided; for table salt use half as much by volume; 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; 8 ounces (226 g) beech mushrooms, trimmed and separated, or thinly sliced cremini mushrooms; 1 teaspoon ground fennel seeds; 4 (6- to 8-ounce; 170 to 226 g) skin-on or skinless salmon fillets; 1 teaspoon ground cumin; 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric; 1/2 teaspoon lime zest and 1 tablespoon lime juice (from 1 lime); 2 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro or parsley (optional)

A plated salmon dish alongside a sheet pan with prepared salmon and vegetables, garnished and ready to serve — Serious Eats / Maureen Celestine

Why It Works

Coating the cabbage and salmon with spice-infused oils enhances the flavor of the vegetables and fish.
Covering the cabbage with aluminum foil for the first part of its cooking time steams the cabbage leaves to ensure they turn tender and stay moist.

As I noted in my sheet-pan pork tenderloin recipe, my partner and I started cooking sheet-pan dinners together at home a few years ago. It’s an easy and convenient way for us to prepare complete, balanced meals any night of the week all year round. One of our favorites is this spiced salmon, cabbage, and mushroom dinner.

The entire meal comes together in under an hour and requires very little prep and cleanup, but there are a few key steps to ensure that the cabbage and salmon are tender, that each element is flavorful, and it all works together to create a harmonious whole. You can't just slap everything on a sheet pan and expect a delicious meal. Here are my tips for making this elegant, company-worthy meal on a single pan.

3 Tips for a Favorful Sheet Pan Salmon Dinner

1. Build flavor with a combination of spices. As a chef from India, I love using my favorite spices even when I’m not making Indian food. Here I love the earthy hint that the combination of turmeric and cumin adds to the salmon. Smoked paprika gives the cabbage a welcome woodsy flavor that pairs nicely with the mushrooms, and ground fennel seed brightens the mushrooms.

I like to use freshly ground cumin and fennel seeds for this recipe: Spices lose their flavor quickly and store-bought powders don’t always have the same intensity as freshly ground ones. I grind my spices often so they are fresh, aromatic, and intensely flavorful when I need them. You can grind the spices in a spice mill or with a mortar and pestle. If you don't grind your spices just be sure to buy pre-ground spices frequently and use them up quickly. Spices that have been sitting in your cabinet for many months will lose their flavor over time.

2. Bloom the spices in oil before brushing over the cabbage and salmon. It can be challenging to get dried spices and oil into all the nooks and folds of cabbage wedge’s leaves, not to mention that the slick surface of cabbage is hard for dried spices to cling to when sprinkled directly onto it. To ensure the smoked paprika is evenly distributed over the cabbage and that it reaches its full flavor potential, I briefly microwave a small amount of oil with the paprika before brushing it over the cut sides of the wedges. Blooming spices in oil also releases more of their flavor, since the ground spice’s flavor molecules are oil-soluble. So it’s not only easier to baste the cabbage with the spice-infused oil mixture, but it also will help develop more flavor.

I used this same technique for seasoning the salmon—instead of unevenly sprinkling the dry spices over the fish, I whisk the cumin and turmeric into oil, heat the mixture briefly, and brush it over the fish to ensure it's well coated with the spices. (I found that tossing the small mushrooms directly in the spices and oil coated each mushroom well enough that I didn't need to use this step with them.)

3. Stagger the cooking of the cabbage, mushrooms, and salmon. The main issue with many sheet-pan dinners is that everything is added to the pan at the same time and cooked all at once. This often leads to meat or fish that’s overcooked and accompanying vegetables that are still raw and crunchy, or vice versa. This can easily be avoided by adding each element to the sheet pan in stages, starting with the one that takes the longest to cook.

Here, the cabbage gets a jumpstart in the oven since it’s cut into thick wedges and its fibrous leaves take longer to cook than the mushrooms and salmon. I also cover the sheet pan tightly with aluminum foil to start. The foil traps in heat and moisture while the cabbage starts cooking, so the cabbage leaves steam and become tender. This ensures the cabbage cooks evenly and doesn’t dry out. The foil is then removed after 15 minutes and the mushrooms are added and cooked briefly before the salmon is finally added. The result is tender, flaky salmon, silky cabbage, and roasted mushrooms that all finish cooking at the same time.

Another benefit of staggered cooking times is that while one element begins cooking, you can use this time to prepare the next step, which helps save time.

This recipe can easily be halved to serve two people, which is how my partner and I usually enjoy this recipe. Alternatively, you can double it and cook it on two sheet pans.