Cooking salmon ‘en papillote’ just means salmon cooked in a little packet of parchment paper, usually with a simple mixture of seasonings like lemon and fresh herbs (like in our simplest Salmon En Papillote recipe). For this just slightly fancier salmon en papillote recipe, we’re building on that simplicity with an easy and flavor-boosting trick: Compound butter! Specifically, umami-rich tomato butter! Salty butter and tomato paste get along with meaty salmon so, so well. Baked in parchment, the salmon steams up and soaks up all of the tomato buttery goodness as it does. When you and yours open your pouches, poofs of fragrant steam will have everyone oooh-ing and ahh-ing before they’ve even had their first bite. And no one has to know how easy it was to make.
Ingredients
For the tomato butter
- Butter: Salted butter is our pick for this one, just because it makes life easier and we like salt! But if you’ve only got unsalted butter, that’s fine — just be sure to add salt to taste. One fiddly thing: You really do need it to be at room temp, and no, you sadly cannot microwave it. Leave it out at room temperature for at least an hour if you can before you try to make compound butter.
- Tomato paste: Tomato paste is a classic way to add deeply savory flavors to any dish, and using it as a primary ingredient in a compound butter is one of our favorite flavor-boosting tricks ever.
- Brown sugar: We love a little brown sugar with our salmon (as in our Baked Salmon recipe!), it just works really well.
- Seasonings: A dash each of garlic powder and dried oregano
For the salmon parchment packets
- Salmon fillets: Use any salmon that you like best — sockeye, coho, or king are all lovely here!
- Cherry tomatoes: You’ll leave these whole, and they’ll soften and release their sweet juices as they bake in the parchment packet. And it’ll be SO yummy.
- Olives: Pitted green olives are our favorite here, salty and briny, they’re perfect with the salmon. Grab them from the olive bar, or use jarred.
- Garlic: The flavors at play here are classic mediterranean flavors, and especially make us think of classic Provencal recipes.
- Capers: Briny and salty like the olives and the salmon, capers add yet another level of deep umami goodness.
- Lemon: Laying a bed of lemon slices under the salmon as it steams takes the ‘fishy’ edge off and makes it a little more delicate in flavor.
- Fresh thyme: We throw just a sprig of thyme into each packet, and it lifts the whole dish.
How To Bake Salmon In Parchment
- Cut and fold four oval-shaped pieces of parchment paper.
- Make the tomato butter: Smash together softened butter, tomato paste, brown sugar, garlic powder, oregano, and salt. Note: You could do this step easily a day or two ahead of time! Just store the compound butter in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.
- Fill the parchment packets: Lemon slices as the base, then thyme, then salmon. Then a pinch of salt and top with the tomato butter.
- Close the packets: Add tomatoes, olives, garlic, and capers, and roll the parchment packet closed.
- Bake! Space them out as best you can on a baking sheet, and give them about 15 minutes at 375°F.
How To Serve
These little packets of deliciousness need very little help to be rounded out into a full meal. We like to serve salmon en papillote:
- Over rice. Plain White Rice or Lemon Rice would both be lovely with the salmon.
- Over pasta. Homemade Pappardelle would be super fancy, but you could also simply serve the salmon, olives and tomatoes over any pasta shape you love for a really beautiful, hearty meal.
- With salad (like a Simple Green Salad or hearty Kale Salad) and nice bread to soak up the juices that are released as the salmon bakes with the tomatoes, olives and capers.
How To Store Leftovers
This recipe is best enjoyed right away, but leftovers will keep fine in the fridge for up to 3 days. We don’t really love to reheat salmon (or most fish leftovers, for that matter) but this would probably be delicious cold from the fridge. You could eat it over a salad, or with more pasta or rice.
More Creative Salmon Dinner Ideas
You Stunner, You! Keep It Up!
For more recipe inspiration, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest or order our cookbook. We love when you share your meals. Tag us on Instagram using #themodernproper, and we’d love to hear what you think of this recipe in the comments below. Happy cooking!
