Here’s one of my favorite light, summery, sunny type pastas. This light lemon garlic pasta with salmon also has the good fortune of being healthy! It’s all about simplicity and freshness. With fresh basil, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, capers and salmon, you practically have summer on a plate.
And to top it off, for a tiny bit of decadence, we’ll sprinkle some Parmesan loving on it. There’s no cream sauce to carry it so this is all about the goodness and tastiness of high quality olive oil mixed with fresh, awesome flavors.
Shall we?
Start off by cooking the pasta. You can use any kind of pasta you like. Spaghetti, linguine, fettuccine, pappardelle or tube-type pastas. I went with rigatoni for this recipe. If you want it even healthier, sub whole wheat pasta instead.
While the pasta cooks, season your salmon fillets with salt and pepper to taste and bake it until cooked. Baking and cutting the salmon later will result in flakier salmon bits. If you want your salmon to have more form, try cubing it while it’s raw and pan-frying it in olive until cooked about 3-4 minutes per side. However you decide to prep your salmon, make sure to flake or cube it into bite-sized pieces so there’s enough to go around later.
Mince the garlic, chop the basil and get your lemon rind ready while the pasta and salmon cooks. As usual, I’m gonna advocate using a microplane for grating your rind and Parmesan cheese. It’s worth it.
Drain the pasta and mix it all up with some good quality olive oil. You’ll want something high quality because this will be the ‘sauce’ that binds the flavors together, so it has be delicious. I used extra virgin olive oil here. If you don’t really know the difference between regular olive oil, virgin olive oil and extra virgin olive oil, here’s a great guide explaining it. But long story short, extra virgin is the way to go for tossing, dressing and dipping.
Add some fresh basil leaves to the pasta too. I don’t know about you but I love the scent and taste of fresh basil leaves. It’s one of my favorite herbs. Throw in some freshly minced garlic too and salt and pepper to taste, then toss the pasta to mix. If you feel you need more olive oil, go ahead and add another tablespoon or so.
Then we add fresh lemon juice, zest and capers to the pasta for some lemony flavor. Yum. By now the salmon should be cooked, so flake it or if you cubed it before, simply add it to the pasta. Cubing it prior to cooking makes it firmer, so you can toss the pasta and salmon with more gusto. If you flake it after baking it, be gentle during the tossing so you don’t end up with salmon shreds. If you don’t mind salmon shreds, toss away!
As usual, baking time of the salmon will vary depending on how thick your fillet is. The standard rule of thumb is to cook for 10 minutes per inch of thickness which is measured from the salmon’s thickest point. If you start getting whitish stuff, you’ve cooked it too long.
And you’re ready to serve. Now the fun part begins by plating the pasta and topping it with freshly grated or shaved Parmesan cheese. I prefer shaved cause every now and then I find a Parmesan shaving and it feels like you’ve discovered some treasure. Also, if you happen to like olives, this pasta really goes well with it!
Happy eating!
PS: If you enjoy the pairing of lemon with salmon, try out lemon and parmesan crusted salmon.
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Light Lemon Garlic Pasta with Salmon
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Yield: 8 1x
Ingredients
- 16 oz. rigatoni/pasta
- 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup basil leaves, finely chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 lb. salmon fillet
- Zest of one lemon
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons capers
- Parmesan cheese, shaved or grated
Instructions
- Cook the pasta according to package directions
- Meanwhile, season salmon with salt and pepper to taste and bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, depending on thickness
- Once the pasta is cooked, drain and toss with garlic, olive oil, basil and season with salt and pepper to taste
- Add lemon juice, zest and capers to the pasta and toss to mix
- Flake the salmon into bite-size pieces
- Gently toss salmon with the pasta
- Dish and serve hot topped with freshly grated or shaved Parmesan cheese
Notes
*If reheating and the pasta is dry, add more olive oil after reheating it to moisten it up.
94 Comments
Deb
July 6, 2018 at 7:18 AMThis great a great recipe, like other readers I wanted a combo without cream(s). All 3 of us loved it and it’s a keeper. My only change was to add about 1 TB of butter and doubled the garlic, because, well, butter & garlic. And used maybe a TB of dried basil since we didn’t have fresh. My husband and I sprinkled a little crushed hot pepper after serving. We make lemon garlic shrimp often and will use this sauce for that too
★★★★★
The Cooking Jar
December 18, 2018 at 3:37 PMI have made this several times this year and I’ve found I love doubling the garlic and fresh basil ratio. So much kick! Lemon garlic shrimp sounds delicious 😉
Julie
July 6, 2018 at 10:39 PMI made this using fusilli pasta, really fruity olive oil and leftover salmon. It was delicious. I especially love the almost no cooking; other than the pasta, there was no cooking involved. Since the weather was exceptionally hot today, this was a plus. Light and full of flavor, it’s a perfect summer meal. I will make this again for sure.
★★★★★
The Cooking Jar
December 18, 2018 at 3:41 PMIt’s a great way to re-purpose leftover salmon. Or if you have a ton of salmon from that trip to Costco. Since my Parmesan wedge that I use for Parmesan shavings needed to be used up, I made this a lot this year. I found Gourmet Garden dried basil (which still smells fresh) in tubs that kept very well so I had that on standby too for whenever we wanted to whip this up for a quick meal.
Chery hayes
July 18, 2018 at 8:50 PMThank you. Super healthy, subbed fresh dill for capers, but an extra squeeze of Meyer lemon. We liked it a lot!
★★★★
The Cooking Jar
December 18, 2018 at 3:43 PMI love fresh dill. I pair it a lot with smoked salmon on crackers over chives cream cheese. It works very well with salmon.
Janet
September 4, 2018 at 9:00 PMJust tried this with some leftover salmon…left out the garlic because my husband can’t deal with it, AND, it was still seriously delish! Thanks for the recipe….
janet F
★★★★★
The Cooking Jar
December 18, 2018 at 3:44 PMYou’re welcome, Janet. It’s good to know it still holds its own without garlic!
Allison
November 12, 2018 at 3:44 PMIt’s even good cold! Thank you for the idea.
★★★★★
The Cooking Jar
December 18, 2018 at 3:45 PMI haven’t tried it cold before but thank you for letting us know! 🙂
Abigail Ella
January 12, 2019 at 6:39 PMyummy. thanks
ill be making this more great for dieting
★★★★★
The Cooking Jar
January 14, 2019 at 12:27 AMGlad you liked it, Abigail!
Yusuf Harris
January 13, 2019 at 6:56 PMThe recipe called for 1/2 Cup of Basil finely chopped, well that was way too much Basil so mine turned out awful! I truly believe that with 1 tablespoon of Basil it would be delicious! Please tell me what I did wrong? Thank you
★★★
The Cooking Jar
January 14, 2019 at 12:31 AMThe amount called for is for fresh basil. If 1 tablespoon seemed the perfect amount for you, it sounds like you were using dried basil, the stuff that comes in little shakers and jars. There’s a huge difference between fresh and dried and usually you use a lot more of the former and less of the latter as dried herbs are more concentrated. If you were to use dried basil, I would agree with you on 1 tablespoon being enough. If you used fresh, maybe you’re just not a big fan of basil?
DIane Marston
February 24, 2019 at 5:41 PMThis was perfect, thank you!
The Cooking Jar
April 17, 2019 at 4:30 PMYou’re most welcome, Diane. Thank you for trying it out 🙂
Kim
April 9, 2019 at 10:39 PMI made this for dinner tonight and I couldn’t stop eating it. It’s so good. My husband even went back for seconds!
★★★★★
The Cooking Jar
April 17, 2019 at 4:32 PMHappy to hear you both liked it! I usually make this batch and it’ll last a couple days for my husband and I. The only thing I do different is add fresh basil as needed to each reheat.
Stina Wade
June 10, 2019 at 9:17 PMLate home…in a hurry for supper. Done! And delightful!
★★★★★
The Cooking Jar
July 8, 2019 at 2:39 PMI’m happy to have helped! Thanks for trying it out 🙂
Christi Babington
July 5, 2019 at 9:26 PMLooking for a lemon pepper pasta recipe and came across your recipe. I added lemon juice, lemon pepper and lemon zest along with cut up salmon patties. The teenage boys LOVE it. Thank you.
The Cooking Jar
July 8, 2019 at 2:40 PMWhoo that’s a lot of lemon! I love lemon pepper anything, recently discovered lemon pepper dry rubbed wings. I know I have a lemon pepper Alfredo pasta recipe but maybe I should make a lemon pepper light one. Thanks for the idea!
Patsy Rogers
July 8, 2019 at 1:32 AMAs of right now, I have not made the recipe, yet. But ingredients and preparation sounds great! I also learned something new, as I rarely cook salmon, the “whitish stuff” signifies overcooking! I am planning to use this recipe for an event I was asked to cater. I have time to try it first, but I doubt that will happen…I’m going for it, Farah!
★★★★★
The Cooking Jar
July 8, 2019 at 2:42 PMI hope it’ll be received well. That will be a new milestone for me to achieve vicariously. Catering! Best of luck to you, Patsy!
julie croft
August 10, 2019 at 2:16 PMJust made this for 1 – me 🙂 Absolutely lovely. Delicate flavours and a real change from pasta dishes that normally contain cream or tomatoes, thank you.
★★★★★
Tate
September 25, 2019 at 3:08 PMMade this once before and it was a hit. Making it again tonight (for dinner on my rooftop, NYC) and adding peas! Can’t wait.
★★★★★
Stephanie
October 20, 2019 at 8:23 PMMy dad needs to follow a limited diet for a few months and cannot have tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower and spicy foods. He likes salmon but I normally make it pretty spicy and remembered a pasta and salmon dish I tried years ago and this recipe came up in my search. I don’t think this was it but this is better. I used farfalle, which was really tasty and made the dish look really pretty. Next time I will add more lemon zest; the lemons I had were slightly on the small side and I really couldn’t taste it much. Fresh basil is the best and adding fresh Italian flat leaf parsley at the end is also really good. Good quality dried basil is very aromatic (organic) and could be substituted in winter but it wouldn’t taste as fresh. Adding fresh parsley would help.
★★★★