Honey Lemon Salmon — This baked honey lemon salmon is ready in under 30 minutes! It’s impossible to wind up with dry salmon when making this recipe, it’s just that good! All you need is one sheet pan and 30 minutes and dinner is served!
Honey Lemon Salmon Recipe
This is some of the best salmon I’ve ever made — it’s tied with my Sheet Pan Orange Chili Salmon. It knocked our socks off and we devoured this one pound fillet in five minutes. No joke.
What I love about this honey garlic recipe is that it’s almost foolproof. Meaning it’s nearly impossible to end up with dry salmon because the salmon bakes in a mixture of butter, honey, and lemon juice. Simple ingredients that pack a ton of flavor.
I could drink that buttery elixir of the gods and was literally spooning it in with every bite of tender, juicy salmon.
I sprinkled the salmon with a generous pinch of Morton Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper before sealing up the foil pack. The right salt matters. Morton Kosher Salt adds a gourmet touch to the dish. It’s the preferred salt of chefs because it’s easy to control, which creates perfectly seasoned food.
Morton Coarse Sea Salt adds an artistic pop that you can see and taste. The large crystals also provide contrasting texture. Morton Fine Sea Salt is great for blending in all cooking. The fine salt crystals dissolve quickly, making them perfect for marinades, soups, sauces and dressings.
This lemon salmon is a fast and easy recipe for everything from casual weeknight dinners to fancy dinner parties. You’ll impress your family or your party guests with it. Cleanup is as easy as tossing away the foil!
What’s in Honey Lemon Salmon?
For this easy baked salmon with lemon, you’ll need:
- Skin-on salmon fillet
- Whole lemon
- Lemon juice
- Butter
- Honey
- Morton kosher salt
- Black pepper
- Fresh parsley
How to Make Lemon Salmon
To make this lemon honey baked salmon, you’ll first need to line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place the salmon skin-side down, then nestle the sliced lemon underneath and around it. Stir together honey, melted butter, and lemon juice and pour about two-thirds over the salmon (save the rest for serving!).
Season the salmon with salt and pepper, then seal up the foil pack before baking for 15 minutes. After that time is up, open up the foil pack and broil the salmon on Hi for roughly 5 to 10 minutes, or until the top reaches your desired level of golden brown. Garnish with parsley before serving.
Do I Have to Broil the Salmon?
If you don’t feel confident using your broiler or it’s broken, you don’t have to broil the lemon salmon. However, it does add a nice ‘toasting’ effect that you’ll miss out on. If desired, you can continuing baking the salmon in your regular oven – just keep an eye on it so it’s not overdone or become too dry, or underdone and raw.
Morton Salt’s Next Door Chef
I also want to share about a recent trip I took to Nashville for Morton Salt’s Next Door Chef. The experience was hosted by a man, Travis, who wanted to learn to become a better cook and had help in doing so from local celebrity chef, Karl Worley, of Biscuit Love.
Travis’ house was transformed into a pop-up restaurant, Indie’s Kitchen, for one night. I had the pleasure of being a guest along with about a dozen other bloggers.
This was Morton Salt’s second Next Door Chef event and was tied around springtime cooking, perfect for this time of year. Morton Salt has shared that they will be releasing video and recipes from their third Next Door Chef, in New Orleans, this summer.
At the Nashville event, I learned more about the benefits of using Morton Kosher and Sea Salt versus table salt when cooking. Turns out a lot of us are using table salt for almost all cooking purposes which is a big miss in the kitchen. If you usually use table salt for all your cooking needs, you may want to adjust your strategy.
Can I Make This With Smaller Pieces of Salmon?
Yes, but the bake times will vary depending on how thick your salmon fillets are. If you use individual pieces of salmon instead of one large salmon fillet, my best advice is to cook the salmon until it’s done and keep an eye on it.
Tips for Making Lemon Salmon
If desired, you can scale back the amount of butter used in this recipe. I love buttery salmon, but if you prefer yours with less butter you can easily adjust the amount in this recipe.
If possible, buy organic lemons or give regular lemons a good wash under warm water before slicing. Since you’ll be baking the lemon slices with the skin on, you don’t want any nasty chemicals sneaking into your lemon honey salmon.
For the best flavor, use freshly squeezed lemon juice and not the bottled stuff. Freshly squeezed is so much brighter in flavor and makes a big difference in this lemon salmon recipe!
Lastly, you can eat the skin on salmon (some people don’t know that, so I wanted to mention). And if you have any leftover lemon salmon, I suggest enjoying it cold atop sandwiches or salads.
Pin This Recipe
Sheet Pan Honey Lemon Salmon
This baked honey lemon salmon is ready in under 30 minutes! It's impossible to wind up with dry salmon when making this recipe, it's just that good!
Ingredients
- 1 to 1.25 pounds skin-on salmon fillet
- 1 lemon, sliced into thin rounds
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 3 to 4 tablespoons honey
- 2 to 3 tablespoons lemon juice (from about 1 lemon)
- 1 teaspoon Morton Kosher Salt, or to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley, optional for garnishing
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F and place a piece of foil on the baking sheet to cover it completely.
- Place salmon on the foil (with the longer side parallel with the longer side of the sheet pan) with the skin-side down. Raise the edges of the foil up about 2 inches (or enough so that when you pour the buttery mixture over the top it will be contained in the foil).
- Nestle lemon slices underneath the salmon, spaced evenly around the fillet; set aside.
- To a microwave-safe glass measuring cup or bowl, add the butter and heat on high power to melt, about 1 minute.
- Stir in the honey and lemon juice. Pour or spoon about two-thirds of the mixture over the salmon; reserve remainder.
- Evenly season with Morton Kosher Salt and pepper, to taste.
- Seal up the foil. Likely you will need to add another sheet of foil on top in order to seal it. Crimp or pinch the top and bottom pieces of foil together; get it as air-tight as possible but it doesn’t have to be perfect. If you have time, set aside to marinate for about 10 to 15 minutes (enhanced flavor).
- Bake for about 15 minutes.
- Remove salmon from the oven and remove the top piece of foil or open up the packet so salmon is exposed but keep the edges raised to contain the buttery mixture.
- Set oven to Hi broil.
- Spoon the reserved buttery mixture over the salmon, if desired. Use your judgment and if there’s already lots of juice you don’t need to add it because you don’t want it to start leaking. If you have extra buttery mixture, it’s great served over the finished dish.
- Broil salmon for about 5 to 10 minutes, or until as golden as desired. Keep a close eye on it because all broilers are different and you don’t want it to burn. Exact broiling time will depend on the size and thickness of the salmon, climate and oven variances, and personal preference.
- Optionally garnish with parsley and serve immediately. Salmon is best warm and fresh but will keep airtight in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Notes
Recipe adapted from my Sheet Pan Orange Chili Salmon.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
3Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 758Total Fat: 54gSaturated Fat: 24gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 27gCholesterol: 200mgSodium: 831mgCarbohydrates: 27gFiber: 1gSugar: 24gProtein: 43g
More Baked Salmon Recipes:
Easy Salmon and Potato Foil Packets — Juicy, moist salmon that’s loaded with flavor! Ready in 30 minutes, zero cleanup, and a foolproof way to cook salmon and look like a gourmet cook!
Sheet Pan Lemon Garlic Butter Salmon — Juicy salmon at home in 30 minutes that’s EASY and tastes BETTER than from a restaurant! The butter is infused with lemon and garlic and adds so much FLAVOR!
Foil Pack Orange Molasses Salmon – EASY, ready in 10 minutes, and a FOOLPROOF way to make salmon!! Tender, juicy, and bursting with layers of FABULOUS flavors!!
Foil Pack Lime Cilantro Salmon – Tender, juicy, and bursting with Mexican-inspired flavors that everyone LOVES!!
Honey Dijon Salmon – EASY, ready in 20 minutes, juicy, tender, and so FLAVORFUL from the honey, Dijon, and lemon juice!! If you’re trying to incorporate more fish in your diet, this is THE RECIPE to make!!
Lemon Dill Salmon with Vegetables in Parchment — An easy, healthy dinner with virtually no cleanup that’s ready in 20 minutes. The salmon is tender, juicy, and boldly flavored with lemon and dill.
Post is brought to you by Morton. The recipes, images, text, and opinions expressed are my own.
Originally posted March 22, 2017 and reposted with updated text September 22, 2201.
Hi! Making tonite! You say early on “What I love about this honey garlic recipe is that it’s almost foolproof” but we dont see garlic in the ingredients. So we will leave garlic out. Eat salmon every week so always looking for good recipes
Typo in the body of the post, sorry! But follow the recipe card which indicates no garlic. You could add it, or make this one which is amazing too https://www.averiecooks.com/sheet-pan-garlic-lemon-butter-salmon/
I wanted this to be delicious, but mine turned out super bitter. I think maybe it was because of the peel on the lemon slices placed under the salmon? Has anyone else had this problem?
It probably was the lemon rind, but I have never had anyone else ever mention this and I’ve made this recipe soooo many times and I’ve never had it happen either. Then I would say just peel the lemons next time or prop up your fish in such a way that isn’t touching the rind.
I absolutely love this recipe and have cooked it several times. The whole dish is quick and easy to prepare. The best bit is that the honey and lemon caramelize on the top giving it a great depth of flavour.
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad you’ve made it several times and you love it!
If instead of one large salmon fillet you’re using 3 or 4 5 oz. fillets, preheat your oven to 475°. Cut one, 12″ square piece of (non-stick) foil for each piece.
Place one fillet, diagonally, on each piece of foil. Divide the lemon slices according to the number of fillets, and tuck them under each fillet.
Make the butter/lemon juice/honey sauce as directed, then fold up the “flaps” on each piece of foil a bit to contain the sauce; pouring a bit over each fillet.
Season with salt & pepper.
Bring the flaps up and over each fillet, leaving a bit of an airspace, then seal each packet.
Place the packets in a shallow baking pan, and bake 10 minutes for medium rare; 12 minutes for well-done.
Open each packet carefully and slide the fillets onto individual plates using a spatula.
Garnish with parsley and pass extra sauce at the table.
If you REALLY want to brown the fillets I would recommend using a kitchen torch instead of the broiler as it’s too easy to accidentally overcook the salmon if you finish it under the broiler, especially if your broiler is the drawer type located underneath the oven.
Many people (most) don’t have kitchen torches but I agree if you have one, even better. A broiler is more universal which is why I suggest it although you definitely need to keep an eye on it.
With the drawer type broilers you’re very limited in how far away from the element you can place the food. In addition, you have to close the drawer all the way to broil and there isn’t a window to watch the food whilst broiling (probably because you’d have to lie on the floor to see it anyway). So you have to continuously open and close the drawer to check on the food. Salmon is very delicate and under a broiler can go from done to tasteless and dried out in less than a minute, so I do NOT recommend using a drawer type broiler to cook OR finish salmon (or any other type of fish, really).
We made this tonight and when we went to broil it the foil and everything caught on fire after not even 30 seconds of being in the oven 😱😱😱
I am sorry to hear that happened!!
Broiling is no joke. In the future, if you ever do try this again, or any broiled recipe, I recommend moving your top shelf down so it’s not right underneath the broiler, or simply placing the sheet pan on the middle rack of the oven and broiling at a distance much lower down.
Hi Averie, just had to say how much I enjoy your blog and your recipes are ALWAYS excellent, easy to prepare and easy to follow! Keep it coming as I do look forward to seeing what’s new! Cheers!
Thank you very much for your compliments. I appreciate you taking the time to leave something positive like this, thanks!!
Hey Averie, this looks absolutely delicious. First of all 10/10 for wonderful food photography. Do you have any YouTube channel? I would love to follow the channel to watch recipes in detail.
Thanks for the 5 star review and I am glad it was delish! Thanks for the compliments on my food photography. I don’t have a youtube channel but many of my popular recipes have videos that are either on my site on the specific recipe. Or all of them are here https://www.facebook.com/pg/AverieCooks/videos/
Made this recipe for the potluck everyone said It’s so delicious. Definitely will make it again!!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad you will definitely make it again!
You grill the salmon directly on the grill grates, not a cedar plank or anything? And it flips fine without falling apart? Would you recommend cooking first on the skin side or fish side? Thanks! Will be trying it this week
Well this recipe that you’re commenting on is an oven-baked salmon recipe.
For grilled salmon without a plank, cook it skin side down, and I don’t usually flip it. Because yes it will be prone to breaking apart. I don’t like my salmon too well done anyway so not flipping is fine; keeps the fish intact and the moisture level sufficient.
Made this last night and it turned out so great!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad you enjoyed it!
Could I do this in the crockpot?
no
We enjoyed your salmon recipe tonight for dinner as it has nice flavors. I did feel that it had more butter than needed but all-and-all it is a great cooking method which I will make again! Thank you!
Yes it’s definitely a very buttery salmon recipe but you can easily scale that back if you don’t feel you need it. Glad you’ll make it again!
Do I have to broil at the end, or can I remove the foil and place back in the oven? My broiler does not function properly, and I don’t want to ruin the dish. Thanks!
You don’t have to broil it but it does add a nice ‘toasting’ effect however you can still bake in your regular oven – just keep an eye on it so it’s not overdone and too dry, or underdone and raw.
Wonderful flavor! And easy too. I made two pieces of salmon and ate one hot. Looking forward to trying the second one cold.
Sounds great and glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Thanks Averie, for another great dish. I made this tonight, and me and my family really enjoyed it. I didn’t have honey, but I had Agave, and that worked out just fine.
Thanks!
I was wondering, how would it be if I made the honey with the orange instead of the lemon.
I have a similar recipe made with oranges https://www.averiecooks.com/2017/03/sheet-pan-orange-chili-salmon.html
I don’t see a baking temperature?
step 1
I love this as much as the chili orange–can’t pick a favorite between the two (probably because I like any citrus with fish and chicken)! Jon loved it too! I added some leftover basil to your honey lemon dressing and made a great salad to go with the fish. I’ll definitely make both again!
Very good. I made this with wonderful results. Only changes were: I cut down the butter amount and the salmon was skinless. Everyone liked it. Thank you.
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad it was very good and everyone liked it!
I would have left a comment on the baked honey lime salmon recipe, but I can’t find it. Ours was bitter and dry. Very sad. But, as we are to eat more salmon, I will try again with this lemon honey recipe, and keep fingers crossed. Hubby won’t eat anything with sesame oil, ginger, dill, mustard, so making salmon palatable to him is often a challenge. Lemon, honey, butter – sounds like a winner!
Hello,
It looks and sounds delicious. Could you please give some cooking time instructions for small individual portions of salmon?
Thank you,
Angela from Australia
It’s really hard to say because it’s entirely dependent on the size piece. You basically just have to cook until it’s done, whatever that means in your oven, how many small portions you’r making at a time, etc.
Love this! I make a similar recipe for work–it’s amazing how much that layer of citrus underneath flavors the salmon. Can’t wait to try yours. Love the chili.
LMK if you try it!
This sounds just as delicious as the chili orange recipe–I’ll be making this Friday night!!
Let me know what you think and of you can pick a favorite between the two!