15-Minute Maple-Mustard Broiled Salmon

I always have a stash of wild salmon fillets in my freezer that I typically turn to for a quick dinner once or twice a week. I simply thaw it, add some simple seasonings, and then broil it for a dinner that comes together in 15 minutes. I have many different ways of dressing it up—miso, sour cream and dill, lemon and pepper, Creole spice blend, etc.—but my most frequent way of preparing salmon is slathering it with the simple maple-mustard mayo I'm sharing here.

Maple and mustard may seem like odd bedfellows, but it's a combination I learned works very well after seeing it in this EatingWell recipe developed by Carolyn Malcoun. (I worked in EatingWell's Vermont offices for a couple of years and I learned about the many great uses for the state's excellent maple syrup in the EatingWell test kitchen.) Over the years, I've played with that base recipe, tweaking the proportions, ingredients, and technique, to land on what to me is the perfect maple-mustard salmon formula. Read on for my tips for making this 15-minute salmon and to get the full recipe. 

7 Tips for the Best Maple-Mustard Salmon

1. Don't be afraid of frozen salmon. Unless you happen to be in the Pacific Northwest or Alaska during salmon season, the chances that you are getting wild salmon that hasn't been previously frozen are low. A lot of "fresh" salmon has been thawed at the market before you bought it. But when you buy frozen salmon, you get excellent quality fish that was frozen shortly after being caught (often it's done right on the ship). As I mentioned above, I always have wild salmon—which I prefer in flavor and texture to farmed—in my freezer. That's because I belong to a community supported fishery (CSF), which means I pay a fisher-owned collective in advance for a giant box of flash-frozen salmon fillets that I pick up locally once a year. (If you are interested in joining a CSF, check out Seafood Finder's Local Catch Network, which is how I found my CSF, Illiamna.) If you're starting with frozen salmon, remove it from its packaging and thaw it in the fridge overnight. If you forget, you can speed the thawing process by using a metal pan.
2. Broil, don't bake. One of my main tweaks to how I prepare salmon was inspired by Daniel's broiled salmon with harissa-lime mayonnaise. As he notes in the headnote for the recipe, broiling rather than baking the fish allows you to sear the outside with an intense blast of heat while leaving the interior tender and juicy. 
3. Add some fat in the form of mayo. Also inspired by Daniel's harissa-lime salmon, I added some mayo as an "insulator" to help keep the salmon moist and tender. As a Southerner, I believe in the power of mayonnaise to improve most foods, so I wasn't too surprised that adding some mayo to the combination of mustard and mayo had not just texture benefits, but also flavor benefits—the fat in the mayo really rounds out the mustard (there's a reason Dijonaise exists). And because wild salmon is typically leaner than farmed, a little extra fat is welcome. 
4. Use real maple syrup. I hope this goes without saying, but for the best flavor make sure to buy real maple syrup (and store it in the fridge), not the fake stuff. If you don't have maple syrup on hand, the recipe also works well with brown sugar. 
5. Add a tiny bit of heat with chiles. Another element of this recipe that I cribbed from Carolyn Malcoun's baked salmon recipe is the addition of a smoked paprika or chipotle powder. Either one will add a hint of smokiness and a bit of heat for a nice contrast to the sweet maple syrup and tangy Dijon. Simple cayenne pepper works too, and I also love Diaspora Co.'s Sirārakhong Hāthei chiles. 
6. Consider making extra mayo-mustard-maple mixture. The recipe below makes just enough sauce to slather the salmon but if you'd like to serve more on the side as a sauce—which I highly recommend—simply double the first four ingredients in the recipe. It's particularly nice to have extra to serve on leftover cold salmon in a salad. 
7. Scale the recipe up or down to suit your needs. This recipe serves four to six, but more often than not I scale it down to one or two portions and eyeball the ingredients for the mayo-mustard-maple mixture. The combo is very forgiving: As long as you use about half as much mustard as mayo and half as much maple syrup as mustard you'll be good to go when scaling down (just reverse that formula for scaling up).
   

All you need to complete the meal is a quick side or two. When I really want to keep the whole dinner prep to 15 minutes, while the fish is in the broiler I cook some couscous on the stovetop in broth (which takes about five minutes) and steam some vegetables such as broccoli or asparagus in the microwave, which takes about three minutes. I dress the veg and couscous with lemon zest and juice and olive oil and/or the extra mayo-mustard mixture and I'm good to go.