Taylor’s creamy pesto pasta topped with honey glazed salmon

Fall is officially here as of Sept. 22, and nothing screams fall like a warm, cozy meal. The last four months of the year, what I affectionately refer to as the “-Ber months” (get it? Like, brrrrr) is my favorite time to cook. I love a hot, home-cooked meal once the fall chill starts to roll in. While it hasn’t rolled in quite yet, it doesn’t hurt to start prepping your fall recipes.

This honey-glazed salmon on top of creamy pesto pasta will be the perfect meal to warm you up not just in the fall, but all year-round.

First things first, here’s a list of ingredients you will need for this recipe:

Salmon Ingredients

• About four tablespoons of honey (two per salmon)
• Fresh salmon patty (preferably with skin already removed), approximately 7 ounces
• One tablespoon of butter
• ¼ a cup of extra virgin olive oil (can substitute with avocado oil)
• Spices: onion powder, garlic powder, cajun seasoning, salt and pepper

Pesto Pasta Ingredients

• Four scoops of basil pesto
• Six ounces of cherry tomatoes
• Three ounces of feta cheese
• Four ounces of parmesan cheese
• Penne pasta noodles (the almost depends on the serving, but I cooked about 28 grams of pasta)
• One pint of heavy whipping cream (eyeball 2% milk to thin mixture)
• Spices: onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning

Once all the ingredients are gathered, it’s time to start your prep. Start with boiling your pasta water for around 10 minutes, or until your water reaches a boil. While the water boils, I’ll start cutting my cherry tomatoes in half, and normally I would shred my cheese, but because I was looking for a shortcut, I bought grated feta cheese and parmesan. That being said, nothing tastes better than freshly shredded cheese, so don’t be like me, be better.

Like I said, I will normally shred my own cheese, but I cheated when I last cooked this. If you want the easy way out, I certainly won’t shame you, but will recommend these two cheeses in this picture. I love the flavor the tomato/basil feta cheese mixture adds to the pasta. It only strengthens the flavor of the pesto sauce.

Finishing off our prep, it’s time to get your salmon patties. I purposely buy the patties with the salmon skin already removed to remove the step of removing the skin. Grab your onion powder, garlic powder, cajun seasoning, salt and pepper.

Do you see how much seasoning there is? Make sure you cover the salmon in the seasonings from head to toe. I always disclose that I never measure my seasonings. I use my boyfriend as my handy-dandy taste-tester. If he tells me it needs more flavor, then I add more. So go ahead and use the test-taste method. If you think it needs a little more spice, don’t be shy to add more, flavor never hurt anyone.

Set your salmon aside because it’s time to jump back to our pasta. You’re going to be doing a lot of bouncing back-and-forth for this recipe, but it’s all easy-peezy-lemon-squeezy. By now, you’re ready to add pasta noodles to your boiled water. I added about 28 grams of noodles (I’m feeding a body builder, so don’t mind the large portions of pasta noodles) to the water, then let that cook for 20 minutes (or until the noodle reached al dente) while I got started on my pesto sauce. Also, while for my Mac-n-Cheese recipe, I recommended a specific type of noodle, for pesto I’ve found you can use any. My boyfriend prefers penne noodles, but it’s not a requirement.

Now it’s time for my favorite part – the sauce!

Add about one tablespoon of butter in your sauce pan. Not only will it add flavor, of course, but it’ll help the sauce not get clumpy at the bottom of the pan. Add in Italian seasoning, onion and garlic powder, as well as salt and a little bit of pepper according to your tastebuds. Let the spices marinate in the butter for about 30 seconds to activate the flavor. Once that delicious aroma fills your kitchen, add in four scoops of basil pesto and mix it all together. I let that cook for about two minutes before I add in one pint of heavy whipping cream. The next step is totally optional, but I like to add in a little two-percent milk to my heavy cream. After you stir, you can let that sit for another minute while we cook our salmon.

Let roughly six ounces of cherry tomatoes cook with the salmon. Add a little salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder to season them. Don’t worry about getting some of your salmon, it’s only going to add more flavor. You might be wondering why I’m cooking my tomatoes with the salmon and not in a separate pan, but I find that cooking them together adds more flavor to both. You can absolutely cook them in a separate pan since they’re going into the pasta, not with the salmon.

Back to the pasta sauce. It’s time to add in three ounces of feta cheese and four ounces of parmesan cheese, but you’re not going to add it in all at once. Add in little by little and whisk the cheese into the sauce so it doesn’t clump together. Remember, this is creamy pesto sauce, not clumpy. Continue to whisk until the sauce is thickened and creamy, and feel free to give it a little taste test (you should be saying “mmmm”). Once it passes your test, add in your cooked noodles to the sauce.

Salmon doesn’t take long to cook. I cook each side of the salmon for about eight to ten minutes each. The good thing about fish, and also red meat, is that you can cook it however you prefer it (rare to well-done). I like my salmon cooked all the way through. I always double check that it is by gently cutting into the middle of the patty to see if it’s pink and juicy inside. Once it fits the description, it’s ready for the final step – the honey.

Top each salmon patty with two tablespoons of honey, one spoonful for each side of the salmon. Let the salmon cook on each side on low heat for about a minute each to let the honey absorb into the fish.

Now it’s time to get your plate and fork, and dig into this delicious, cozy recipe. This is one I will be using all fall and winter long.

Taylor Moore can be reached at bytaylormoore@gmail.com.