Discover a flavorful twist on salmon with this roasted falafel crust, perfectly roasted and served over a fresh spinach salad. Packed with Middle Eastern spices, this dish is both healthy and satisfying — perfect for weeknight dinners or special occasions. In this video, I’ll walk you through each step, from making the falafel crust to plating it beautifully.
– Ingredients & Step-by-Step Instructions
– High-Protein & Nutrient-Rich Meal
– Quick Prep – Ready in Under 30 Minutes
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[Music] Hello. Welcome to Nicole’s Kitchen. And I am Nicole. Um, if you haven’t been following along here at Nicole’s Kitchen, we teach cooking classes. For those of you that can’t attend our classes, we are offering online cooking classes, so you can be with us and watch us in the convenience of your very own home. Today, we are teaching a roasted falafel salmon. and we are serving it with a simple spinach and dill salad. Um we are going to start off with our roasted salmon. So here I have washed a plank of salmon with the skin on. I have asked my seafood um munger to deboned the salmon. I have washed the salmon with cold water and I’ve completely pat dry with a paper towel. You want to make sure that there is no excess moisture on the salmon. um leaving water, excess water on the salmon would cause the salmon not to get any texture. It would not roast properly and it would steam instead of roast. So um I have lined a baking tray with parchment paper for easy clean up and so the skin does not stick to the baking pan. Now I’ve placed my salmon right here on the baking tray and we will start by seasoning the salmon. So, in a mixing bowl, um I have grape seed oil, which I’ve mentioned before. This is a neutral oil that is great for cooking, unlike olive oil or extra virgin oil. Uh those are used for salads or on top of dips. Um right into this bowl right here, I will go ahead and add in my falafel seasoning. I like to use Pere brand. Um, if you cannot come across falafel seasoning, feel free to use cumin instead. A teaspoon of cumin. Um, so I will go ahead and add in the falafel seasoning. I will add in Trader Joe’s onion salt. If you do not have onion salt, feel free to use um a teaspoon of onion powder and a/ teaspoon of salt. So, I will go ahead and add that right into my oil mixture. And then I will lastly add in paprika. I will add that into my oil mixture. Then I will go ahead using a pastry brush and I will nicely mix my spices together with the oil and we will get a oil spice mixture. Now, now that this has mixed well, I’m going to use my pastry brush and nicely add the seasoning right over the salmon. So, um, now we’re going to finish off with freshly cracked black pepper. Right. So, now we’re going to pop in our salmon into the oven at 400° for 25 minutes. Um, this will cook at a medium well uh temperature. So, the inside will be nice and juicy. The outside will be nice and roasted. If you are into medium um cooked salmon, you can cook for about 18 to 20 minutes. Uh, but it’s just a preference. So, we’re going to go ahead and pop this right into the oven now. So, now that we got the salmon into the oven, we’re going to work on our simple spinach salad. Um, we’re going to get to chopping. So, um, here is our mixing bowl. We’re going to add everything right into here. Um, let’s start off with the fresh dill. Um, if you don’t have fresh dill on hand, you can use basil, you can use cilantro, you can use parsley, something herbaceious to give the spinach salad some oomph. Um, so let’s get to chopping. So, now that we got our dill finally chopped, we’re going to get it into our mixing bowl. And now we’re going to work on our end divives. Um, end divives are a bitter green. So if you can’t find an end dive, you can use a radikio, which is a part of the same family. Gives the salad a nice color. So I’m going to go ahead and also slice super fine. Okay, so now that we’ve chopped the end dive super fine, I’m going to go ahead and add it right into our mixing bowl with the dill. And then we are going to go ahead and add in a shallot, which will give a little bit of an onion flavor. Shallots are very subtle compared to a white onion, yellow onion, or a red onion. Um, so I’m going to go ahead and cube this super fine. So now we’re going to go ahead and get this also into our mixing bowl. Perfect. If you don’t have a shallot, you can also use green onions as a replacement because green onions are also uh very subtle. It’s not as strong. We’re going to go ahead and add a pablano pepper, which is a part of the same family as jalapeno and green bell pepper. It’s not as spicy as a jalapeno and it doesn’t have as deep of a flavor of a green bell pepper. So, we’re gonna go ahead and um remove the outer layer of the pablano. Um we’re not going to use the seeds in case um whoever is going to be eating does not like a kick of spice. So, we’re going to just take the seeds right off. And then we are going to slice them super thin. It’s called a julenne. Cut it lengthwise. Add this into our mixing bowl over here. So, now that we have chopped up the dill, the end dive, shallots, and pablano pepper, we’re going to go ahead and finally chop our spinach. Um, so here I have regular spinach. We are only going to chop to the point where we have the leaves. We’re not going to get the stems in. So, I’m going to bunch up the spinach that we have already washed. And you can also go ahead and use baby spinach, but for the sake of chopping super fine, using regular regular size spinach works better and is easier to chop. Get the spinach into our mixing bowl. Do the rest. Such a relaxing feeling cutting through lettuce or spinach. All right, so now we’re going to go ahead and get the rest of our spinach into our mixing bowl over here. We are not going to use the stems. Now we’re going to move on to our apple cider vinegrett. Um it’s really simple. You can have this ready to go in your refrigerator. It’ll last up to a month. We’re going to start off with the olive oil. We have some honey just to bring some sweetness to the salad. We have apple cider vinegar. Seasoned rice wine vinegar. So, it’s basically rice wine vinegar that has sugar. That’s what seasoned means. It’s up to you. We have salt and pepper. And we also have a little bit of sesame oil um to bring a different sesame fragrance to it. So, we have our mixing bowl. We’re going to go ahead and add in our apple cider vinegar into our mixing bowl. We’re going to add the seasoned rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, just a little bit goes a long way. Sesame oil is very fragrant. Salt and pepper, our honey. And lastly, the olive oil. So, we’re just going to whisk in the olive oil. So, um obviously before you add the dressing into the salad, you want to make sure that it’s properly seasoned with salt, pepper. Maybe it needs a little bit more honey or acid. So, the proper way to actually get a feel of what the dressing tastes like is to take uh one of your greens. So, I’m going to take the spinach and just dip it in the dressing and see if it needs any adjustment. And we’re good to go. So, now we’re going to go ahead and toss our dressing right into our spinach salad that we’re going to serve on the side of our falafel roasted salmon. Just give it a quick mix again. All right. So, now we’re going to get some gloves on and toss our spinach salad. Using a tong or a fork to mix the salad wouldn’t get the dressing mixed evenly, so the best tool is your hands. I recommend gloves to be sanitary. So, we will go ahead and just give this a nice little toss. So, now that we’ve tossed our spinach salad, we’re going to get ready for plating. Our s our salmon is ready to go. We’re going to pull it out of the oven, and then we’re going to plate. How I like to plate this dish is I like to use a cutting board. Um, and then I put brown parchment paper right on top for presentation. It’s really beautiful. And then we will go ahead and plate the salmon right on the parchment paper and pour the salad right next to it. We’re going to finish off with a little bit of feta cheese right on top. So now our salmon smells beautiful and we’re going to go ahead and plate. So, I will take a pair of gloves just to help assist me move the salmon plank right from the baking tray onto our serving platter. So, we’ll go ahead lift this right up. Take the gloves right off. Then I will take another pair of gloves to service the salad side by side. Go ahead just lay this right here. Going to finish off with the f feta crumbles. Like I mentioned, I like to use French feta. It’s a little bit more light, but this is just a preference. You can also use goat cheese if you like. And there you have it. Um, here’s our roasted falafel salmon and our delicious spinach salad. And we finish it off with feta cheese. Super simple. Each recipe was less than 10 ingredients. Can’t wait for you to cook this up. [Music] [Music]
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