Easy Baked Salmon with Orzo, Tomato & Olives (Salmon en Papillote)

Don’t let the name fool you — Salmon en Papillote sounds fancy, but it’s actually one of the easiest, most impressive dinners you can make! 🐟✨

This recipe wraps salmon and orzo pasta with tomatoes, olives, and onions inside parchment paper (that’s the “papillote” part). The secret? That parchment keeps the salmon so moist and flavorful while it bakes — no drying out, no mess!

👩‍🍳 What’s in it:

Salmon fillets

Orzo pasta

Onion, tomato, and olives

Basil pesto

Parchment paper (your secret weapon!)

I’ll walk you through:
✅ How to make the orzo base
✅ How to cut and fold the parchment “heart”
✅ How to wrap and seal your salmon like a pro
✅ Baking tips for tender, juicy results every time

✨ Timing:

Prep: 25 minutes

Bake: 15 minutes

Dinner ready: under an hour

Serve it with a crisp salad and fresh bread for a complete meal that looks gourmet but feels easy.

If you love delicious, stress-free meals that impress, don’t forget to like 👍, subscribe 🔔, and share this one with your favorite foodies!

#salmon #bakedsalmon #parchmentpaper #easysalmonrecipe #orzo #whatsfordinner #easydinnerideas #weeknightdinner #roadto100k

[Music] Welcome back to the kitchen. I’m Wendy, your kitchen chaos coordinator. Tonight we’re fixing salmon and papio, which is just a very fancy way to say we’re cooking our fish in paper. Easy peasy. This recipe takes, I don’t know, 30 minutes to get ready, 15 minutes to bake, and you’re on your way. Special agent tool is parchment paper. We are going to cook with parchment paper tonight. And what we’re going to cook is called salmon in papot, which means salmon cooked in paper. We’re going to learn how to cut the paper, make a base with pasta, make our um flavorings that includes pesto, olives, tomato, and some red onion, although you can use green onion as well. We’re going to use red onion tonight. And then we’re going to bake it. Real simple. Looks fancy, but so simple. Looks tasty. M is very tasty. I’m so happy you’re here. Why don’t you go grab your chair and your spoon and come on back to the kitchen and we’ll get this recipe started. So, let’s get started. First things first, you need to cut your parchment paper into into a heart. So, you need it to be big enough so that you can cut it into a heart. How big of a strip of parchment paper do you need? It says you need about a 15 inch square. So, let’s just pretend. [Music] So, you need a 15inch square for every piece of salmon. I actually have three pieces of salmon tonight. So, I’m just going to cut three uh big squares out of this and then I’ll show you the next steps. All right. So, I’ve cut three 15in squares of parchment paper because I have three pieces of salmon. So, that’s for every piece of salmon you’re going to cook. The recipe calls for four. I have three. It’s just hubby and I. So, one for him to take to work later. All right. Now, you’re going to fold this into a square. So basically, you’re just folding it in half. And then you’re going to do the arts and crafts on it. You want to make a big heart. So you’re just going to cut the little tip right here and go around to make the heart. Easy peasy. Where are my scissors? And we’ll we’ll start with this one. Okay. Arts and crafts. Arts and crafts with Wendy today. [Music] Did I make a cute heart? A I made a cute heart. love you. Proud of you. We’re doing this together. This is awesome. Okay, so we’re going to cut another heart with the other two pieces of paper. This is awesome, isn’t it? It’s fancy already. And we haven’t even gotten started. Wait till we add the pasta and the fish. Tada! We made hearts. So exciting. So fancy. And we’re not even finished yet. So fun. Okay, finish your hearts and then come back to me and we’ll start cooking. All right, we’ve cut our beautiful little hearts and we’re ready to actually start cooking. So, first things first, we needed to cook our orzo pasta according to the directions, which we have. And now we need 2/3 of a cup and place it in a bowl. Again, my favorite measuring bowl. We’ll just layer this in here till we get 2/3 of a cup. which is great. And for my pasta loving family, they’ll be snacking on that all week. Okay, next thing we need to do is get our tomatoes and cut them lengthwise in half. Remove the seeds and then chop them. And we’ll add them to our mixing bowl. We’ll cut the tomatoes in half lengthwise. And then take out the seeds. I’m just going to use the tablespoon. Works very easily. Very mom tip there. Just scoop it right out. No problem. It’s just sharp enough on the side anyway that you just cut and go. [Music] We’re ready to cut these tomatoes to dice them up. So lovely. [Music] Okay, so we’ve diced up those two tomatoes. We’ve taken the seeds out and then we’ve diced the two tomatoes and we’re going to add them all to our pasta. Then the next thing we want to add is the olives. Got my can opener here. This is just a little can. Not the great big can. Just a little can of olives. Black olives. Get out of there, little guy. Okay. A tablespoon of the pesto. So, after we add the olives, then we want to add one tablespoon of the basil pesto. I picked this up in the refrigerated section um of my grocery store near that near the other pasta that’s kind of fresh. Just one tablespoon. I’ll just leave the spoon in there. Take that little part off. Okay. Now, we’re going to do one4 cup of onion. Again, you can do green onion. So, you’ll use the green into the white or start with the white, go into the green. Um, whatever your preference is on green onion or for me, we’re going to use the red onion today. With this part of the recipe, the next part is guacamole. Because when I went to pick up the basil pesto, their avocados were gorgeous and on sale. And I’m not passing up an opportunity to make guacamole. That’ll last us all weekend. Perfect for football. Okay, everybody knows me. I go to the bottom. I don’t know why. So, we only need a/4 cup. I’m going to make these little teeny tiny slices, dices, minced almost, I would say. If you’re doing the green onions, just going to slice them thin. If you’re doing a yellow onion, again, just mince it. Look at that. My nails match the onion. All right, we’ll put this in our measurements are always optional in this kitchen. Unless I think you’re making bread. You have to be really careful if you’re making bread to get everything just right. Everything else is a to taste. Oh, I don’t like that much stuff. All right, use a little less. Next thing we’re going to add is 1/4 cup of onion. Again, I used red onion. You can use green onion. Green onion is preferred, but like I said, I’m making guacamole after this. And so, the red onion it is is we were out of green onion. Quick recap. 2/3 cup orzo pasta. We had two Roma tomatoes. I sliced them in half. I scooped all the seeds out and then I diced them. They’re in here. Then one tablespoon of the basil pesto. Then that little can of sliced olives. And then 1/3 cup onion. Again, you can use green onion. I’m using red onion today because I’m making guacamole later. Last thing we want to do is zest the onion. We only need half a teaspoon half a teaspoon of lemon zest. So, not a lot at all. In fact, I need to find my half a teaspoon just to be sure cuz measurements are optional in this kitchen. Right, Wendy? Right. I’ve rolled this a little bit on the counter. I like it I like it to um have a little bit of roll. And then the easiest way to zest is I like to hold it and pull the zestester towards me, but following the curve of following the curve of the lemon, which I’ve never tried to do it up in the air, so it’s a little it’s a little interesting today. You don’t want to get down to the white part. You don’t want to get to that rind part. You just want the bright yellow part. So, don’t feel bad if you’re scraping all the way around your lemon. You really just want that top part. And because, like I said, you’re only using a half a teaspoon. Let’s see what we got so far. There we go. That’s good. I like that lemon zest. And there was a little bit extra. I’m just going to throw that in there, too. All right. So, that’s what’s in our mixing bowl. We’re going to stir this all together. Where did that go? Here’s my spoon. Beautus. Beautus. All right. And we’ll set that aside. And now it’s time to start with our salmon. So, let me readjust the camera so you can actually see the cutting board here so you can see how we’re going to put this together. I’ll be I really wanted you to see how we put this together. So, what I’ve done is I’ve taken the three pieces of salmon that I have. I’ve rinsed them and I’ve laid them on paper towel to pat dry. And now we’re going to put it together. So, you’re going to put on the right side of your heart, you’re going to put a 3/4 cup scoop of the mixture. Easy peasy. Then you’re going to put your piece of salmon over that piece. Now, this is a longer piece. I’m just going to kind of tuck his tail a little bit. Then you’re going to fold over the heart. And you’re going to start at the top of the heart and just make a little fold. And then take another little fold. So I’m going to hold my finger right here and fold again. And take another little fold. So see I’ve got two folds here. Take another little fold. And you’re just going to go all the way around the heart making little folds to seal him in. Hopefully you can see How that’s working front side. Little fold. Little fold. Little fold. Little fold. So it doesn’t look like a heart shape. Now it looks more like the letter D. And when you’ve done that, then you can transfer your paper packet. I’m just squishing down a couple of the other folds to make sure they stay. I’m transferring that to my baking sheet. So, we’ll do the next heart. So again, open on the right hand side, you’re going to put a scoop of the pasta mixture. And then you’re going to add your piece of salmon. Close your heart up. And then starting at the top of the heart, just make little folds all the way around. So I make a it folded over the top flap. About another inch in, I’m making another fold. About another inch in, I’m making another fold. About another inch in. Another fold. And so on. And so on as you work your way around to the bottom of the heart. [Music] By the time you get to your last piece of salmon, you’ll be like, “Oh, well, that was an easy fold.” All right, next step is to place these in a 425 degree oven for 13 to 15 minutes. This little packet here will steam up and keep this everything so moist and so delish. I cannot wait to try this again. We have not had this in a couple of years. So, super excited to have this again. All right, so let’s put it in the oven and I’ll come I’ll come back to you when it’s done. Off to the oven we go. All right, our salmon has just come out of the oven. It’s been 13 minutes. So, I’m just gonna do a little peeky poo under here. And we’re just going to brush with a little bit of the basil pesto on the top. Stir that up real good. Just going to give it a little dusting for a little color on top. Ready? Beautiful. So, just a little dusting on top, a little splash of color, and then we are going to use a great big spatula, scoop this up, put it on the plate. So, I will meet you at the table. Get your spoon. It’s time to eat. [Music] We did it again. We cooked fancy, but it wasn’t hard. It just looked fancy. I am so excited to dig into this salmon and papy oat. It’s delicious. Oh, the olives. I love olives. The tomato. I love tomato. The basil pesto. I love basil pesto. So excited. Thank you for joining me tonight. Let’s meet up next time. We’ll fix something else, something fun and fancy. Until then, hit like, hit subscribe, stay tuned for a Zen moment, and we’ll catch you next time. [Music] [Music]