Meals · Skillet & sheet-pan mains

Garlic butter baked salmon

Name: Garlic butter baked salmon
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 4 fillets salmon; 3 tbsp butter, melted; 3 cloves garlic, minced; juice of 1/2, plus wedges lemon; 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped; 1 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper

The weeknight default of every healthy-eating list: salmon fillets under garlic-lemon butter, baked gently so they stay silky. Ten minutes of work, restaurant result.

Time: 25 min (10 prep + 15 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 369 kcal
Protein: 31 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

4 fillets salmon680 g
3 tbsp butter, melted45 g
3 cloves garlic, minced12 g
juice of 1/2, plus wedges lemon30 g
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped8 g
1 tsp salt5 g
1/2 tsp black pepper1 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Heat the oven to 200°C. Pat the fillets dry and set them on a lined tray — dry skin is what keeps the butter on the fish instead of the pan.
Stir the melted butter with the garlic and lemon juice, and spoon it over the fillets. Season.
Bake 12–15 minutes depending on thickness, until the fish just flakes at the thickest point but still looks glossy inside. Matte and pale means a minute too long.
Scatter with parsley and serve with lemon wedges.

How do I know when salmon is done?

A fork twisted gently at the thickest point: done salmon separates into moist petals but still shines. If white albumin is pushing out in curds, the oven was too hot or it went too long — still edible, just drier than it had to be.

Why this score

moderately filling

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

34% of kcal

61% water

1 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1475 kcal goes into the pot, 781 g of ingredients comes out as ~620 g of food → 238 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 238
Protein: (34%); 20 g
Fat: (64%); 17 g
Carbohydrates: (2%); 1 g
of which sugar: <1 g
Fiber: <1 g
Sodium: 414 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More meals

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.