Skip to main content

The Manual may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.

This Cedar Plank Salmon Recipe is Fresh, Easy, and Delicious

With summer basically here, you have no excuse to not be outside every moment possible, cooking every damn dinner you can on your grill. Think about it: a cold beer in your hand, some solid tunes playing on your favorite radio app, and the radiant heat of your grill warming you from belly to bowl cut. (If you have a bowl cut, we stronger recommend a new hairdo for summer — and forever — but that is neither here nor there. Back to grilling.)

One thing we like to do when we fire up the grill (especially if we happen to be using a gas grill) is to add a little extra flavor by using a wood plank. By cooking food on a wood plank, not only are you going to fill the air with the wonderful smell of charred wood, but you’ll be imparting subtle wood notes to whatever you are cooking.

Recommended Videos

One of our favorite meats to cook on a wood plank is fish. To highlight just how well a plank of wood works in grilling, we reached out to Wildwood Grilling to see what they were doing with their product. A great example of how fish and wood planks interact on a grill, they said, is with a herbed filet of salmon. While we use a cedar plank for this recipe, Wildwood Grilling has multiple types of wood planks for use in grilling, as well as smoking chips and wood wraps. The latter we had not seen before but it looks like a great way to imbue flavor and deliver a fun presentation.

You can check out their entire line

here

.

Cedar Planked Salmon with Herbs and Lemon Recipe

Wildwood Grilling

(Serves 4)

Ingredients:

  • 1 cedar grilling plank (make sure to get a large one that will fit a full fillet of salmon)
  • 1.5 lbs salmon
  • 2 tbsp Italian parsley, fresh and chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 tbsp chives, fresh and chopped
  • 1 lemon, sliced
  • Salt and pepper (coarse)

Method:

  1. Soak the cedar plank in hot water for at least 15 minutes.
  2. Preheat oven or grill to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
  3. Season salmon with salt, pepper and add herbs and lemon slices.
  4. Add plank to grill or oven and close lid.
  5. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until desired doneness.
  6. When done, remove from grill or oven and serve immediately with lemon.

Finished with your salmon? Why not make this beet poke salad from award-winning chef José Andrés as a side dish to really impress the people you are cooking for?

Topics
Sam Slaughter
Sam Slaughter was the Food and Drink Editor for The Manual. Born and raised in New Jersey, he’s called the South home for…
This 3-ingredient all-purpose bread recipe is super easy to make
Nobody ever said homemade bread had to be complicated.
Pita bread

While homemade bread is an indulgence that remains unparalleled in the comforting joy and satisfaction it brings, preparing it, admittedly, can be something of an arduous process. There's the prepping, the measuring, the kneading, the resting, more kneading, more resting, more waiting, flour dust for days, and a neverending pile of dishes to clean and aching arms to nurse. Learning how to make bread can be a bit much, and we get it. That's why, when an easy homemade bread recipe comes along, we excitedly cling to it like white on rice. Too often, cheats in homemade bread are obvious when the resulting product is tough or lacking in flavor. When one cuts corners in breadmaking, it's hard to disguise the subpar result. But every now and then, there's an exception that leaves even the most passionate of bakers befuddled. A recipe that is equally simple and delicious, defying all baking odds. This is one of those recipes.

Most cultures have their own version of a stuffable flatbread. Pita, perhaps, is the most recognizable. We love pita for its versatility and dependability. Dip it in hummus and olive oil for a perfectly healthy yet indulgent afternoon snack. Stuff it with turkey, cucumber, and cream cheese for a light, yet tremendously satisfying lunch. Cut it into triangles and fry it, sprinkling it with cinnamon and sugar and dipping in homemade chocolate sauce for a deliciously crispy dessert. The culinary possibilities are never-ending, and for that reason, we love the pita. What we love even more, though, is just how ridiculously easy it is to make.

Read more
Forget Hershey’s: Our chocolate sauce recipe is better, and takes 5 minutes to make
Seriously, stop buying chocolate sauce
melted dark chocolate flow, candy or chocolate preparation background

If you don't have kids in your house, it may have been a while since you last enjoyed a generous drizzling of sweet, indulgent chocolate sauce. Or maybe not. In addition to the childhood favorites, chocolate sauce (or, syrup) can also be the star of many adult-themed beverages and...activities. But however you enjoy this decadent sauce, we'll bet you didn't realize how easy it is to make for yourself. No sticky brown jug from Hershey's is required.

Chocolate sauce is the ketchup of the dessert world. Kids love it, adults love it (whether they admit it or not), and it makes anything better with just a little squeeze. Use it to amp up ice cream, magically create chocolate milk, turn it into a dip for your favorite fruits, or garnish cakes and brownies. We love to stir it into our iced coffees and chocolate-themed cocktails.

Read more
The easiest and best pickled red onion recipe we’ve ever seen belongs to Rick Bayless
The god of Mexican cuisine has the easiest and best recipe
Pickled onions

Pickled onions may just be the most underappreciated, underutilized, yet amazingly delicious condiment that exists. Sure, we love our onions raw and sliced paper thin on a sandwich or battered and fried with a perfect dipping sauce. We love them grilled, piled on our favorite steak, or charred and sandwiched in a chicken kabob. And, of course, onions are the start of almost any great recipe. But if you've never taken this humble but wonderful ingredient and pickled it, you're doing yourself (and your sandwiches) a great disservice. Pickled onions have a zippy, piquant sweetness that elevates any number of dishes. Put them in sandwiches, burgers, brats, and tacos. Mix them into salads and stir-fries, or pile them on top of your favorite snacks like avocado toast or deviled eggs. Their briny, bright tartness adds so much character and flavor to just about anything. And the truly marvelous thing about pickled onions is that they're ridiculously easy to make and have in your fridge at all times.

In the following video, the great Rick Bayless, famed chef and restaurateur, teaches his easy method for pickling red onions. He begins by simply covering a bowl of sliced onions with very hot water, which he explains will take the "power" out of them and soften their texture. After the onions have sat in the hot water for about 30 minutes, he drains them completely and covers them with freshly squeezed lime juice. To that mixture, he mixes in a teaspoon of salt, then presses the onions down firmly so that they are totally submerged in the lime juice. The next step is to simply set the bowl aside for about six hours, and that's when the magic happens. After the elapsed time, the onions are beautifully pink and perfectly pickled.

Read more