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Heidi from Foodie Crush Loves Our Recipe for Poached Salmon

It's her go-to salmon recipe, and she thinks it should be yours, too.
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Published Mar. 21, 2017.

Heidi from Foodie Crush Loves Our Recipe for Poached Salmon

Never before has America’s Test Kitchen collected, in one volume, the enormous and indispensable wealth of information we have amassed in 20 years of teaching people how to cook. Our recent title, What Good Cooks Know: 20 Years of Test Kitchen Expertise in One Essential Handbook, is a fully illustrated almanac of food and cooking that includes everything you need to master your kitchen.


Good cooks know how to cook salmon. With the help of What Good Cooks Know, Heidi from the Foodie Crush blog found a recipe for poached salmon that has now become her go-to for brunch, lunch, or dinner.

“This poached salmon recipe is a prime example of being healthy-ish, formal-ish, and totally stylish for cooking any time," writes Heidi. "And because both the salmon and the sauce hold up especially well, it's perfect for a simple-ish brunch, lunch, or dinner buffet."

For a poached salmon recipe with supple salmon accented by the delicate flavor of the poaching liquid—in under half an hour—we came up with some tricks. To start, we arrange lemon slices in a skillet and rest the salmon on the lemon slices to prevent the bottom from overcooking. Our recipe also uses a shallow poach method. We use less poaching liquid, allowing the salmon to cook at a lower temperature, preserving flavor.

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“The cookbook gives two recipes for topping the poached fish: one with an herb and caper vinaigrette (yes!), and the one I’ve done here, a mustard, dill and sour cream sauce flavored with shallots,” writes Heidi.

Both sauces take advantage of the flavor from the poaching liquid, and they both come together really quickly (and very flavorfully).

“The goal of this cookbook is to become a one-stop reference guide for every level of cook to learn the secrets to success in the kitchen," writes Heidi. "True to America’s Test Kitchen form, they cover ALL of the bases.”

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What's your go-to salmon recipe? Let us know in the comments. And for more from What Good Cooks Know, read these posts: 

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