This grilled salmon and scallion cilantro rice entrée comes together quickly, and serves as the perfect quick & simple meal to satisfy a hungry group of folks during the summer months for a satisfying lunch or dinner.
The following recipe provides roughly 4 servings.
Grilled Teriyaki Salmon over Scallion Cilantro Rice
This grilled salmon and scallion cilantro rice entrée comes together quickly, and serves as the perfect quick & simple meal to satisfy a hungry group of folks during the summer months for a satisfying lunch or dinner. The following recipe provides roughly 4 servings.
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp salted butter
- 1 shallot, (small dice)
- 1 cup of long-grain rice, such as Basmati, (rinsed under cold water for 5 minutes and drained)
- 1.5 cups water
- 2 tsp soy sauce
- ½ clove of fresh garlic, (finely sliced)
- 2 fresh scallions, (finely sliced)
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 16 oz filet of fresh, skin-on salmon, (cut into 4 portions)
- 2 tsp vegetable oil
- ½ tsp Kosher salt
- 3 Tbsp prepared Teriyaki sauce
- Zest of ½ lime
- Juice of ¼ lime
- 2 tsp sesame seeds, (lightly toasted, as garnish)
- 2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, (finely chopped, as garnish)
- ½ lime, (cut into wedges, as garnish)
Instructions
- Preheat the grill to 450F.
- Wait 30 minutes for the grill to heat up while you prepare the scallion rice.
- For the scallion rice, rinse the rice under cold water for a few minutes, changing out the cold water a few times as you continue to rinse the starch off the rice grains.
- Add the 2 Tbsp of salted butter to the bottom of a small sauce pot and add the diced shallot.
- Increase the heat to medium-high, and wait until the shallot starts sizzling.
- Add the drained long-grain rice that you rinsed earlier, and cook for an additional 1 minute, coating the grains of rice in the butter and shallot mixture.
- Add the 1.5 cups of water and the soy sauce, and bring the mixture to a simmer.
- Reduce the heat to low, and cover with aluminum foil or a tight-fitting lid.
- Simmer on very low heat for roughly 15-16 minutes, without removing the lid from the pot.
- After the rice has steamed for 15-16 minutes, remove the rice from the heat.
- Remove the lid from the rice pot, and quickly fluff the rice gently with a fork.
- Add the ½ clove of finely-sliced fresh garlic, along with the finely-sliced fresh scallions and sesame oil.
- Gently fluff the mixture until the herbs and oil are fully integrated into the cooked rice granules.
- Cover the rice again with aluminum foil or a tight-fitting lid, and allow the rice to sit covered at room temperature while you grill the salmon.
- Now that your rice is cooked and your grill is very hot, it is time to prepare the salmon.
- Scrub the grill grates hard with a grill brush, to ensure that the grates of the grill are clean and to reduce the likelihood of the salmon sticking to the grill grates while cooking.
- Coat the skin-on fresh salmon fillets in a thin layer of vegetable oil, and season the flesh side with Kosher salt.
- Carefully place the salmon filets, skin-side down, on the hot grill.
- Reduce the heat to 400F, and cook the salmon for roughly 6 minutes, without flipping the salmon.
- After about 6 minutes, just when the salmon is barely cooked through, but before the protein that sits in-between the flakes of salmon has coagulated and turned white, remove the salmon carefully from the grill.
- *The salmon skin should be cooked enough at this point to separate from the grill grates—use a spatula combined with some confidence to quickly remove the filets from the grill.
- Brush the cooked salmon with a light layer of the prepared teriyaki sauce.
- *You do not need to use all of the sauce.
- Plate bowls with the cooked scallion cilantro rice at the bottom, topped with the teriyaki salmon.
- Garnish each bowl with lime zest, freshly-squeezed lime juice, and a sprinkling of some toasted sesame seeds.
- Serve warm, and immediately.
Notes
The use of store-bought teriyaki sauce saves some time in this recipe. If you feel inclined, it is relatively easy to make your own teriyaki sauce at home, which you can prepare and store in the fridge for a week or two after making.