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…
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
The best homemade ice cream recipe we’ve ever tried is the Salt and Straw ice cream base
This Salt and Straw ice cream base can be turned into almost any flavor imaginable.
Salt and Straw Ice Cream

There is no better summertime indulgence than that of homemade ice cream. Once you've made (and then, by no fault of your own, devoured) this special treat, it will be hard to ever go back to the boxed grocery store brand. It's like returning to premade refrigerated cookie dough after making your mother's scratch-made recipe. You just can't. It feels wrong somehow. When you know something can be so delicious, you know what a disservice you're doing yourself by not having the most authentic, best version possible. Ice cream is very much that way. And the wonderful thing is that homemade ice cream is a breeze to make, unlike so many other decadent desserts. The one issue can be finding the perfect homemade ice cream recipe. And that all starts with the ice cream base.

What is an ice cream base?
Made with just a few simple ingredients, an ice cream base is the foundation upon which all other flavors are built. And if you have a great one, you can build your layers of flavor in absolutely any way that tickles your fancy. Ice cream can take on flavor and texture with just about anything you please — extracts, fruits, candies, syrups, nut butters, and chocolate chips are just a few ideas to get you started. Just be sure to allow the ice cream base to cool before adding your own touches of creativity. Once you've added your flavorings to the ice cream base, simply churn and enjoy.
The incredibly delicious ice cream base recipe below is from the always amazing Salt and Straw. This popular ice cream brand has, in our opinion, some of the best ice cream on the planet, so we were ecstatic to learn how to create their fantastic ice cream base at home.

Read more