Smoked Salmon Is The Simple Addition For A Quick Pasta Upgrade

We love smoked salmon and cream cheese-laced bagel sandwiches as much as anyone else, but if that's the only way you're using this salty, cured fish, you may be missing out. You can add smoked salmon to a plethora of tasty breakfast dishes, including Belgian waffles and toast with avocado, but it also has a time and place on your dinner table. In our and Catherine Brookes' recipe for smoked salmon pasta, it brings a dose of protein and flavor that hardly requires any prep work on your end.

If you're a pescatarian, or just looking for meat and poultry alternatives, this type of cured fish is a great way to get in your protein, considering 3.5 ounces offers a whopping 18 grams. And because of its combination of saltiness, smokiness, and fatty acids, this salmon packs a flavor punch in a relatively small amount of fish. You only need 4 ounces of it to make the pasta dish here, which otherwise relies on only a few complementary ingredients. When it comes time to add in your salmon, all you need to do is divide it into chunks and throw it in the pan for a few minutes.

We know that seafood pairs well with olive oil, garlic, lemon, and red pepper, and our pasta recipe includes all of these simple ingredients. The recipe uses a small red chili pepper, but you could sub in red pepper flakes if you want to make it even easier. You'll also need cherry tomatoes, whose acidity works perfectly to balance out the richer, saltier flavors of the smoked salmon. If you want to easily amp up this meal even more, throw in a handful of fresh spinach or diced shallots to be sauteed with the pepper and garlic, add in some fresh basil at the end, or make more of a sauce with white wine, cream, and parmesan.

While this type of recipe is beautiful in its simplicity, it's not the only way you can incorporate smoked salmon into pasta. You can also use it to replace the shrimp in puttanesca with bucatini or brown butter pasta, or add it into recipes with creamy sauces like hazelnut cream pasta, spinach and balsamic cream pasta, or roasted tomato and chipotle cream pasta. Where it may not work, however, is in recipes that already have plenty of sodium, potentially ones with feta or another salty protein like pancetta. That said, salt can typically be balanced out with fresh and acidic ingredients, so feel free to experiment with this versatile cured fish.