Thai Pesto Salmon Salad

We’ve been photographing all of my favorite salad recipes over the past month or so, looking forward to sharing a bunch of the different ways that we like to dress up our tasty recipe for meal prep salads.

It’s January, after all - probably about time to get some classically healthy recipes on the go, right?

Anyway, this healthy salmon salad is quite possibly the perfect recipe for this type of salad.

The tender salmon takes only about 1 minute of prep work to make, and cooks up in 15 minutes.

It’s laid on top of a great salad, with a ton of bright colours, flavors, and crunch.

A flavorful cilantro pesto acts as a light dressing. It also works up in just minutes, though it can also be made ahead and kept in the fridge.

All around, it’s our best salmon recipe . It makes a great meal, whether as a somewhat fancy supper, or an easy lunch. It's *pretty*, too!

Let’s get to it!

Ingredients

This fresh salad may look fancy, but it’s really just a collection of simple ingredients that you can find in any grocery store.

I tend to look at the salmon salad ingredients in 3 parts: The base salad, the toppings, and the salmon. Here are some notes for you:

Base Salad

I like to meal prep several days worth of salad base bowls on grocery day - some sort of fresh greens, along with some fairly neutral fresh veggies - Usually shredded broccoli stems, carrot, green onions, cucumber, and radish.

I have some flat Ikea bowls that I use as meal prep containers, and they tend to last up to 6-7 days in the fridge.

1 batch makes 10 salads, so we’ve got a few days worth of base salads to adorn all kinds of different ways.

It’s a pretty slick way to get a lot of vegetables into our diet, and feels like SO much less work than making full salads individually.

See my Salad Meal Prep post for full details on how I do it.

Want to make this salad as a standalone thing?

You can use a base of crisp lettuce and/or other salad greens, spring mix, baby spinach, and/or romaine lettuce. I’d add some cucumber and green onions in, for good measure.

The Salad Toppings

My choice of veggies for this salad were picked to provide a range of vibrant colors, flavours, and textures that would work well with both the salmon and the cilantro pesto.

Topping off the base salad, I used:

Red cabbage
Watermelon radish
Carrot
Golden Beet
Creamy avocado
2 Green Onions

Sometimes I’ll toss in some red onion slices as well., as it’s one of my favorite ingredients to bring a bit of bite to any salad.

I like to use my Vegetable Spiralizer on the carrots and yellow beets, and my Mueller Multi Blade Adjustable Mandoline Slicer for slicing the watermelon radish.

In addition to the vegetable toppings, there’s another important component of the salad: the salad dressing.

In this case, it’ a flavorful cilantro pesto that melts down a bit from the heat of the salmon.

The dressing ingredients are simple:

Cilantro (Fresh herbs, not dried!)
Peanuts
Green onions
Fresh garlic cloves
Sriracha
Extra virgin olive oil
Fresh lime juice or calamansi juice
Salt and ground black pepper

Generally, I’ll use the calamansi juice for almost anything I’d normally use lemon or lime juice in. I buy it at Seafood City, a large Filipino grocery store.

LOVE it, highly recommend it... but lime juice works great in this as well.

Baked Sesame Salmon

Wild salmon is a great source of protein, healthy fats, and flavour, so this simple baked salmon recipe gets a LOT of use at our house.

We tend to use skinless sockeye salmon fillets, but feel free to use whatever type of salmon you like.

I like to start with a fresh salmon filet - I’ll usually get a bigger piece of salmon, and cut it into fresh salmon fillets at home.

The piece of salmon is dressed up with:

Sesame Oil
Salt and Ground Black Pepper
Black Sesame Seeds
Toasted Sesame Seeds

It takes just minutes to prepare, but is definitely one of our favorite salmon recipes!

How to Make Thai Pesto Salmon Salad

The full recipe is in the recipe card at the end of this post. Here is the pictorial walk through, with some more detailed information where necessary.

Cilantro Pesto

Measure everything except the salt and pepper into the food processor

Blitz until everything is well chopped and blended to a good consistency.

Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Cover - or transfer to an airtight container - and chill until use.

(If you’re using it soon, you can leave it at room temperature for up to a few hours, at least.)

Baked Sesame Salmon

Preheat your oven to 400 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place salmon portions on the baking sheet, skin side down if applicable.

Drizzle a little sesame oil over the salmon, use a pastry brush to evenly spread it over the top and sides of each salmon piece. Season with a little salt and pepper.

Sprinkle the salmon portions generously with sesame seeds, turning the pieces to coat the sides as well.

Bake until done - it should flake easily. For salmon this size, it’s usually about 15 minutes.

Salad Assembly

As the salmon is baking, arrange your prepared vegetables on top of your base salads - or beds of salad greens, if not using base salads.

Put a big scoop of the pesto on each salad.

More Keto Main Dish Salad Recipes

Looking for more low carb salad recipes that are substantial enough to serve as a meal? Look no further!

Buffalo Chicken Salad
Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad
Cobb Salad
Italian Sub Salad
Keto Mediterranean Orzo Salad with Chicken
Keto Taco Salad
Mediterranean Chicken Salad
Salad Meal Prep
Seafood Cobb Salad
Seared Tuna Salad
Sesame Ginger Chicken Salad
Shawarma Chicken Salad
Steak Salad with Creamy Wasabi Dressing

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