Creamy Garlic Butter Tuscan Salmon

I made a tandoori salmon recipe last month after not having salmon for quite a while. You know what? I’ve missed salmon. My husband likes it better as sushi, so finding salmon recipes he doesn’t find “too fishy” can be a challenge. This recipe for Creamy Garlic Butter Tuscan Salmon caught my eye because of the sauce, mainly the garlic and sun-dried tomatoes. Both have strong flavors and I figured they would help disguise the “fishy taste” he doesn’t care for. I know, it’s fish, and fish is by nature fishy…

This post was originally published on February 5, 2018. The text and photos were updated on August 20, 2021. The review and rating have not been changed.

Creamy Garlic Butter Tuscan Salmon is such an incredible recipe! Restaurant quality salmon in a beautiful creamy Tuscan sauce!

The Ingredients

First off, I bought a whole salmon filet with the skin on. Why? The pre-cut salmon fillets were $10 each, so I would have spent $40 on the fish alone. My whole fillet was $18, so I saved $22 just by making 3 slices in the fillet. That’s a significant savings for minimal effort. Totally worth it.

The rest of the ingredients were easy to find except for the sun-dried tomato strips. I can find them dry, but my grocery store didn’t have them in oil. Not really a big deal, though, because cutting them into strips isn’t exactly difficult. I will probably use the dry strips next time only to save on calories. They’re pretty soft when fresh and the texture isn’t very different from the tomatoes in oil.

The Process

I could have had the fillet skinned at the fish counter, but I wanted to give it a try. I normally remove the skin after cooking because it practically falls off at that point. YouTube to the rescue for this, where you can find instructions on how to do most anything.

I used the technique taught in this short video. I started with a fillet knife (below, left) but had to switch to a longer santoku knife (below, right) as I got to the wider part of the fillet. Otherwise, it went quickly and smoothly, and I had pretty good results.

The directions for this Creamy Garlic Butter Tuscan Salmon recipe were easy to follow (there’s even a video tutorial), and I had it finished in 33 minutes. That’s a little over the 25-minute time listed, but it includes skinning the salmon fillet and cutting up the sun-dried tomatoes. I can’t count that against this recipe since I opted to skin the salmon myself. Otherwise, I think it would have been ready in the time specified.

I do highly recommend a non-stick skillet for this recipe. I love the sear you get with regular pans. However, I can see the salmon sticking and falling apart and the cream sauce burning and sticking too easily with that type of cookware.