Smashed potatoes & salmon with pesto is full of bright, strong,
Mediterranean flavors. The crispy smashed potatoes provide a hefty,
carby base for salty salmon, briny artichoke hearts, and toasty
cubes of feta. The pesto sauce is herby, buttery, and lemony.
inspiration
If you’ve spent any time at all in the comment sections of food blogs, you’ll know about The Substituter. The Substituter is that person who switches out every ingredient in a recipe for another until it’s not even recognizable anymore. I wrote this recipe in the effort to not do that.
Smashed potatoes and salmon with pesto is adapted from a recipe in Ruby Tandoh’s cookbook Cook as You Are. I loved the idea of smashed potatoes, canned fish, and a lemony pesto sauce, but her version called for some things I don’t love. So I switched out her anchovies, olives, and frozen spinach for canned salmon, marinated artichoke hearts, and cubes of feta.
And here’s the thing: I didn’t learn how to cook from my mom or my dad or my grandmother. I learned from bloggers and cookbook writers. Honestly, I love that cooking and recipe creation aren’t done in a vacuum. It’s beautiful that we learn from each other and build off each other.
why i love this recipe
Smashed potatoes and salmon with pesto is genuinely one of the most delicious things I’ve posted so far. It’s so much more than the sum of its parts. And it’s absolutely hideous.
There is no pressure to make this look cute. I’m not even sure it’s possible. This is not a labor-over-it-and-plate-it-carefully meal. This is a toss it all on a sheet pan and then eat it straight off that same sheet pan meal.
Salmon potatoes and pesto is full of bright, strong, Mediterranean flavors. The crispy smashed potatoes provide a hefty, carby base for salty salmon, briny artichoke hearts, and toasty cubes of feta. The pesto sauce is herby, buttery, and lemony. It looks chaotic but all of the flavors work beautifully together. And it is very hard to mess up, so it’s perfect for when you need to cook something but not exert too much effort. It’s wholesome and satisfying—I couldn’t stop eating it.
details
Once you taste this recipe, you won’t believe it took so little work. The most time-consuming thing is making the smashed potatoes, and even that is mostly down time while you wait for them to boil and then roast. Smashing them is pretty quick, too—all you need is the heel of your hand or the bottom of a glass. You’ll want to be gentle, though, because the potatoes will crumble apart completely if you smash them too enthusiastically. While that would still taste just fine, they won’t brown quite as well.
Once the potatoes are mostly done roasting, you just pop the salmon, artichoke hearts, and cubes of feta onto the pan and stick it back in. There’s no need to stir or flip anything. You can use this time to whisk up the pesto sauce, and bam. Done.
Get a forkful of a little bit of everything and get ready to laugh. You’ve never had something so ugly that tasted so good.
faq
What kind of potatoes should I use? Any color of baby potato is fine!
I don’t like salmon/artichoke hearts/feta. What else can I use? I can’t guarantee good results with anything else since I haven’t tried it, but I can give you some ideas. For the salmon: you can definitely try tuna with this. For the artichoke hearts: you’ll want something sort of sharp and briny, like maybe olives or capers. For the feta, try halloumi or goat cheese.
Looking for more super easy and flavorful dinners? Try sheet pan gnocchi with pesto & vegetables, loaded greek street fry bowls, or shakshuka.
smashed potatoes & salmon with pesto
Ingredients
Method
- Boil potatoes. Wash the potatoes and get rid of any eyes or weird patches you don’t like. Put the potatoes in water and bring to a boil. Add salt and boil for 15-20 minutes, or until tender. While the potatoes are boiling, preheat the oven to 425 F.
- Roast potatoes. Drizzle a baking sheet with ¼ cup olive or vegetable oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Drain the potatoes well and dump them onto the baking sheet. Using the heel of your hand or the bottom of a glass, gently smash the potatoes. Roast them near the heat source of your oven—for me, that was the bottom of the oven. Roast for 10-15 minutes, or until the bottom is browning. Flip the potatoes with a spatula, sprinkle with kosher salt, and cook for 5-10 minutes.
- Roast everything. Tuck the cubes of feta and the artichoke hearts into any open spaces, and then add the salmon. Note—you do not need to be precious about keeping things separate when you run out of open spaces. Just toss everything on there. The only thing that matters is the feta—you’ll want that touching the pan so it gets browned on the bottom. Roast for another 10-15 minutes until the potatoes are crispy, the feta is browned on the bottom, and everything is warmed through.
- Add sauce and herbs and serve. While the dish is in the oven, mix the pesto, butter, and lemon juice in a small bowl. As soon as the dish comes out of the oven, sprinkle with herbs and slather with the pesto sauce. I don’t recommend tossing this because then your potatoes wil lcompletely fall apart.