Why it’s so good!
Baked salmon pasta is a creamy pasta, loaded with tender chunks of salmon, broccoli and peas topped with breadcrumbs and baked until gooey, rich and incredibly delicious.
It’s also very easy to make. Boil up some pasta, at the same time as you’re making up a quick white sauce, then mix everything together and pile it all into a baking dish. Top it off with bread crumbs and parmesan for texture and more flavour and into the oven it goes. There’s only about 15 minutes prep before it goes in, it’s that simple.
This salmon pasta bake is also very adaptable with whatever veggies you have on hand or prefer. Stick to all frozen if you want to keep it super simple. Or try some asparagus (delicious), capsicum, thinly sliced carrots – whatever you love.
Table of contents
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Ingredients in this creamy salmon pasta
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
- Butter and flour are used to make the roux. This is paste that’s cook until nutty, and used to thicken the sauce. I use salted butter here and plain flour (aka all purpose flour). This creates a sauce that’s lighter than a cream-based sauce but is still creamy in texture.
- Whole milk: Don’t use light or skim milk – stick to full cream milk not only for flavour but also for texture. It’s less likely to split. If you want to make it more rich, you can add part in heavy cream or use half n half.
- Seasoning: The bechamel is seasoned very simply with salt and pepper.
- Dijon mustard: This adds a little tang and a special something to the sauce.
- Dried pasta: I use penne for this dish but you can use other types of dried pasta too like spirals, fusilli, macaroni, elbows or shells.
- Salmon: Any variety of fresh salmon fillets will work. For that matter you could add some prawns too and make it a mixed seafood pasta. Tinned salmon will work but drain it before you add it. Tuna will also work. Try to choose sustainable seafood which are normally labelled as such.
- Vegetables: The combination of fresh broccoli, frozen peas and sliced spring onions is great for texture and flavour. The broccoli florets are a little bigger but hold their shape, while the peas and spring onion fill in the gaps. Other veggies will work too like capsicum (bell pepper), asparagus, fresh spinach or thinly sliced carrot. Cherry tomatoes would work well too.
- Parmesan: Parmesan cheese makes up one half of the topping. Make sure to grab a block and grate it yourself finely. Pre-grated cheeses often have coatings that may affect their texture and the way they melt.
- Breadcrumbs: I use my homemade breadcrumbs for a great mix of fine and chunky bits but you can use store-bought dried breadcrumbs or panko breadcrumbs.
If you want a little bit of tang to your creamy salmon pasta recipe you could stir through a little lemon juice or lemon zest. If you want to use juice, don’t add more than a couple of tablespoons and both would be added when adding the salmon later in the process. You could also add some minced garlic cloves and to do that, cook it in the butter for 1 minute before you add the flour. You could add in a little Italian seasoning or dried chilli flakes (red pepper flakes) to taste too.
How to make baked salmon pasta
This recipe really is so simple to make. You’ll make a very simple bechamel sauce as the creamy base, then fill it all up with flavour and veggies and generous chunks of raw salmon. That all goes into a casserole dish, topped with breadcrumbs and parmesan and is baked until gooey and delicious. The prep takes only 15-20 minutes, then the oven does the rest of the work. So simple.
Jump to the recipe for full ingredients and instructions.
1. Cook the pasta
Start by boiling some water in a saucepan on the stovetop then adding some salt and the pasta. You’ll cook that just for 8 minutes in total, adding your broccoli in the last minute. This timing is crucial – if you cook it according to the package directions, the pasta will be well overcooked and mushy by the time it comes out of the oven. Just 8 minutes is perfect, where it will be undercooked when you add it but as it cooks in the sauce it will finish cooking to the perfect texture.
2. Start the bechamel
While the pasta is cooking you can make the bechamel which takes 10 minutes or less. Start by cooking the roux – a combination of butter and flour – for 1-2 minutes until you smell it getting a bit nutty and notice the colour deepening.
3. Add the milk and seasoning
Slowly add the milk, a little at a time, stirring each time until it’s smooth. It will start out as a very thick paste and eventually loosen up into a sauce. Don’t worry when it’s really thick at the start, as long as you stir it well so that it becomes smooth, it’s perfect. Once all the milk is in, stir in the salt, pepper and dijon.
4. Cook until thickened
Now, you just want to let the bechamel cook, stirring quite regularly so that it doesn’t catch on the bottom. It doesn’t need to boil but a low simmer is fine and just until it’s thick enough to coat the back of the spoon and you’ll see it coating the sides of the pan. It will still be fairly runny but it will thicken in the oven. See the video below the next image to see the consistency of the sauce.
5. Add the rest
Take the sauce off the heat and stir in the remaining filling ingredients – par-cooked pasta, broccoli, peas, spring onions and salmon.
6. Tip it into the baking dish
Simply pour it all into your baking dish now.
7. Add the topping and bake
Mix together the breadcrumbs and parmesan, then sprinkle it all over the top of your salmon pasta. Now bake for about 30 minutes until golden and the edges are bubbly.
Storage and making ahead
Once it’s baked, this baked salmon pasta is best served fresh. You can prepare it ahead though right up to the point of baking. You’ll need to let the bechamel cool to room temperature before adding in the other ingredients, then store it in the baking dish in the fridge covered tightly with plastic wrap overnight. Take it out of the fridge 20-30 minutes prior to baking so that your baking dish doesn’t crack from the temperature change and top it with the breadcrumbs and parmesan just before baking.
Leftover salmon pasta bake should be stored in the refrigerator, covered tightly with plastic wrap for up to 3 days. You can reheat it in the microwave or oven.
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Ingredients
- 300 g dried penne pasta
- 1 cup small broccoli florets (85g/3oz)
- 57 g salted butter (2oz/ ¼ cup), plus more for greasing
- ¼ cup plain flour (all purpose flour) (~35g)
- 4 cups full fat milk warmed (1L / 1qt)
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
- ¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 450 g skinless fresh salmon cut into bite size pieces (1lb)
- ¾ cup frozen peas
- 3 spring onions sliced (a good ½ cup)
- 75 g finely grated parmesan cheese
- ½ cup dried breadcrumbs
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Equipment
- 9×13 inch-ish casserole dish
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan forced) / 350F. Grease a roughly 9×13 baking dish /casserole dish with some butter (extra to ingredients list).
- Add the penne to a pot of boiling, well salted water and cook for 7 minutes. Add the broccoli and cook for 1 more minute. Drain and set aside.
- Meanwhile, in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium heat melt the butter, add the flour and cook stirring for 2 minutes until starting to turn golden and smelling nutty.
- Add the milk, a little at a time (⅓-½ cup each addition), stirring until smooth after each addition. As the paste starts to loosen you can add it a little more quickly.
- Stir in the mustard, salt and pepper. Cook the bechamel for 5-6 minutes until it thickens enough to coat the spoon and the sides of the pan. Don’t let it come to a rolling boil but a low simmer is fine while it thickens.
- Remove from heat. Stir in the drained pasta, broccoli, salmon, peas, and onions and pour into the prepared dish.
- In a small bowl combine the parmesan and breadcrumbs then scatter over the top of the dish.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes (uncovered) until turning golden on top and bubbly around the edges.
- Please take a moment to leave a comment & rating. It's appreciated and so helpful.
Notes
- Tablespoons: I use a standard Australian 20ml tablespoon (equal to 4 teaspoons). Check yours before measuring.
- If making ahead, let the bechamel cool to room temperature before stirring in the salmon or keep them separate. If you keep them separate, chill them both and you may need to reheat the bechamel before adding everything in to make it easier to mix together.
- Broccoli: There’s no need to throw out the broccoli stalk. It works great in dishes like this. Slice off the more fibrous exterior then simply slice it up into small pieces.
- Nutrition details are approximate only – scroll below the recipe to find the full nutritional information.
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