Teriyaki Salmon with Rice and Avocado
⏱ 7 min prep · 🍳 13 min · 🍽 4
Salmon fillet is the ingredient doing the real work here: it holds up to eight minutes of oven heat without drying out, and it soaks up the teriyaki sauce instead of just sitting under it. 21 oz (600g) splits neatly across four plates, with enough left over for the one kid who always wants more rice.
The sauce is homemade — soy sauce, mirin, sugar, garlic, and ginger simmered down until it clings to the salmon instead of pooling on the tray. With 7 minutes of prep and 13 minutes of oven and stovetop time, you can get rice, spinach, and avocado ready at the same time, instead of standing around waiting for each one in turn.
Ingredients
- 600.000 g laksefileter
- olje
- salt
- pepper
- 1.000 avokado
- spinat
- 1.000 fedd hvitløk
- 300.000 g ris
- teriyakisaus
Instructions
Forvarm ovnen til 200°C.
Lag teriyakisausen: bland soyasaus, mirin, sukker, hvitløk og ingefær i en kjele, kok opp under omrøring, og kok til sausen tykner (ca. 5 minutter).
Legg laksefileter på en oljet stekeplate, krydre lett med salt og pepper, og pensle med teriyakisaus.
Stek laksen ved 200°C i ca. 8 minutter.
Kok ris etter anvisning på pakken.
Skjær avokado i terninger og smak til med salt og pepper.
Varm olje i en panne, tilsett hvitløk for å smaksette oljen, og stek spinaten til den faller sammen.
Anrett laks med stekt spinat, kokt ris og avokado, og server med ekstra teriyakisaus.
This is the dinner that lands on the calendar for the night patience for homework help and pickups is gone, but you still want everyone at the table with a fork, not wraps eaten standing at the counter. Kids who usually push fish to the side of the plate tend to eat this one anyway, because the teriyaki glaze is doing the talking — what they're tasting is sweet garlic and ginger, not "salmon." Cook double rice while the oven's on and the extra goes straight into tomorrow's lunchbox as a salmon-rice bowl or fried rice, no separate pot required. The sheet pan is the only thing that needs real scrubbing afterward, which in a house with a dishwasher queue is often the actual deciding factor in whether a recipe earns a repeat slot.
FAQ
Can I use bottled teriyaki sauce instead of making it from scratch?
Yes — bottled teriyaki sauce works fine and saves you the five minutes of simmering; just brush it onto the salmon the same way. Most store-bought versions run thinner and sweeter than homemade, so taste it first and stir in extra minced garlic or grated ginger if it needs backbone. Homemade sauce reduces further and sets into an actual glaze on the salmon rather than running off, which is why it's worth the five minutes on a night you have any slack at all.
How do I store leftovers, and can I freeze the salmon?
Cooked salmon, rice, and spinach keep for 2 days in the fridge in a sealed container — cut the avocado fresh each time, since it browns and turns bitter overnight. You can also freeze the salmon raw, already marinated in the teriyaki sauce: it goes straight from freezer to oven with a few extra minutes added to the bake time. Rice freezes well in single-portion bags too, which is handy when someone in the house wants a fast lunch midweek instead of a full meal.
How do I adapt this for kids who are picky about fish or vegetables?
Plate the salmon, rice, spinach, and avocado separately instead of assembling one combined plate, and let your kid dip pieces of salmon into the teriyaki sauce themselves — it makes the fish feel far less intimidating than when everything arrives already mixed together. Edamame or steamed broccoli can stand in for the spinach if that's the vegetable that actually gets eaten in your house. Serving everything family-style from platters at the table also helps: kids consistently eat more when they get to choose their own portions than when a plate shows up pre-built from the kitchen.
Can I prep any of this ahead for a genuinely busy weeknight?
The teriyaki sauce keeps for a week in a sealed jar in the fridge, so make a batch over the weekend and the weeknight version shrinks down to just cook time and rice. Chop the garlic and cut the salmon onto the sheet pan that morning, let it marinate in the fridge until dinner, and slide the tray straight into the oven the moment you're home. Doubling the rice costs the same cook time as a single batch, and the extra goes straight into a container for the next day's lunch.
What can I serve instead of rice to keep the weekly rotation from feeling repetitive?
Noodles or bulgur take about the same time as rice to cook and soak up the teriyaki sauce just as well; cauliflower rice is a solid lower-carb option that still takes on the glaze nicely. Served over a bed of ramen noodles, this practically turns into a salmon noodle bowl — an easy way to change up the weekly menu without swapping out the salmon or the sauce itself. Whatever side you land on, it's worth setting out a small bowl of extra teriyaki sauce at the table.
Can I scale this up for more than four people or for a dinner with guests?
Plan on about 5 oz (150g) of salmon per person and double or triple the sauce quantities to match — space the pieces well apart on the sheet pan, or they'll steam each other instead of roasting properly. For a dinner with guests, the method doesn't change, you just need a second sheet pan or a batch in the oven while the first one rests. A scatter of sesame seeds and chopped scallion right before serving dresses the dish up visually without costing you any extra kitchen time.