This unique recipe for Ranch Baked Salmon is a crunchy, delicious preparation to liven up your fish game. The crunch from the parmesan and panko crust comes out perfect in the oven for this simple light dinner!

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I like to make salmon a lot, it is probably one of my favorite fishes, and I love fish!

While visiting friends in Florida recently, they mentioned being on a recent fishing trip where the Captain of the boat gave them this ranch and parmesan crusted salmon recipe. I had to check it out, and of course give it my own spin! I added the panko for an extra crunch and I think it works really well here!

Salmon can be a little one note, depending on how it is prepared, I think this recipe really changes things up and is something different to do with salmon instead of the usual preparation.

Panko makes everything crispy and using ranch to make this delicious breading adhere to the salmon is such a great idea!

One thing I love about this recipe is the neat trick for getting the skin off of the salmon so you can bread the whole thing.

I used to fry my salmon for a minute in a frying pan on the skin side and then remove the skin, but this method cooks the salmon too much before I can do anything else with it. It’s also a pain to execute.

Using boiled water over the skin on a sheet pan is so easy and does not begin cooking the salmon since you only pour the water on it for a few seconds. Works like a charm!

Ingedients for Ranch Baked Salmon

This recipe starts with ranch, I use Hidden Valley because that is my rnach of choice, but any ranch will do.

For the breading, I use panko crumbs, I find them to be far more crunchy than their regular bread crumb counter parts.

This is not one of those occassions where you need to get fancy on the parmesan, you just need regular plain old grated parmesan. Really, the fresh shredded stuff would not work well here.

I use seasoned salt for this recipe, you can always use table salt, or sea salt, any salt works here, your choice!

For the salmon, a nice 6 ounce fillet works well with this recipe, if you do not have that or have purchased a larger piece, cutting into individual portions will make breading this easier.

Preparing the Salmon

For the first part of this recipe, it is instructional to remove the skin as most salmon you purchase at the grocery store has the skin on it.

This trick is so cool because it is so easy! You just pour the hot water over the salmon and watch the skin shrink, that’s when you know it’s time to pull! All you need to do is grab a corner and pull and it comes off so easily.

This dredge is fun! I love that you just get a big bowl of ranch and that is how you get this delicious breading to stick to the salmon. For some reason ranch is a very good adhesive for coating, so this works well!

Then all you have to do is roll your well coated salmon in the panko and parmesan mixture and your done!

I like to space the fillets out on a cookie sheet and then lightly spray with some cooking spray to give this a “fried fish” finish. At such a high heat in the oven, this really works!

Bake them on a cooking sheet with a silicon mat until nice and brown and crispy, then put under the broiler for about one minute and they come out super crispy and full of flavor!

I use the silicon baking sheets for everything, they make clean-up a breeze!

Serve these delicious Ranch Baked Salmon fillets up with a nice fresh veggie like green beans or broccoli and you may as well be on a health kick!

Check out some of my other amazing dinner ideas!