One Pot Creamy Lemon Salmon Florentine

One Pot Creamy Lemon Salmon Florentine Recipe – solid pan seared salmon in a good lemon spinach cream sauce – an easy keto salmon families love.

At Avdaye, we add lots of tips in all of our recipes – because we are a home cook without any formal training, and we find we are more confident making dishes when we understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe. Our goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.

Creamy Lemon Salmon Florentine

We love good, easy, and totally creamy meals that are packed with flavors like roasted garlic, lemon, and butter.

Our husband and we have been on a major creamy-anything kick lately – and have been losing weight following a low carb diet – even though we've been eating rich, good and comforting food!

This creamy lemon garlic salmon florentine is a huge hit – its great on it's own, but also makes a killer pasta or creamy rice dish.

It's packed with flavor, and so easy to make in under a half an hour!

And if you love this deliciously easy keto salmon and spinach dinner as much as we do, check out our creamy shrimp Florentine dish – with all the flavor of this salmon, with large prawns instead!

What is a Florentine Dish

While we're calling this dish a florentine, it could also definitely be considered a creamy garlic tuscan dinner – with rich tuscan flavors of lemon and garlic – but we're calling it a Florentine because it contains spinach – even though it has nothing to do with Florence Italy, as the name would suggest.

Using “Florentine” as a cooking method is a bit of a misnomer – since it refers to cooking dishes with spinach, and not actually food that originates in Florence, Italy.

Dishes made “a la Florentine” mean dishes made with spinach.

The method is actually French, not Italian, but the result is the same – and many “Florentine” dishes contain Italian flavors that were widely popularized by Catherine de' Medici, whose Florentine chefs made meals with Italian ingredients, catapulting their popularity in France.

Dishes made with spinach – Catherine de' Medici's favorite vegetable – became known as Florentine, probably because of her love for the dish.

If you're a history nerd like us, it's actually a fascinating story, and one we loved learning more about!

Kitchen notes

Following these steps will help you get a creamy, velvety smooth sauce that you'll wish you could drink with a straw on it's own!

Use full fat butter. Using clarified butter, olive oil, ghee, or other butter substitutes can help encourage your sauce to break. Reach for the good stuff here – go for full fat butter.

Turn off heat to add cream. When adding cream, completely turn off heat to your dish, and whisk VIGOROUSLY to combine before returning to heat. This is essential for incorporating the cream into your dish without separating from the oil in the pan.

Use a nonstick pan to sear salmon. If using a cast iron skillet, be sure it is clean, well seasoned, and hot.
Salmon can be hard to flip, especially for beginners, so we reccomend a good nonstick pan.

Get pan scorching hot before adding salmon to pan. Salmon hitting the pan when it is cold, and then waiting for the pan to heat up, will NEVER release easily!

Let thaw naturally. If reheating from frozen, let salmon thaw naturally in fridge the night before.

Make more cream sauce. We find the cream can sink into your salmon when reheating, so if you didn't freeze them separately for meal prep, we always plan on making more cream sauce to add to our dish for best results.
If you're in a pinch and don't want to whip up a whole new sauce, try 1/2 cup cream cheese + 1/2 cup heavy cream or milk + 1 tbsp garlic powder, whisked over medium high heat until velvety smooth.

Don't microwave in your office. Don't be that guy (or girl). Microwaving fish is strictly a no-no on the etiquette scale – but if you can't be stopped from committing olfactory crimes against nature, use 2-4 slices of lemon to squeeze fresh lemon juice all over salmon before microwaving.

Reheat in oven or toaster oven for best results. Place fish in a foil pouch and bake at 350 until piping hot. Serve immediately and do not save any leftovers after being reheated once.

A few answers

What type of salmon should we use?

You can use fresh or frozen salmon fillets. If using frozen salmon, thaw it completely before cooking. Wild-caught salmon is preferred for its flavor, but farm-raised works well too.

Can we substitute the heavy cream with a lighter option?

Yes, you can substitute heavy cream with half-and-half or a mixture of milk and a small amount of cornstarch for a lighter version. However, the dish will be less creamy.

Can we use a different green besides spinach?

Yes, you can substitute spinach with other leafy greens like kale, Swiss chard, or arugula. be mindful that tougher greens like kale may need to be cooked a bit longer.

How do we prevent the salmon from overcooking?

Cook the salmon fillets on medium heat until they are cooked through. Remove them from the pan while you prepare the sauce and pasta, and then add them back at the end to warm through without overcooking.

Can we make this dish dairy-free?

Yes, you can substitute the heavy cream with coconut milk or a dairy-free cream alternative. Use dairy-free butter or olive oil instead of regular butter, and skip the Parmesan cheese or use a dairy-free cheese substitute.

Can we add other vegetables to this dish?

Absolutely! You can add vegetables like cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, or zucchini. Sauté them with the garlic before adding the spinach for a more complex flavor.

What should we do if the sauce is too thick?

If the sauce becomes too thick, you can thin it out by adding a bit of pasta water, more cream, or broth until you reach your desired consistency.

Can we make this dish ahead of time?

This dish is best served fresh, but you can prepare the sauce and cook the pasta ahead of time. Store them separately and reheat gently, adding a little liquid to the sauce if needed before combining with the salmon.

Creamy Salmon with Spinach Serving Ideas

This easy creamy salmon with spinach is bursting with flavor – and great over rice or pasta!

Here's a couple of our favorite ways to serve a Tuscan Salmon with cream sauce:

• Serve over a bed of wild rice for a rich, creamy rice that soaks up all of the good lemon cream sauce flavor!
• Serve with fettuccine for a creamy, florentine pasta that is full of vibrant color.
• Ladle over zoodles (zucchini noodles) or other veggie noodles (sweet potato, yellow squash, beet, or carrot would all work well) for a healthy, low carb pasta that will crush your carb cravings.
• Serve with cauliflower rice as a creamy power bowl that is full of nutrients and won't slow you down.
• Serve with roasted vegetables (asparagus and broccoli are good with this sauce), and dip them in the extra sauce.

Other One Pot Salmon Dinners You'll Love

If you love this good creamy salmon with spinach, you can love our other simple, easy salmon dinners that are loaded with flavor, not carbs!

]Try these favorite salmon recipes next.

And click through and bookmark some of our all time favorite easy seafood recipes!

They are all insanely easy and packed with flavor! Check out Creamy Lobster FlorentineOne Pot Spicy Lemon Garlic Chicken Strips Cheesy Taco SkilletSpicy Tequila Lime Chicken Fettuccine and Tuscan Shrimp Linguine.

We hope you love this deliciously easy creamy lemon salmon and spinach recipe as much as our family does.

We love this dish with our easy cauliflower rice recipe, or some pan fried broccolini – and air fryer french fries for the kids.

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Ingredients

• 4 tbsp butter
• 4 salmon, Fillets about 6-8 oz each
• ¼ cup garlic, diced
• 2 tbsp Italian spices
• ¼ cup roasted red peppers
• 1 cup spinach
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• ½ cup stock or white wine
• ½ cup heavy cream
• ½ lemon, sliced into wedges

Method

1. In a large nonstick pan, heat butter.
2. Add salmon, skin up.
3. Let skin brown, about 3-4 minutes.
4. Flip and let salmon skin crisp, another 3-4 minutes.
5. When salmon has browned on each side, remove from pan.
6. Add garlic to pan, let brown and soften.
7. Add roasted red peppers and italian spices.
8. Stir to mix.
9. Add in stock or wine, and lemon juice, and let come to a boil, stirring often.
10. Turn heat off, and slowly add in cream, whisking vigorously to combine.
11. Slowly return heat to medium high and add salmon back to pan, top with spinach and lemon wedges.
12. Let spinach wilt, and salmon fully cook, ladling sauce over fish to help them cook.
13. When sauce is thickened and salmon is cooked through, remove from heat and serve – with vegetables, over pasta, or with rice!