The Best Way to Serve Salmon For Toddlers Is Salad
Next stop on our seemingly endless quest to keep salmon for toddlers interesting: salad. Not adult salad. Not deli/country club salad (though check this one out). Just kinda sorta salad–and salmon–as a chunky dip, with all sorts of things kids like: citrus, avocado, crunchy things. It’s how kids would do salad. And it works.
Indeed, this one hits the sweet (and soft) spot for adults and small children alike. The texture is simple and smooth; it can easily be modified to serve a young toddler or infant. (See “Serve” section). It’s great practice for introducing complexity to your toddler, as it has multiple tastes and textures but also immediate and accessible familiarity thanks to the prominent citrus flavor and the creaminess of the avocado; it is extremely flexible and can be served any number of different ways, the better to address potential resistance from your child. (See, again, the “Serve” section below for those options.) And it scales really easy for you, too: just hit that salmon salad with a little salsa or chili crisp and you’re golden–you may be so good that you won’t even notice that your kiddo has already downed more salmon than you have.
- 2 Salmon Filets (roughly 12-16 ounces)
- 2 Oranges (we tend to use Clementines, since we have them around more often, but any type will do)
- 1 large Avocado
- 1 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 tbsp Rice Wine Vinegar
- dried Cilantro
- Sugar (optional)
- Preheat your oven or air fryer to 300. If using skin-on filets, remove skin from salmon; salt and pepper the fish gently.
- Zest one orange into a large bowl. Cut roughly 1.5 oranges into small cubes by cutting horizontally across each segment; remove any skin or pith that may be bothersome to your child. Juice the remaining oranges into a large bowl. (And add to the bowl any juice that accumulated on your cutting board, too.)
- Peel and halve the avocado; cut into small cubes. Toss in bowl.
- Roast the salmon until just barely pink on the inside, roughly 5-6 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool 3-5 minutes.
- Add olive oil, rice vinegar, two pinches of salt and one of pepper, a pinch of sugar (if using), and a lot of cilantro to the bowl; mix. Cut, shred, or smoosh salmon and add to the bowl, stirring to integrate. Taste the mixture and add more salt, citrus, and/or herbs as needed until desired flavor is reached.
If offering to infants or younger toddlers, mash up the bowl before serving to break everything into a soft sluice (rather than as chunks); go easy or eliminate the salt and/or sugar, too. We tend to eat this on top of crackers–favoring thinner, buttery crackers like Ritz over thicker, crunchier ones–but it also plays nicely with rice, seaweed, or on top of a piece of toast.
You can marinate the salmon prior to cooking to impart more flavor: we do so with teriyaki or miso. For a sweeter flavor profile, use diced mango or pineapple instead of orange; assuming your child is ready for multiple textures, adding a crunchy element–e.g., diced cucumber, seaweed pieces–can really enhance the salad.