Grilling a few salmon fillets and tossing them on a pile of greens makes for a low-effort, nutritious meal, but it can be a little underwhelming. Luckily, all it takes is a few clever tweaks to transform a utilitarian salmon salad into something that is interesting, full of flavor and utterly satisfying.

Start with smoked salmon

Smoking is one of the oldest food preservation techniques known to humans, but these days we mostly smoke food for the flavor. Smoke isn’t just one thing, but a mixture of small particles, water vapor and gases released during the combustion reaction. Most of what we perceive as a smoky “taste” is actually an aroma, which combines with the compounds detected by our tastebuds to make up the complete flavor of the food. In the case of salmon, smoke adds a deep, woodsy element that highlights the rich, buttery nature of the fish.

You can buy salmon hot smoked and fully cooked, or lightly smoked, yet still raw. If working with the latter, all you have to do is pop it in an oven set to 450℉ for 10-15 minutes, until the center reaches 115-120℉. Remove the skin, flake the fish, and set aside while you prepare the dressing.

Dress your fish and your greens

Don’t overthink the dressing. Our Smoked Salmon Salad with Arugula, Avocado and Pumpkin Seeds is dressed with a simple vinaigrette made with olive oil, lemon juice, honey and whole-grain mustard. It’s bright and tangy-sweet, and balances the richness of the fish while playing up the pepperiness of the arugula. The mucilage in the mustard acts as an emulsifier, which marries the fat (olive oil) with the water in the lemon juice and keeps the dressing from breaking.

Do dress each component of your salad to ensure every bite is flavored throughout. Toss a couple of tablespoons with the fish—and any other non-green ingredients, such as the avocado and toasted pumpkin seeds in this salad—saving the majority for the greens.

Most people do not spend enough time dressing their salads. A quick, haphazard toss won’t coat the greens properly, so go slow and toss for a long time and with a light hand—a little bit of dressing will go a long way if you avoid the perfunctory 5-second toss.

Add multi-textured ingredients to keep things interesting

The combination of protein, greens, and dressing meets the minimum requirements for a salad, but it’s a bit bare bones. We like to add at least two types of texture to our salmon salad: something soft and buttery to play up the richness of the fish, and something toasty and crunchy to keep things from reading as mushy. We use avocado for the former and pumpkin seeds for the latter, first toasting them in a pan to echo the smokiness of the fish. Add the avocado and half of the seeds to the dressed salmon, tossing to marry the flavors together, then arrange the fish on top of the dressed arugula and finish with the remaining pepitas.

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