Maple Pecan Crusted Salmon (No eggs, flour, or butter)

You will need (per serving):
-1 Salmon piece, mine was a more narrow strip about 1.5 inches wide and maybe 3-4 inches long (fresh or thawed). 
-1 TB Dark Amber REAL maple syrup mixed with 1/2 tsp chia seeds and 1/4 to 1/2 tsp adobo sauce from chipotle peppers (let this stand together about 10-20 minutes)
-1 TB almond meal (pulverized almond dust as I like to call it) and 1 TB of finely chopped pecans mixed together
-Salt and pepper
-Optional, BACON (did not try this but reeeeeally want to next time)

Preheat your oven to 350F and put a piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet.  I like to turn the edges up a bit just to ensure nothing runs over.  I love to avoid washing baking sheets whenever possible.

Put your salmon on the foil, hit it with some salt and pepper, and pour or brush about half the maple mixture over it.  Sprinkle on at least 3/4 of the nut mixture.  You can use it all if you want or if your piece is bigger.  Mine just really did not have enough real estate to put all of it on.

Lightly drizzle a little more of the maple mixture on top.  I used almost all of mine between the two rounds.  I put more on top because I wanted to make sure that the nut mixture got nice and carmelized as well.

Bake for 15-18 minutes and serve with something equally tasty, my choice was pumpkin ravioli from Trader Joe's.  I tossed the ravioli in a little hot pepper infused oil and sprinkled the remaining nut mixture on it and put some parmesan cheese on top.  It was fantastic!

You may be wondering, why chia? Well, chia is one of my favorite things to hide in recipes.  Chia seeds are a trendy super food, and from what I have been reading they are also a viable substitute for butter.  They pretty much absorb liquids and seem to just take on the flavor of whatever is around them, so I figured it was a perfect time to add them in. 

I highly suggest picking up a bag of almond meal from Trader Joe's or Whole Foods.  It is absolutely my favorite thing to put as a crust on fish.  And of course, you need it if you want to experiment with macarons, too! I often sub out parts of the flour called for in recipes like fruit crisps, cookies, etc. for almond flour.  I have yet to be disappointed!

This is easily my new favorite way to prepare salmon. It was so simple and amazingly tasty.  Since it is baked it would be very easy to make it for a larger crowd of people. Sadly, this was my last piece of salmon, so hopefully I can find a good sale on it soon. 

This coating would also be great for chicken and pork in my opinion too, if you happen to have some friends and family that are not real fond of fish.

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