Bacon-Wrapped Salmon Cakes With Asparagus

You could wrap just about anything in bacon and I’d devour it. But Bacon-Wrapped Salmon Cakes? Could it possibly get more mouth-watering? This post and recipe for Bacon-Wrapped Salmon Cakes with Asparagus comes from AndreAnna of Life As A Plate. Thank you, AndreAnna!

Yeah, okay. That’s a really long title. What I wanted to call these things was LITTLE BITES OF AWESOME but, alas, that doesn’t query well in search engines.

I know asparagus and salmon are good together either cooked or raw (sushi), so why not figure out a way and put them all together? With bacon? And these were born.

Bacon-Wrapped Salmon Cakes with Asparagus

The Players:

• 10 oz wild-caught Alaskan salmon (see Resources)
• coconut/olive oil (see Resources)
• pat of butter from grass-fed cows (see Resources)
• 1 tbsp finely diced onion
• 1 garlic clove, finely diced
• 2/3 c. pine nuts
• 1 tbsp mayo
• 1 tsp Parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• 1 tsp old bay seasoning
• 1 tbsp fresh chives
• 1 egg white
• bunch fresh asparagus
• thick cut bacon from foraged hogs (see Resources)

The How-To:

In a pan, cook the salmon with the coconut oil (you can use olive oil), breaking apart as you cook.  When this is finished stick in a bowl in the fridge to cool down.

Either in a blender or a food processor, blend the pine nuts until they look like this. These nuts are very moist and work great as a binder and give the salmon cakes a nutty taste.

In another pan, melt butter and add garlic and onions and cook until translucent. Remove salmon from fridge and add cooked onions/garlic, egg white, pine nuts, mayo cheese, mustard, old bay, and chives (basically everything except the bacon and asparagus).

Mix well and put back in fridge to chill for at least an hour. This helps make the mixture firmer and easier to work with. Lay out the strips of bacon lengthwise and place a few pieces of asparagus perpendicular to the bacon. Put a good sized mini cake amount of the salmon mixture, roll up tightly, and hold with a toothpick.

I put these right on foil but because of the bacon grease, the bottom of the bacon never got crispy so I recommend you put these on a raised tray with foil lined underneath to catch drippings.

Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes, checking often. Serve these Bacon-Wrapped Salmon Cakes with Asparagus as a fancy schmancy appetizer at your next holiday party!

(photos by andreanna)