Give Your Salmon The Ultimate Flavor Upgrade By Making It Cowboy Style

Many people either love salmon or can't stand it — it's a truly polarizing protein for which there typically is no in-between — and that's okay. If you're on the "can't get enough" side of the debate, what could be better than a simple preparation with high-quality fish? It cooks freaky fast, so it's perfect even for a weeknight (and you can prepare it so it doesn't leak white goo). Plus, it's so versatile, pairing well with a variety of sides. Now, all this can be true, but if your salmon has been feeling a little blah lately, you need to give it a kick in the pants and upgrade the flavor by making it cowboy style — that is, giving it the cowboy butter treatment.

Essentially a compound butter loaded with herbs, spices, and mustard, cowboy butter is famous as a steak topping — but it's just as incredible on salmon. It does typically include quite a few ingredients — the one we pair with barbecue brisket has nine — but you're not doing anything particularly technical with them, just combining them with the butter, shaping it into a log, and letting it sit in the fridge until it has solidified. Then, you can prepare the salmon as you normally would, making sure it gets a good, hard sear skin-side down in a pan first. When it's about a minute away from finishing, add the cowboy butter to the pan and start basting. It's literally that easy and quick.

Most cowboy butters contain similar ingredients: butter, obviously, mustard, and a variety of spices, like paprika, cayenne pepper, and salt and pepper. But if you're looking for flavor that's just a little more extra, here are some ideas.

First off, if you can take the heat, try mixing a little — or a lot — of hot sauce or sriracha into the butter. The other ingredients tend to be bold and powerful, too, so you don't have to worry about the spice overpowering everything else. For a more balanced take, you might also include a squirt of honey.

Consider folding some Cajun seasoning into the rest of your cowboy butter ingredients as well, for a taste of Louisiana. Or show your family that you amore them by giving it an Italian twist, mixing in ingredients like fresh basil and parsley or minced sun-dried tomatoes.

And you don't have to limit your cowboy butter to salmon, either. If you have cod or tilapia from the grocery store, or even a fresh catch like trout that you want to enjoy, any of these butter concoctions will taste incredible with whatever fish you have on hand, and it should cook just as effortlessly.