The Anti-Inflammatory Traybake: One Tin, Ten Minutes of Work

The short answer

Toss vegetables in extra virgin olive oil with turmeric and freshly ground black pepper, roast at 200C for 25 minutes, then add salmon or mackerel fillets for the final 12. The fat and the pepper are not garnish: curcumin is fat-soluble and piperine substantially slows its breakdown.

The recipe

Serves 2 · 10 minutes, 35 in the oven

Ingredients

2 salmon or mackerel fillets
1 red onion, cut into wedges
1 red pepper, thick slices
200g new potatoes, halved
1 courgette, thick half-moons
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp black pepper, ground coarsely and generously
2 cloves garlic, skin on and squashed
1 lemon
A handful of parsley

Method

Heat the oven to 200C fan. Put the potatoes in the tin first with one tablespoon of the oil and a pinch of salt, and give them a ten minute head start.
Meanwhile mix the remaining oil, turmeric and black pepper in a bowl. It should look like a loose paste. This is the step that matters, so do not skip it.
Add the onion, pepper and courgette to the bowl and turn them until properly coated. Tip the lot into the tin with the potatoes, add the garlic, and roast 25 minutes.
Push the vegetables to the edges, lay the fish in the middle, and return for 12 minutes until the fish flakes.
Squeeze over the lemon and scatter the parsley. Serve from the tin.

Almost every anti-inflammatory recipe you will find tells you to add turmeric. Very few tell you that turmeric added to a wet dish, without fat or pepper, is close to decorative.

Curcumin, the active compound, is fat-soluble and poorly absorbed. Piperine from black pepper slows its breakdown in the liver considerably. Traditional cooking has always bloomed turmeric in oil for exactly this reason, long before anyone could explain why.

So this recipe is really one technique with dinner attached.

Turmeric needs fat and pepper, or it is just a colour.

The paste step is the recipe

What is doing the work

Extra virgin olive oil

Oleocanthal, which acts weakly on the same pathway as ibuprofen. The peppery catch of a good oil is the compound itself.

Oily fish

EPA and DHA, directly anti-inflammatory and the best-evidenced item in the whole list.

Turmeric with pepper

Curcumin, made considerably more bioavailable by the piperine and the fat.

Red onion and garlic

Quercetin and sulphur compounds, plus prebiotic fibre feeding the gut.

Coloured vegetables

Polyphenols. More colours means more distinct compounds, so vary what goes in.

Chef's notes

Do not be shy with the pepper. Half a teaspoon sounds like a lot and is not, once it is distributed across a whole tray. Grind it coarsely.

Tinned mackerel works if you want this cheaper and faster. Add it at the very end, just to warm, rather than roasting it.

The potato head start is not optional. Everything else cooks in 25 minutes and potatoes do not, so they go in alone first. This is the difference between a traybake and a tray of disappointment.

Turmeric stains. Wooden spoons, worktops, grout, hands. Use a metal bowl and wipe up immediately.

Making it a habit rather than a recipe

The vegetables are a suggestion. Anything that roasts in roughly 25 minutes belongs here: fennel, carrots, squash, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks. Rotating them is how a single recipe keeps contributing new plant types to your week.

Make the turmeric, oil and pepper paste in a jar in larger quantity, and it keeps a fortnight in the fridge. That turns this from a recipe into a default.

Common questions

Why do you need black pepper with turmeric?

Piperine, the active compound in black pepper, substantially slows the breakdown of curcumin in the liver, which increases how much reaches your bloodstream. Without it, most curcumin is cleared before it can do anything.

Can you cook with extra virgin olive oil at high heat?

Yes. Its smoke point sits above normal domestic roasting temperatures, and the claim that it cannot be heated is largely a myth. Use it as your default cooking fat.

What are the best anti-inflammatory vegetables?

Coloured vegetables generally, because the colour compounds are the active ones. Red onion, peppers, broccoli, leafy greens and beetroot all qualify. Variety matters more than picking any single one.

Is tinned fish as good as fresh for omega-3?

Yes, and tinned sardines and mackerel are among the cheapest sources of EPA and DHA available. Tinned in olive oil rather than sunflower oil is the better choice.

How often should I eat oily fish?

Twice a week is the standard UK recommendation, and it is enough to make a meaningful difference to omega-3 intake without needing a supplement.