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Whether you’re fishing or fishing for a deal at your seafood counter, we have plenty of flavorful ways to prepare whole fish for National Seafood Month, or anytime. Start with salmon, sea bass, snapper, or trout. Clean, rub, and stuff as directed, with lemon, herbs, and olive oil. And serve on beds of salad or vegetables with these platters that promise a celebration-worthy presentation. Whatever the occasion, these are the whole fish recipes to rely on for a stunning spread that showcases the best our oceans, rivers, and lakes can offer.
Roasted Branzino with Caper Butter
Diana Chistruga
Italian sea bass is a great candidate for stuffing and cooking whole because of its sweet, mild flavor; firm flesh; and relatively few bones that are easy to remove. This one’s roasted with lemon and rosemary and served with a caper compound butter.
Whole Fish Drizzled with Hot Ginger-Scallion Oil
Clean and steam whole snapper, carp, or sea bass to serve with scallions, ginger, a wine and soy sauce drizzle, and cilantro for this main that’s ready in just 45 minutes.
Salvadoran-Style Pescado Frito (Fried Fish)
Rub tender whole trout (a substitute for the typical fresh water fish mojarra) with a mix of mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic powder then stuff it with onion slices before cooking in a skillet. Serve the crisp browned trout with lime wedges, rice, and salad for a complete meal.
Ouzo Snapper with Fennel and Tomatoes
Greg Dupree / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Thom Driver
Rub whole snapper with ouzo, a Greek licorice-scented liqueur, to roast over a bed of tomatoes, fennel, and sweet onions for a sweet and slightly acidic, flaky fish dish.
Herb-Roasted Trout with Buttery Almonds
Flavor tender whole trout with lemon slices, sprigs of rosemary, thyme, oregano, and sage while roasting the fish. Serve it over a salad of arugula, fennel, and radish, and top with toasted almonds for crunch.
Grilled Whole Snapper
Cara Cormack
Stuff snapper with salt and a rosemary sprig; rub the fish with oil, garlic, and dried rosemary; and sprinkle both sides with breadcrumbs plus more oil. Grill until golden and serve with lemon wedges.
Kwame’s Escovitch Snapper
Escovitch fish — fish that’s fried and then topped with pickled, thinly sliced vegetables — is everywhere in Jamaica. 2019 F&W Best New Chef Kwame Onwuachi uses a garlicky marinade to form a crust as this snapper cooks. The crispy fried fish is served with pickled chiles, carrot, and onion.
Whole Fried Snapper with Cashew Nuoc Cham
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Jillian Knox
Diners can wrap fried snapper in rice paper rolls with this whole fish served on tender lettuce leaves, sliced cucumber, fresh assorted herbs like Thai basil, cilantro, rau ram, perilla, and mint, from chef Diep Tran.
Grilled or Roasted Whole Red Snapper
Morgan Hunt Glaze / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Julia Bayless,
Grace Parisi demonstrates how to grill and roast whole snapper, starting with seasoning the fish inside and out by slashing the flesh and smearing a paste of ground parsley, capers, salt, garlic, and crushed red pepper flakes into each cut.
Salt-Baked Fish
Chef José Andrés bakes whole fish in a salt crust with rosemary, thyme sprigs, and bay leaves until it’s perfectly moist and seasoned in an hour.
Whole Fish Roasted with Potatoes and Thyme
Simply rub cleaned whole black bass, striped bass, or other sea bass with olive oil and salt, stuff with lemon slices and thyme, and roast with potatoes and onions, for a platter finished with lemon juice and parsley in an hour.
Stuffed Whole Wild Salmon
Stuff salmon with tossed aromatics — garlic, chiles, onion, orange, lemon, fennel, chile powder and olive oil — rub it with oil and season it before roasting and broiling the fish. Serve with pan juices, crispy skin, and olive oil in an hour and a half.
Grilled Whole Fish
This recipe from James Beard Award-winning chef and seafood expert Dave Pasternack works with branzino, red snapper, or sea bass. And he has the trick to keeping fish from sticking to the grill.
Whole Baked Trout with Fennel and Orange
Stuff steelhead trout or arctic char with fennel, herbs, and orange and bake on buttered foil so the skin gets nicely golden.
Whole Roasted Sea Bass with Potatoes and Olives
Stuff whole black sea bass with parsley and thyme sprigs and roast over olives, tomatoes, and potatoes that have been tossed with olive oil, parsley, and rosemary. Pour the pan juices over all of it on a platter for a wonderfully flavorful centerpiece.