Consuming meat frequently can be bad for your health as it can increase your cholesterol level dangerously. Does that mean you should stop eating all meat? Absolutely not! Fish and seafood are excellent sources of animal protein and good fat.
If you’re still not trying pescatarian options, you’re really missing out on some good things. Why not try these BBQ dishes with seafood and other fish options?
This article provides fourteen mouth-watering pescatarian dishes that you can make easily. You might regret it later if you don’t try them now!
A note—you can mix the spices in the recipes as you like.
Table of Contents
1. Pan-Fried Cod
One of the best ways to enjoy pescatarian dishes is by pan-frying them. Out of all the different types of fried fish, pan-fried cod tastes and looks the best.
You can sear the cod fillets with only salt and pepper or rub some seasoning spices of your choice on them. Heat a skillet with some olive oil, place the seasoned fillets in the pan, and sear them thoroughly on each side.
If you like to cook your fillets well, you can continue cooking them in a preheated oven. And there you have it! Beautifully pan-fried cod fillets!
2. Fried Pomfret
One of the easiest thin fish to fry without overcooking is a pomfret. Unlike halibut, which overcooks easily, pomfret retains its juiciness while also getting a crispy golden skin.
Fry it in olive oil with a seasoning rub, thyme, and lemon, or even with just some salt and pepper. It’ll be a mouth-watering yet healthy dish to eat every day.
3. Sweet and smoky BBQ Fish
Have you tried BBQ fish before? No? Then you must try this one. Take filets of a big, thick fish and rub them with a mixture of brown sugar, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, black pepper, lemon salt, lemon zest, and squeezed lemon juice.
Wrap them with aluminum foil and grill them. You can also use a grilling pan instead or lay the fillets on a cedar block and place the block on the grill. You’ll get a sweet-and-sour fish BBQ with a smoky cedar flavor.
If you’re doing this in an apartment, you must be careful and take the necessary precautions.
4. Seared Ahi Tuna
Ahi tuna isn’t like your regular tuna. It’s very delicate, and the only other way to eat it apart from making a poke bowl is by searing it to rare or medium rare, whichever you prefer. Make sure that you’re using fresh or flash frozen sashimi-grade ahi tuna.
Bring the fillets to room temperature, season them liberally with salt and black pepper, cook them for two minutes on each side, and let them rest for up to five minutes. Once rested, cut them into steak-like pieces or enjoy them whole!
Serve with black vinegar or a simple brown butter sauce; it’ll be mouth-watering heaven.
5. Pan-seared Halibut Fillet
Halibut, although big, is a very delicate fish, with which you’ll need to work quite technically and carefully. You may or may not take the skin off, whichever you like. When preparing the fish, follow the patterns on the body to know where you can cut for an effortless separation.
Heat a skillet with olive oil, season the halibut fillet with salt and pepper, and sear it on high for three minutes on each side. Remember, they’re easy to overcook. Serve them with lemon butter sauce brushed on top.
6. Crusted Tilapia
As if pan-seared fish isn’t delicious enough, think about how mouth-watering bread and cheese-crusted fish are. That’s what a crusted tilapia should taste like!
To make this beautifully crunchy fish dish, mix breadcrumbs with Parmesan cheese, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, and paprika in a shallow bowl. Beat a few eggs in another bowl, and prepare another bowl with seasoned flour.
Dip a tilapia fillet in flour, coat it in egg, then dredge it in the crumb mixture. Coat it in egg again, followed by the crumb mixture, and sear it in a skillet heated with some olive oil. Let it rest on a wired rack and garnish with some cilantro and lemon zest.
You’ll have beautiful, crunchy, and tender crusted tilapia in no time.
7. Grilled Salmon
Salmon is very easy to cook. Even grilled salmon! It may sound difficult, but the end result is delightful once you get the hang of it.
In a small bowl, mix some paprika, cumin, all-spice, onion powder, garlic powder, thyme celery seed, salt, and cracked back pepper. Rub this seasoning mix on the salmon fillets and grill them on a grill pan sprayed with olive oil.
Grill the salmon fillets on both sides, skin-side first. When done, serve them with lemon wedges on the side and fresh parsley sprigs as garnish.
8. Seafood-on-Grill
Seafood-on-grill is probably the most effortless yet incredibly delicious pescatarian BBQ you can pull off. You can even make it for Christmas!
All you need is some peeled and deveined shrimp, the octopus of your choice (we prefer baby octopus), squid, mussels, clams, cod, and halibut. Rub them well with a spice rub of your choice, let them sit for a while, and then grill them to perfection.
Enjoy the seafoodie sweetness!
9. Beer Battered Seafood
Another excellent seafood dish that you can try is beer-battered seafood. You can make it to enjoy it with BBQ fish and seafood, or just have it as is.
For the batter, you need to thoroughly mix cornmeal, all-purpose flour, paprika, baking soda, back pepper, and salt with craft beer to make a thick but runny batter. Toss some tail-on shrimps, shucked clams, scallops, cod, squid, and baby octopus in this batter.
Fry them in olive oil or canola oil and serve them with various sauces, such as chimichurri, BBQ sauce, buffalo sauce, tartar sauce, or vinaigrette.
These should look a lot like tempura shrimp, only much more delicious.
10. Seared Scallops on Corn Salad
Another easy seafood dish you can make is seared or grilled scallops on a bed of citrusy corn salad.
All you need to do is salt and pepper some scallops, sear them on both sides on a grilling pan with some butter for two minutes, and you’ll have a wonderful, delicate-tasting dish!
Grill some corn cobs on a hot grill to bring out their sweetness while adding a smoky flavor. Shuck the corn off their cobs (it doesn’t need to be in perfect separate kernels), mix them with some fresh rosemary, salt, and fresh black pepper, and lay them on a big plate.
Place the scallops scattered yet arranged, garnish them with parsley and basil, and the dish is ready!
11. Lemon Butter Lobster
If you’re looking for a romantic pescatarian meal for a date night, lemon butter lobster is your perfect option.
Poach two lobsters in water mixed with vinegar for ten minutes. Take them out, let them rest, separate the head from the lobster tail, cut the top of the lobster shell, and expose the lobster meat.
Prepare a butter sauce with the ‘lobster butter,’ the yellow butter-like matter you find in the lobster head. Take them out in a bowl, mix them with lemon, salt, pepper, and butter, spread them liberally on the exposed lobster meat, and garnish with some cilantro.
Serve it with lemon wedges on the side.
12. Shrimp Scampi
Shrimp itself is such a delicious protein. Think what butter, garlic, and lemon will do to it! That’s how shrimp scampi is—heaven inside your mouth. Although the name can mean different things to different people, it needs three main elements: shrimp, butter, and lots of garlic.
Pan-sear shrimps in olive oil or butter. Set the shrimps aside, saute lots of chopped garlic in butter, and stir vigorously. You can also add lemon, wine, or tomato, whichever you like.
Doing this over a grill will give that extra smoky, charred flavor that you love. Some like serving it on pasta, and some like it with toasted bread to soak up the juices. Try both ways to see which one you prefer!
13. Grilled Fish Tacos
This dish is literally so easy and effortless to make! You can make this with any fish, or even shrimp, calamari, and octopus!
Just bake whichever seafood option you choose, let it cool, chop it into roughly square pieces, coat them in a hot sauce of your choice, and assemble them in tortillas!
To assemble, you can use regular salsa or salsa verde as a topping, along with some shredded cabbage, blue cheese, ranch, buffalo sauce, taco sauce, or BBQ sauce.
14. Fish en Papillote
‘En papillote’ is a French term for ‘in paper.’ Fish en papillote is when you bake the fish wrapped in a pouch of parchment paper with some other vegetables, seasonings, and herbs. Although it sounds fancy, making it is straightforward.
Rub a fillet of a big white fish, skin off, with butter and some seasoning. Place it on a large piece of parchment paper and surround it with chopped vegetables like carrots, cherry tomatoes, olives, peppers, and herbs like rosemary and thyme.
Close the fish by wrapping the parchment into a pouch. Put it in a preheated oven and let it bake for a few minutes. The fish will bake in its own juices, thus making everything even more flavorful.
Conclusion
Yes, fish, crustaceans, and other seafood can be intimidating to cook with as they can overcook or break easily. However, it’s worth learning how to make different recipes with them. You don’t necessarily have to make them as BBQ dishes. You can even make them as side dishes for BBQ parties. Watch them disappear like they were the stars of the show!
We hope you try out these recipes for delicious pescatarian BBQ dishes and like them enough to keep making them.
Leave a Reply