18 Easy Recipes for When You Want to Eat More Fish

Delicious, streamlined dishes, like baked salmon and hand rolls, make it a breeze.

When you’re wandering the grocery store aisles at 5 p.m., trying to figure out what to make for dinner, it’s easy to overlook fish in favor of a more familiar option. (Chicken, anyone?) But fish is just as quick, versatile and exciting as any other protein, and with the right preparation, maybe even more so. So whether you’re transitioning to a pescatarian diet or just want to get rid of those fillets at the back of your freezer, save these recipes that make fish easy to love.

1. Fish Tacos

Sam Sifton’s fish tacos are a joy to cook, assemble and eat, messily but deliciously. Corn tortillas, crunchy cabbage and a mayonnaise-and-sour-cream crema create a variety of flavors and textures. And if any members of your party are sensitive to spice, just leave out the jalapeño and chipotle peppers.

2. Baked Salmon

If you’ve never cooked fish before, start here. Lidey Heuck’s method is as simple as it gets, but the topping of light brown sugar, smoked paprika and garlic powder makes the salmon sing. As one commenter wrote, “I have made 43 salmon recipes from the NYT. My biggest critic, the teenage boy, said that this one was the best ever.”

3. Soy-Glazed Salmon Hand Rolls

This 30-minute weeknight-fancy recipe from Kay Chun is perfect for sushi lovers who don’t want to prepare raw fish at home. An easy unagi sauce does double duty as a glaze for the salmon and a sauce for serving. Best of all, there is no special technique required to produce something that feels as though you got it at a restaurant.

4. Marry Me Salmon

Maybe you’ve heard of marry me chicken, a TikTok-viral recipe that claims to ring wedding bells for whoever makes it, or marry me beans, a spicy beans and greens recipe that Reddit users raved about. Consider adding Eric Kim’s crispy-skinned fish version to the rotation. Inspired by the pink sauces found in classic Italian restaurants, he keeps it simple, with a base of sun-dried tomato and yellow onion to keep the clean seafood taste.

5. Sheet-Pan Fish Tikka With Spinach

Zainab Shah’s weeknight fish tikka scores very high on what one reader calls, “the ease to WOW factor scale.” Marinate any white fish in a mix of yogurt and garam masala, chile powder, coriander, turmeric, ginger and garlic, and then roast over a bed of spinach, which takes on the fish’s flavors.

6. Shrimp in Kadhi (Shrimp in Yogurt Curry)

This home-style Indian gravy from Zaynab Issa is flecked with black mustard seeds and thickened with chickpea flour, which you can buy from the natural foods section of the supermarket. It gets its bright yellow color from turmeric, and the thick, creamy sauce serves as a poaching liquid for springy shrimp, which cooks in just three minutes.

7. One-Pan Roasted Fish With Cherry Tomatoes

This 30-minute banger from Lidey Heuck is so much more than the sum of its parts. Roast supermarket cherry tomatoes with shallots, sherry vinegar, lemon zest and a drizzle of honey, and then spoon over white fish. It tastes like summer, but you can enjoy it all year round.

8. Pressure Cooker Vietnamese Caramel Salmon

I have this Melissa Clark recipe saved in my New York Times Cooking recipe box in a folder called “All-Stars.” The first time I made it, I had my doubts because there’s only a few tablespoons of liquid from fish sauce, soy sauce and lime juice. But something truly magical happens in the confines of that device, and the result is a flavor-packed dish that my family and I devoured. As Melissa and many readers note, this also works in a skillet; it just comes out slightly less caramelized.

9. Salmon Patties

Fresh salmon is expensive. But this nostalgic, budget-friendly recipe from Lidey Heuck puts canned salmon to good use. Seasoned with smoked paprika, mustard, lemon juice and scallions, these patties are delicious served with a squeeze of lemon or homemade tartar sauce. They reheat like a dream, so stash some in the freezer for up to a month.

10. Chan Chan Yaki (Miso Butter Salmon)

This Japanese teppanyaki classic is streamlined here for the home cook, calling for a deep, lidded skillet instead of a flat griddle. It’s an amazing clean-out-the-fridge meal, as Mia Leimkuhler notes, and would be good with whatever vegetables are taking up space in your fridge. Don’t skimp on the delicious miso, butter and sugar mixture that makes this recipe unforgettable: Spread it on the salmon and the vegetables, and make extra to put on toast, baked potatoes or pasta.

11. Creamy Fish With Mushrooms and Bacon

As the French know, wine, cream and mushrooms make almost anything taste good, and in this recipe, Melissa Clark applies the combination to delicate white fish with magnificent results. Tomatoes and bacon give it extra oomph, and the resulting sauce is so good, you’ll want to splurge on good bread for sopping it up.

12. Ginger-Dill Salmon

This lively Ali Slagle recipe has it all: brightness from grapefruit, ginger and dill; butteriness from roasted fish and avocado; crunchiness from radishes. It’s supremely easy but tastes fancy, making it the ideal dinner party dish, according to my colleague Becky Hughes.

13. Zucchini Pasta With Tuna and Chile Paste

Chances are you have a can of tuna lying around, waiting to be made into a spectacular pantry meal. This pasta from Melissa Clark follows a dead-simple formula that you can adapt to whatever you have on hand: Choose an allium (onion, garlic or scallions); a vegetable (like zucchini, peppers or eggplants); a chile paste (like gochujang, harissa, ají amarillo or Calabrian) and a pasta. Stir in flaked tuna at the end to prevent it from getting tough and let it shine in all its fishy glory.

14. Cantonese-Style Steamed Fish

This is the only way I grew up eating fish: steamed whole, with sputtering hot oil drizzled over a bed of cilantro, green onions, ginger and soy. It can seem intimidating if you’re not used to cooking whole fish, but in reality it couldn’t be simpler: Just clean the fish (or buy it precleaned), and steam it in whatever vessel you have. (If you don’t have a steaming rack, J. Kenji López-Alt recommends using tuna cans with the tops and bottoms removed.) And if the idea of cooking whole fish is still scary, try it with fillets first. It’s almost as delicious.

15. Salmon With Garlic Butter and Tomato Pasta

When a recipe yields a full, balanced meal, complete with protein and side, in just 20 minutes, that’s when you should commit it to heart. This one from Ali Slagle does just that, thanks to some clever multitasking. And the pairing of the crisp salmon with the buttery, garlicky pasta makes it even easier to love. Be sure to use angel hair pasta for the most satisfying result.

16. Salt-and-Vinegar Baked Fish and Chips

A caper-mayonnaise-vinegar marinade replicates the puckery flavor of the iconic potato chip in this recipe from Eric Kim. Before baking, the fish is topped with panko bread crumbs, and then doused with more white vinegar afterward. Frozen French fries are the perfect accompaniment to this weeknight meal.

17. Soy Butter Fish and Peas

Steaming brings out the delicate texture of white fish, and makes for an easy meal in very little time. This recipe from Andy Baraghani is as simple as steaming the fillets in a buttery sauce of soy sauce and black pepper, and then tossing in snow peas near the end of cooking.

18. Fish Laab

Pan-seared, bite-size pieces of fish stand in beautifully for chicken or pork in this punchy Lao salad adapted by Ali Slagle. The highlight is toasted rice powder, which you can buy or make yourself with uncooked jasmine rice, and lends a nutty flavor. Dress it up with shallots, fish sauce, lime and fresh herbs.

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