Whether you observe Lenten dietary guidelines or just want to add more seafood to your diet, fish and shrimp can be high-quality, low budget proteins to enjoy. Be sure to try these Easy Fish Recipes this week for easy meals that won’t break the bank.
Simple and packed with flavor, fish can fit your meal plan any time. Save money on takeout when you make homemade fish tacos for an easy weeknight dinner or liven up your favorite grilled salmon recipe with our Greek Yogurt Tartar Sauce.
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Love fish and shrimp but not sure you can swing the price tag? Thankfully for us, fish isn’t limited to the tables of the rich and famous. In fact, seafood often goes on sale during this season of Lent…. which starts this week!
We’re coming up on a season when fish becomes more affordable. Between Valentine’s Day, Lenten observations, and March’s frozen food month, grocery stores offer shrimp, salmon, ahi tuna, and other fish for great prices, often under $7 a pound.
When you can, stock up on sustainable, wild-caught fish and shellfish to stretch your dollar and enjoy a healthy protein.
Make it easy.
With the money issue out of the way, let’s talk tuna. As economical as it can be, fish and seafood can be intimidating to prepare. Folks shy away from these proteins because they’re not sure what to do with them.
At Good Cheap Eats we believe anyone can enjoy great meals — no matter your budget or your kitchen knowledge. Let’s make this easy! We’ve rounded up dozens of recipes and tips to make your seafood recipes successful and delicious!
Whether you’re in the midst of a pantry challenge or want to stock up on fish and other seafood when it’s on sale, having a repertoire of go-to fish recipes is essential to making the most of great deals and a good catch. Scroll down for some of the best Good Cheap Eats.
Why Make Fish
It’s good for you. Fish is the making of a healthy dinner, bringing omega-3 fatty acids to your diet as well as Vitamins D and B2. Many of the healthiest cultures include fish in their menus.
It’s delicious. Prepared properly, fish can be delicious, whether you choose ahi tuna poke or an easy baked cod recipe.
Ingredients
Here are some of the most common ingredients to keep on hand to yummy fish recipes:
seasonings – salt and pepper are just fine, but consider other options, such as a fish rub, lemon pepper, or Old Bay. Our Fish Seasoning is easy and delicious!
fat – butter and olive oil add flavor and keep fish from drying out.
acid – Fresh lemon wedges are classic accompaniments to fish recipes. But, remember that other citrus fruit are good complements as well as vinegars, such as malt vinegar, the standard for drenching your fish and chips.
Storage Tips
You know how they say fish and houseguests need to go at the three day mark? Yeah, that’s true. Fish doesn’t stay good for very long.
Use fresh raw fish or shrimp within a day or two of purchasing. Cooked fish is good for 3 to 4 days, refrigerated. If you can’t use or cook it right away, be sure to freeze it, tightly wrapped in moisture- and vaporproof wrappings.
Use frozen seafood within six months. You have some wiggle room—frozen food is good forever when stored properly, but taste and texture can get funny if left too long.
Use home canned fish within a year; commercial is good for five. Nope, canned foods don’t last forever.
Consult the USDA food storage guidelines for more details.
FAQs
Start practicing with an affordable fish, such as mahi mahi so that if you make a mistake, your investment in the mahi mahi recipe isn’t a huge loss. If you’re curious about which fish are the best to buy in terms of safety and sustainability, you can download a regional seafood guide from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The market of ocean-friendly fish can vary depending on where you live.
Fish fall into certain types, culinarily such as white and firm versus dark and oily. If making substitutions in fish recipes, try to find a similar type. Consult this chart for a list of options.
Yes, but not too soon. If you season too early, the salt will begin to break down the proteins in the fish. So season right before you plan on cooking your fish.
Cooked fish should easily flake. If it resists or is transculent, then cook it a bit longer.
Recommended Recipes
Check out these healthy fish recipes as well as recipes for seasonings, sauces, and side dishes that go well with fish.
Seasonings and Sauces
One of the beauties of cooking fish and shrimp is that they don’t need to be heavily seasoned. A little goes a long way.
- Sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper and wrap in foil for an easy baked fish recipe.
- Season with some Cajun Spice Blend and grill.
- Coat in breadcrumbs and fry in butter.
- Drizzle mahi mahi with olive oil and sprinkle with Homemade Seasoned Salt and cook in the air fryer.
- Be sure to serve lemon wedges with the fish for a little tart contrast.
Fish Recipes
Love tuna? Salmon? Cod? We’ve got you covered with some basic ways to prep fish, including baking, frying, and grilling. Leftover cooked fish can replace canned tuna in many fish recipes.
Shrimp Recipes
Look for sales on shrimp in March. While not technically a fish, it’s a delightful seafood that tastes great with fish recipe or on its own.
Tell us what you think!
We love to hear your experiences with Good Cheap Eats. Click the STARS on the recipe card or leave a STARRED comment to let us know what you think of the recipe.
This post was originally published on March 6, 2014. It has been updated for content and clarity.
E
My mom used to make tuna rice cakes when I was younger, and I occasionally still make them. Quick and easy way to use up leftover cooked rice too. The recipe was originally in a Sesame Street kids magazine I think. Basically, it’s canned tuna, cooked, rice, egg, and shredded cheese mixed up and rolled in cracker crumbs then fried in a skillet for a few minutes per side.
I’m also probably an odd ball taste wise but I found that I like bbq sauce mixed into canned tuna. Spread on a slice of bread and toast it with a little shredded cheese on top.
Jessica Fisher
You like what you like. Even if it sounds weird. 😉
Karen J
While a bit pricey, I buy the frozen Wild Alaska sockeye salmon at Costco several times a year. There are eight shrink wrapped fillets per package. I make cajun salmon caesar salads (using Costco’s romaine) sharing one fillet for the two of us. We alternate buying those with buying Costco’s frozen salmon burgers which I serve on buns with sriracha mayo and veggies.
We like tuna/egg salad sandwiches extending the tuna with hard boiled eggs. I like tuna casserole, but my husband does not. Really does not.
And like Heather M. we love shrimp! I buy those two pound bags of EZ peel whenever they are on sale. I use it to make baked coconut shrimp, stir fry, jambalaya, peel and eat boiled in Bay’s seafood seasoning, fried rice, etc.
Whenever I go to the ocean (Pacific) I try to order razor clams in a restaurant. They are expensive, but I don’t get them often and they are such a treat.
Jessica Fisher
That Cajun Salmon Caesar sounds amazing! Gonna have to try that soon!
Heather M
We LOVE fish, etc, in our house. We eat it at least once a week, not including tuna sandwiches or tuna w/crackers (or for me, tuna w/cottage cheese, in salads, etc). We’ll eat it many ways, but one way that’s fast for a weeknight with little time is salmon or mahi mahi topped with Montreal Steak Seasoning and cooked in the grill pan. We eat a variety of fish in many different ways, including salmon, mahi mahi, tilapia, cod, halibut(only pacific, the atlantic is not good-totally different taste), and others. We all LOVE shrimp and eat it many ways as well, from cooked simply w/garlic, in various asian noodle dishes, tossed in a jambalaya or my phony paella, etc, etc. My kids could eat shrimp straight and be happy. Clam chowder is popular here, as are other fish stews. We love love love fish, sushi, everything. All of us.
Krista
Love to see more fish recipes. Our family harvests up to 50 sockeye salmon each summer for our personal use so it is a staple for us. Buying seafood here is cost prohibitive even though it is abundant.
AlysonRR
We try to eat fish/seafood at least once a week year round. We have quite a few favorite dishes.
The first is sesame-crusted salmon (the recipe I use is from Marilu Henner’s “Healthy Life Kitchen” from which we have found surprisingly many tasty recipes). Basically you marinate thick but narrow filets briefly in teriyaki sauce then roll in sesame seeds, brown in a skillet, then finish in a 250F oven for ~7 minutes. Yum!
Next would be my mother-in-law’s smoked salmon pesto pasta: farfalle pasta with sauteed onions, mushrooms, and zucchini. Pesto mixed in, then the pasta/veg/pesto combo is tossed with bite-sized pieces of smoked salmon, which “cooks” them a little (not necessary, but improves the texture for eating with the pasta). This is my daughter’s favorite recipe.
Fish tacos (with baked or battered fish), fried or sauteed oysters, steamed clams (my son’s favorite) or mussels (my fave), lemon sole with Panko (my husband’s favorite) and seafood melts (tuna or salmon salad or fresh crab or crab/krab salad on English muffins with melted cheddar or Gouda on top) all make frequent appearances.
I’m lucky to be in the Northwest, and to have a mom with waterfront that has harvest-able seafood (crab and oysters – plus we trade oysters for clams with a neighbor) as well as a brother in Oregon who keeps us in salmon. Obviously that makes most of our seafood local and sustainably harvested! But I also travel to a local mussel farmer whose prices are half what the stores charge (when we lived out East we also found local fisherfolk with similar price breaks). Finally, I shop the fish sales – sole and cod are often $4.99 here, as is salmon, mahi mahi is 6.99 on sale – plus I agree Trader Joe’s is a great resource.
Sandi
I’ll check for specials during this season, but I generally find decent quality fresh/frozen fish to be fairly pricey. And I live in the Florida panhandle, not the mid-West, so I hate to see what their prices look like. The kid has always been a huge seafood lover (oh, his teacher’s face when he wanted to bring a calamari dish to a school function in 4th grade!) so we’ve cooked and enjoyed fish an enormous number of ways. I think his favorite, though, is the seafood mix (shrimp, scallops, mussels, squid, etc) sauteed in a garlic butter sauce. That stuff tends to be cheaper than fish anyway, so we do that one on occasion. I modified it a bit for Christmas (that’s the meal he requested) and turned it into a creamy garlic sauce. Oh, heavens, that was good. It’s probably about time to do that one again.
Jessica Fisher
I’m not a fan of squid, but the rest sounds yummy!
Margery H.
I would love to add more seafood into our family’s diet. I don’t find it to be low-budget, however. Most quality seafood seems to run around $8-12/lb around here (Atlanta). I won’t buy the low-quality farmed fish from southeast Asia due to the extremely polluted and unregulated aquaculture there. Do you have any suggestions to make fish and seafood budget-friendly?
Jessica Fisher
Do you have Trader Joe’s there? They have lower prices than $8. (And I’m with you on the farmed stuff.) The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a great buying guide. You can download it here: http://www.seafoodwatch.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/download.aspx It tells you what’s safest and available where you live.