Citrus Baked Arctic Char With Asparagus (One Pan, 30 Minutes) - Will Cook For Friends (2024)

This simple and elegant Citrus Baked Arctic Charis also one of the easiest to prepare — all you need are thirty minutes and one pan, and you’ll be sitting down to a delicious, healthy, and beautiful meal. Read on, or jump straight to the recipe HERE.

If cooking fish intimidates you, you’ve come to the right place. This recipe is beyond easy to make, and if you stick through this post, I’ll share some of my tips and things to look for when buying seafood.

Simple fishdishes like this one are hands down one of my favorite things to make. They come together in minutes, are bursting with fresh, uncomplicated flavors, and are superhealthy to boot.

Meals packed with protein and healthy fats are often the ones that make me feel best. Add a salad, and I’m set. If you’d like a more filling meal, you can serve this with a side of rice, quinoa, or crusty bread with butter. That’s right, I said it. I believe crusty bread with butter can be a part of a healthy meal! Especially when it’s balanced by lean protein, vibrant veggies, and drizzleof good olive oil.

If you’re new to cooking seafood, it can be a little scary. Buying a giant slab of fish for the first time might be overwhelming, so before we get into the recipe here are some things you should know:

• Use whatever’sfreshest. This goes for almost any seafood dish. If the recipe calls for one type of fish, but that variety isn’t looking so great at your fish market, it’s usually fine to get something else. Not all fish are similar enough to be swapped in and out of recipes, but you’ll find that many are surprisingly versatile. When I first set out to make this recipe, I had my heart set on trout. However, the trout my fish monger had were surprisingly small, so instead I went with arctic char. Arctic char is about halfway between trout and salmon in terms of flavor and fattiness… and salmon would have worked fine, too. When buying fresh fish, it should be glistening (not dull) the color should be fairly bright, and there should be little to no smell. If you aren’t sure, ask your fish monger what’s freshest, or tell them about your recipe and ask what they would recommend. In my experience, these folks are super knowledgeable and always helpful.

• Depending on the kind of fish you buy, it may contain teeny tiny pin-bones. You can pick these out yourself with fish tweezers, but I prefer to ask my fish monger to remove them for me. You can also ask them to remove the skin if you’d like.I prefer to keep the skin on as it has all kinds of good fats attached to it, and keeps the fish moist while cooking. At the end of the meal, any skin I don’t eat becomes a healthy and very special treat for my pup. (He is so spoiled, you have no idea.)

• Keep an eye on the cook time. Fish is different fromother kinds of protein — it’s more delicate, and often less forgiving of over or under cooking. It also varies tremendously from fish to fish and fillet to fillet in terms of thickness, length, etc.. All things which can have a big affect on cook time. Because of this, you’ll find that cooking fish requires a bit of intuition. My fillet was about 1/2 inch thick (at its thickest part) and around 13 inches long. If yours is bigger or smaller, or if you’re using a different variety all together, it will need a bit more or less time to cook. Be attentive and check the fish often. When the meat flakes easily with a fork, it’s done.

The more often you cook fish, the more intuitive and easyit becomes. With a little practice, you’ll be cookin’ up all kinds of seafood in no time.

In this recipe, I wanted to keep things simple and fresh. The fish is lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, so you can taste the delicate meat and the subtle hint of citrus.

The lemon and blood orange slices in this recipe can actually be eaten (once baked, the rind loses some of its bitterness) or you can poke into them with the tines of your fork to release more of their flavor into the fish, then set them aside. I prefer method number one, while my husband goes for method number two.

Once you become confident with this recipe, you can easily take it apart and put it back together again in all kinds of new ways. Swap the asparagus for green beans, or other quick-cooking veggies (broccoli cut into small florets would work, too). Change out the arctic char for salmon or trout, or get really crazy and swap it for some white fish (which will cook a bit quicker, so look out for that). Leave off the citrus and brush on some mustard, or some of thismiso glaze, or a small spoonful of marmalade, or sprinkle it with a variety of fresh chopped herbs.

I don’t want to say the possibilities are endless, but…

The possibilities are endless.

Do you have a favorite way to eat fish? I’d love to hear it in the comments below.