Mediterranean Fish Bake – Easy, Healthy Dinner Recipe
An easy, one-dish fish bake with Mediterranean flavors from tomatoes, garlic, olives and feta using inexpensive white fish filets.
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This recipe for Mediterranean fish bake has been one of our family’s favorite meals for years – the flavor is SO good. In fact, this is such an easy, healthy, and delicious dinner that it’s been featured on the site almost since the beginning – way back in 2009.
It’s been updated a couple of times and deserves new photos and Pinterest pins for sharing because easy, flavorful, one dish meals like this don’t come around every day.
For me garlic, tomato, tart olives, and feta are one of the best combinations of ingredients ever.
I love these flavors whether it’s in a Greek salad, on pizza, or with pasta – and it’s a great way to have fish too, especially if you have any “I don’t care for fish” people in your family because this dish usually wins them over!
Mediterranean Fish Bake Recipe
Ingredients
Simple, basic real food ingredients make this recipe easy and inexpensive to make.
- White fish fillets: tilapia, sole, snapper, halibut, cod, etc.
- Canned diced tomatoes
- onion
- red pepper
- potatoes (optional)
- feta cheese
- kalamata olives
- garlic
- olive oil
- lemon
- salt & pepper
- parsley
Supplies
- 13×9-inch baking dish, glass or ceramic (or oval 2-3 quart baking dish similar to the photos)
- Chef’s knife (I like Rada’s chef knife)
- Cutting board
Directions
This one-pan dinner is baked in two sessions, the first with the vegetables and the second after adding the fish and toppings.
1. Place the oil in your baking dish and add the chopped potatoes, onions, and peppers as you chop them. Add the salt and pepper and toss to mix.
2. Bake in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. You’re basically roasting the veggies first in this step.
3. While the vegetables are roasting, gather the other ingredients. When the time is up, scatter the chopped garlic over the cooked vegetables.
4. Arrange the fish fillets over the vegetables and season with a bit more salt and pepper.
Pro Tip: When adding thin white fish fillets like these, it helps to make “packets” out of them, folding under both of the thin ends so they don’t overcook before the thicker middle part is done.
5. Evenly spread the tomatoes on top of the fish fillets and then sprinkle with the cheese, olives, and parsley. Squeeze the juice from a lemon over all.
6. Bake until the fish flakes easily with a fork. The time needed will depend on the thickness of your fillets – thinner tilapia will only need about 10 minutes, thicker fillets like halibut or sole may need 15 to 20 minutes, checking every 4-5 minutes to avoid overcooking.
What to serve with Mediterranean Fish Bake?
This combination of ingredients makes the most flavorful juice, so you definitely want to pair this with a loaf of easy artisan bread or easy sourdough artisan bread.
I also like to serve a green salad along with this (which is easy to put together while the fish bakes). A basic salad using what you have and dressed with the lemon vinaigrette variation is lovely, but this celery salad or this orange almond salad would be good with it, too.
You could also serve this on a bed of fresh spinach for a truly one-dish dinner.
Are there variations to this fish bake?
This is pretty easy to vary.
For a paleo/keto/low carb version: omit the potatoes and add another pepper and more onions. Or substitute turnips, parsnips, or white sweet potatoes (less sweet than the orange variety) for the regular potatoes.
Seafood Version: Add 1/2 pound of shrimp during the last 5 minutes of baking.
Goat Cheese/Other Cheese Version: replace the feta cheese with crumbled goat cheese or grated parmesan cheese.
Any way you vary this, I know you will love how the flavors work together – and it’s still wonderful the next day if there are any leftovers.
I hope you enjoy this as much as we do!
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Mediterranean Fish Bake Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 to 1 ½ pounds red or white potatoes chopped
- 1 large red or yellow sweet pepper chopped
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 teaspoon salt to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 3 large cloves garlic minced
- 8 white fish filets
- 1 14 ounce can diced tomatoes with juice
- 1/4 cup kalamata olives chopped
- 1 tablespoon parsley chopped
- 1/2 cup feta cheese crumbled
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425 degrees.
- Add the olive oil to a 13×9 baking dish and toss in the potatoes, peppers and onions. Season with salt and pepper and mix to distribute the oil and seasonings.
- Bake for 25 minutes, until potatoes are tender. Remove from oven and stir.
- Scatter garlic over the roasted vegetables. Season fish with salt and pepper and place on top of vegetables, folding any thin ends under thicker parts. Pour tomatoes over the top, sprinkle with the olives, parsley, and feta and then drizzle with lemon juice.
- Pour tomatoes over the top, sprinkle with the olives, parsley, and feta and then drizzle with lemon juice.
- Bake for about 10-15 minutes more or until the fish flakes with a fork at the thickest part.*
- Serve with a simple green salad and hearty bread.
Notes
- Omit the potatoes, and cook for only 15 minutes in the first step.
- Substitute potatoes with chopped turnips, parsnips, or rutabagas and cook for the full time in the first step.
- Add shelled, raw shrimp during the last 5 minutes of baking, until it turns opaque.
- Substitute goat cheese or parmesan for the feta cheese.
Nutrition
More Easy Seafood Recipes
This is a great recipe – easy to make and really tasty – being a bit of a chilli fan I have found that putting a bit of chilli in when roasting the potato’s / capsicum gives it a nice bit of kick.
Given that the fish is essentially baked, it is a good way to eat fish like snapper, gurnard or terakihi.
The best thing is that any leftovers are even tastier the following day!
I’m so glad you gave this recipe and try and liked it, Peter – it’s one of my favs!
I’m definitely going to try your idea of the chili next time.
Made this fish dish for dinner last night and it was delicious!! It felt good eating a healthy dinner and being very satisfied! Served with a green salad. It was very easy to put together. Will be making again for sure. Thanks!!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this, Lola – I feel the same way you do!
Thank you so much for taking time to leave a 5-star review!
Can you make this dish with frozen fish fillets? I assume you would have to defrost them first.
Yes! That’s what I do all the time. Fillets are easy to defrost by floating them in the bag in a bowl of water.
We will make this one again! Always looking for a way to include more fish in our meals. Love feta, olives, and One Dish Meals, this one checked all the boxes.
Forgot to take the picture until we had served half. (Sorry) Great recipe, very easy to make and I don’t cook often. Had to cook fish a little longer. Added Greek seasoning to the shrimp. Next time will make 8 servings with 4 large filets. Would love more of all the ingredients and it wouldn’t impact the fish.
I’m so glad you tried this, Bob! It’s really one of our favorites.
Great meal! Used alaskan cod filets as the fish. I had to cook it a about 5 minutes longer but that could just be my oven. Added the shrimp and kept the potatoes. I did use a Greek seasoning on the shrimp before adding them in.
We will be having this again.
This is delicious! I tried it one night and my family loved it so much I made it again within a week. I had some leftover sautéed kale that I threw in instead of parsley and it was delicious. I love your approach to food; thank you!
Love that idea to add the kale, Suz, I’ll have to try that next time!