Quick Weeknight Fish with Wicked Easy Sauce

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Weeknights at our house trail only weekday mornings for unbound mayhem. Practices, lessons, homework, late work meetings, pet needs, to-do catch-up from what didn’t happen the weekend before, nuttiness aplenty. This is particularly true early in the week before the golden light of Friday begins to dawn.

In this sanity-deprived environment, we cherish super simple dinner recipes that everyone will eat (in our place, that means two adults and three young ones ranging from ages nine to sixteen). Even better are recipes that get our tribe eating more of a good-for-you thing like this weeknight fish recipe.

Enter the creatively named Super Awesome Cause Everyone Will Eat It Quick Fish Delight. Also known as the Super QFD. I used some small rockfish filets on hand this time round, but other relatively thin (often inexpensive and easy to freeze) white fish works well, too. We’ve used both tilapia and black cod to good effect.

This whole weeknight fish meal should take around twenty minutes stem to stern, and it should leave you with a tasty, simple, decidedly not fussy, and inexpensive way to work more fish into your eating habits. There you have it — the Super QFD!

Quick Weeknight Fish with Wicked Easy Sauce

I used some small rockfish filets, but other relatively thin (often inexpensive and easy to freeze) white fish works well, too. I’ve used both tilapia and black cod to good effect.

• 2-4
  fillets of tilapia
  black cod, or other thin white fish
• Almond meal
  about a plate full (big enough to hold your fish)
• 1
  egg
  optional
• Salt and pepper to taste
  approx. 1/2-1 tsp salt, 1/4-1/2 tsp pepper
• Juice from 1 lemon
  plus lemon slice or two for garnish if you’re feeling fancy
• 2
  tbsp
  butter
• 1
  tbsp
  olive oil
• 1.5-2
  cups
  chicken stock

1. Mix salt and pepper in with the plate full of almond meal

2. Dredge your fish fillets in the almond meal mix, making sure to cover both sides evenly. Use your spatula to add extra in spots not covered if need be. Moisture from the fish should give you the sticktoitiveness you need, but you can also whisk up an egg and coat your fish before the almond meal dredge if you want more stickage.

3. Heat 1 tbsp of the butter and the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat.

4. Saute fillets 3-4 minutes each side, starting skin side down, until golden brown on each side. Then set aside.

5. Now for the sauce. Using same pan with good browned bits still in, add the lemon juice and chicken stock, plus the second tablespoon of butter. Reduce over medium heat, scraping up the bits of yumminess occasionally until about half the original amount remains. (Capers, if you dig ‘em, could work well in the sauce, too).

6. Serve sauce in separate dish, along with fish and your favorite quick sides. We often do a salad and/or gluten-free grain side like quinoa or brown rice that’s easy to prep alongside the fish.

Robert is the co-founder and chief storyteller at food for active folks company Power Supply, a midlife convert to active living and the wilds of entrepreneurship, a juggler of work and beloved family (three princesses, one queen, one golden retriever, one cat), an aspiring minimalist, and a seeker of mirth. In addition to his contributions to WLC, he muses about life change and active living onMedium and Power Supply’s blog.