Seafood Dishes for Beginners
Seafood is a healthy, relatively affordable source of protein. It may be your only choice on Fridays in Lent or meatless Mondays if you’re allowed to eat fish instead. The challenge is making it right.
Our Fav Seafood Dishes for Beginners
Here are a few of our favorite seafood dishes for beginners.
Tuna Casserole
This isn’t just an easy seafood dish for beginners. It is a budget-friendly one, too. You can make it with macaroni, creamy soup (mushroom or chicken), canned tuna, and cheese. You could top it with fried onions if you want.
If you want to make it healthier, mix in frozen green peas or diced celery. The key to a successful tuna casserole is having pasta that’s not too wet. You want it to be covered with sauce but not swimming in soup.
Salmon
Salmon is one of the easiest fish to prepare. You can bake it or pan-fry it. It changes color as you cook it. You’ll know it is fully cooked when the middle part of the fish is no longer translucent.
You don’t want to over-cook it, though, or else it will lose its rich flavor and come out dry and flaky. However, you can scrape away burned parts and mix them with mashed potatoes to make salmon fritters.
It has almost all of the B vitamins and many other vital macronutrients. Furthermore, you don’t have to add butter or gravy to make it taste great. You could get by with a little dill or lemon juice. Add that when you bake it in foil, and you’ll prevent it from drying out.
Fish Tacos
How do you make fish tacos? Pan-fry tilapia fillets with olive oil. Use slices of the tilapia in place of chicken or beef. You can use the same veggies you normally use in tacos or try something different like cabbage slaw.
What if you don’t want to use tilapia? You can use any flaky white fish, so you can use halibut or flounder. You could even use cod.
Pan-Seared Scallops
You can find all sorts of stir-fry recipes calling for scallops, but the simplest solution is simply to pan-sear it in the wok. Brush them with garlic, butter, and lemon juice. Then sear them for several minutes over high heat. Then you’re done.
You can serve them with pasta or veggies. Or cover with a honey glaze and eat them. Leftovers can be mixed with salads or thrown on top of tomorrow night’s pasta dinner.
Shrimp Stir-Fry
Shrimp are rather easy to cook, given their small size. They only need to be cooked for two to three minutes on each side. Pan-fry the shrimp, and you can then throw it with stir-fry vegetables or serve it on pasta. Or serve it on the rice you were cooking at the same time.
Any leftover shrimp can go into shrimp cocktails tomorrow night. Just store it in the fridge in the meantime.
Wrap-Up
There you have it, some of our favorite seafood dishes for beginners. They are easy to cook and downright delicious. Give them a try next mealtime to spice it up!