Baked Branzino with Lemon

I know it’s rare to see me post a recipe here on the ol’ blog, but throughout the last few months as I’ve shared my fitness journey, many have asked me about how my eating habits have changed. I’m always so hesitant to post any recipes because while I won’t say my photography is bad, it’s just really intimidating to photography food and so I try not to. However, recently we began to not only watch what we eat, but we are also paying closer attention to where we buy our food. We have begun purchasing meat and fish as well as many of our fruits and veggies from our local Farmer’s Market.

This fish, known as the Branzino fish is a Mediterranean fish that came highly recommended by my brother, who is an amazing cook. We have a wonderful fresh fish vendor at the Farmer’s Market who sold it and I knew I had to give it a try. This fish is great if you like a fish that is light and doesn’t taste to “fishy.” However, I will say that you want to make sure to throw the packaging into your outside trash, as I left ours inside our kitchen and it took me 3 days of burning candles all day to get the smell out.

Here’s what you need:

– Branzino Fish (preferably from your local Farmer’s Market)
– lemon
– salt
– pepper
– Mediterranean  Rosemary
– extra virgin olive oil

Here’s how you Cook it:

Pre-Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Take your Branzino fish out of the packaging and rise it off under cold water. Once rinsed, season your fish.

Heat 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in a skillet. When it’s hot add your Branzino.

Sear it skin side down in a skillet for 3-4 minutes so the skin becomes crispy. I’ve heard that using a cast iron skillet does this the best, however, I don’t have one…. yet.

Once you’ve seared the skin side of your fish, cover with lemon slices and put it in the oven to bake. If you have a cast iron skillet you can put it straight into the over after it’s seared.

Bake for 12 minutes.

Voila! Enjoy!!

I served our baked Branzino with colored quinoa, organic mixed green salad and fresh fruit. My whole family loved this meal + in my world that’s a huge success!

xo, Alissa