What Type of Fish is Good for Dinner? 9 Delicious and Nutritious Fish to Serve

There are dozens of reasons to add more fish to your diet. It’s a healthy source of protein and many types are lean on calories and fat. But the real perk is all the omega-3 fatty acids, essential fats that our bodies don’t produce autonomously. Omega-3s can reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke, lower blood pressure and triglycerides and reduce inflammation. Some studies have even found that eating one to two three-ounce servings of fatty fish a week may lower your risk of dying from heart disease by 36%. Fish is also great for your brain. Eating baked or broiled fish once a week has been shown to lower your risk of Alzheimer’s by a large amount. Here are 20 types of fish you can eat and some of our favorite seafood recipes. Your body will thank you.

It’s a weeknight mainstay for a reason. Salmon is beloved for its versatility, quick cook time and mild flavor. Some people don’t like the mild taste of fish, but others can enjoy it if it’s in a creamy sauce or covered in spices or fruit salsa. Like most fish, salmon can be baked, broiled, pan-fried, sauteed, slow-cooked and grilled. It’s versatile enough to pair with everything from a crisp salad to lemon pasta. If you can, choose wild salmon over farmed salmon. Wild salmon has less fat and more protein, vitamins, and minerals.

Tuna is another popular choice, thanks to its mild but luxurious flavor and versatility. The light canned kind—which is typically skipjack tuna—is the leanest and lowest in mercury. Bluefin, yellowfin, and white tuna (also called albacore) all have a bit more mercury than other types, but not enough to be harmful. You can still eat all of them in small amounts. Tuna steaks are prime for searing in a pan or popping on the grill. Tuna is also popularly served raw in poke bowls and sushi.

Tilapia is our top choice for people who don’t think they like fish because it doesn’t taste or smell like fish at all. Because it doesn’t taste very good on its own, tilapia goes well with a lot of different flavors and ingredients. There aren’t many options like this on the market, and this is one of the leanest and most useful ones. Tilapia is particularly great for pan-frying, baking and freezing for later use. It’s a common choice for fish tacos, ceviche and fish and chips.

If you’re searching for a low-calorie protein that cooks up in a flash, look no further than cod. Every three-ounce serving contains less than 100 calories and a single gram of fat. It’s also high in bone-boosting phosphorus. Most likely, you can find both Atlantic and Pacific cod at your local grocery store. Atlantic is a bit drier, firmer, and sweeter than Pacific, which is very delicate, but it’s only available from January to March. Cod is great for baking, broiling or frying, as well as in seafood stews and chowders.

Odds are you’ll see red snapper cut into fillets with the skin still on at the supermarket. If you want to be environmentally friendly, choose a cut caught near Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, or the Gulf of Mexico in Florida. This is the best time to find it: in the summer. You can bake, broil, or poach red snapper just like any other fish, but it tastes best when it’s grilled or fried whole. Slit the fish down the middle and along the sides for the citrus, herbs, and spices. Wrap it in banana leaves or foil and steam or grill it until it’s crisp and cooked all the way through.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: Don’t knock tinned fish until you try it. It tastes great and is an easy way to get protein. Plus, tinned fish is full of vitamins and nutrients. Because of this, a serving of sardines has more omega-3s than a serving of salmon or tuna. It also has more calcium, vitamin B12, and vitamin D. Sardines also contain minimal mercury since they’re tiny and their only source of food is plankton. What they’re packed in has a big impact on their taste, but they’re usually oily and dense all around. Capers and lemons go well with sardines. You can grill or roast them whole, chop them up and mix them into pasta, use them as a fancy toast topping, or just eat them right out of the tin.

Herring is beloved around the world, but it’s especially commonplace in Sweden. There, it’s eaten both fresh and pickled, and it’s commonly consumed on New Year’s Day for good luck. Herring is also popular in Germany, where it’s served pickled, rolled and stuffed in a dish called rollmop. This fish is very high in omega-3s (about 1.5 grams per three-ounce serving), iron, and antioxidants. Because it’s small, it’s also low in mercury. In the family of herring are many different kinds of fish, such as shad, which is oily and tastes great when served whole. (Shad is also beloved for its salty roe. ) Snack on tinned herring fillets or buy them whole for frying, grilling, smoking or pickling.

The savory secret to a killer Caesar dressing is ready to make its dinnertime debut. Like herring and sardines, anchovies boast a ton of omega-3s in a teeny-tiny package—nearly one-and-a-half grams per serving. Anchovies are also the key to the bold umami in fish sauce and Worcestershire sauce. They’re so salty and savory that they even make a solid substitute for capers in a pinch. A lot of chefs keep them on hand in olive oil and salt-filled cans or jars so they can quickly add them to a recipe to make it more flavorful and complex. Smash anchovies into a paste to take your next marinade to a whole new level.

This whitefish has a mild flavor, a flaky but meaty texture, and not much fishiness, so even picky eaters might be able to eat it. As if that wasn’t healthy enough, each three-ounce serving has 21 grams of protein and 57 percent of your daily vitamin B12. It’s also low in mercury. If you want to bread and fry haddock, we like a Southern-style buttermilk breading. You can also braise, bake, roast, or pan-fry it.

If you like fish like tilapia or halibut, put flounder on your grocery list, stat. It’s just as versatile, mild and delicate with that signature subtle sweetness in flavor. Flounder is also minimally oily, which makes it lower in omega-3s than some other options. Even so, it’s still a healthy choice, and there are many ways to cook it, such as steaming, baking, or broiling. Flounder also takes well to breading and frying. In the early spring, keep an eye out for summer flounder, also known as northern fluke. It has a very fine texture, and you can eat the skin.

Your gut may tell you wild fish is better than farmed, but that’s not always the case. Wild-caught fish can sometimes have a bigger environmental impact. All U. S. rainbow trout are farm-raised for this reason, usually in freshwater ponds or flow-through raceways. (It doesn’t hurt that farm-raised fish tend to be less expensive too. For the small size of the fish, rainbow trout is often sold whole. It is full of protein and omega-3s. Arctic char and steelhead trout are two other types of trout, but they might be harder to find at a grocery store near you. Trout is delicious grilled, baked, pan-fried and roasted.

Named for their “whiskers” (they’re called barbels BTW), catfish are beyond simple to cook at home. They’re great poached, baked, grilled, or chopped up and added to stew, but people love them most when they’re breaded and fried. Just make sure not to cook it too long so it stays light and flaky. If you do, it might get dry or chewy.

You may have eaten Alaskan pollock without even realizing it. Its mild flavor and light texture make it a popular choice for cold fish sticks and other fried fish foods. Alaskan pollock is super flaky, making it ideal for sauteing, baking or frying. It has minimal fishiness, so it’s a solid option for fish haters and picky kids. (It’s also a cheaper but uncanny substitute for cod. Wild Alaskan pollock is one of the wild fish with the least amount of mercury, so choose it if you can.

There are *tons* of bass varieties out there, from black sea bass to sunshine bass. (Even branzino is a type of bass, but more on that later. ) You might think the most popular type in the U. S. it’s called Chilean sea bass or Patagonian toothfish, but it’s not even related to bass, even though it tastes great and has firm flesh. All types of bass are strong, versatile, and tasty, which makes them great for grilling and pan-frying. Search for striped bass if you want a sustainable type.

Pacific halibut is a good fish to try even if you don’t like fish. It doesn’t taste too fishy and has a nice, firm texture that makes it feel more meaty than some other fish because it has more collagen in it. Pacific halibut is also loaded with potassium and vitamin D. Halibut is a flatfish, like flounder. It swims sideways and has both eyes on one side of its body. Because of its texture, it doesn’t dry out when roasted or broiled. You can also pan-sear, bake, grill, or braise it. Avoid Atlantic halibut if possible, as it’s already overfished.

Needless to say, swordfish are named for their sharp “sword” bills that they use to hunt. Because their flesh is dense and meaty, swordfish is great for cutting up and grilling or searing by the steak. Swordfish are usually pretty pricey because of how they’re caught. Save it for your next fancy dinner party to make the price worth it.

Pike is popular in Canada, but well worth a try if you can find it near you stateside. Fish that is naturally dry is great for poaching and stuffing because those methods will make it more juicy. It can also be fried or seared. Of course, you can always douse it in an acidic or vinegary sauce to impart some moisture too. No matter what you do, make sure you ask the fishmonger to skin it or carefully skin it yourself. The skin has a unique smell and taste that could affect the meat if it’s cooked with the skin on.

Not many foods naturally contain a lot of vitamin D. This may come as a surprise to people who like the vitamin-rich fish on this list. Mackerel is also full of it, and each fillet has 21 grams of protein. It has a rich, soft texture and a pronounced flavor that’s sweet and fishy, kind of like tuna. In order to make the taste less strong, you can remove the darker parts of the meat. It’s commonly roasted, baked, pan-seared and even fried. We chose Atlantic mackerel because it has a low mercury level. King and Spanish mackerel, on the other hand, have high mercury levels.

1 Branzino (european Sea Bass)

Texture and taste: firm, mild, meaty

You’ve definitely seen this fish on the menu at a fancy restaurant, likely roasted or grilled whole. But branzino is easy to cook at home, too. When cooked with its skin on, the outside turns crisp while the meat inside stays juicy and moist. Despite usually being served whole, branzino is also easy to fillet.

Texture and taste: firm, sweet

This pick is super lean since it’s only 1 percent fat by weight. Mahi-mahi has sweet, moist flesh that makes it a solid alternative to tuna or salmon. Mahi-mahi is a tropical fish that goes well with banana, pineapple, and warm spices, as well as acidic marinades and fruit salsas. Plus, because it is firm, it can keep its shape in any marinade or cooking method, even grilling. Look for mahi-mahi sourced from Ecuador if you’d like to shop sustainably.

5 of The Healthiest Fish to Eat and 5 to Avoid