Easy Lemon Butter Fish in 20 Minutes (2024)

Easy Lemon Butter Fish Recipe

A dish like Lemon Butter Fish may be more frequently ordered atrestaurants rather than made at home, as it’s not what people tend to think of as Tuesday night fare. But an easy fish recipe can be, and absolutely is a fabulous weeknight dinner. This easy fish recipe with lemon butter sauce goes from stovetop to table top in just 20 minutes, just like our Seared Halibut, Fish with Fruit Salsa, and Perfect Barramundi.

What Fish is Easiest to Cook?

This lemon butter fish recipe is fabulous with any tender, flaky, mild flavored white fish. Any firm white fish such as cod, halibut, snapper, or mahi mahi would work beautifully.

You’ll want four generous pieces of firm white fish fillets that are about 6 inches in length and 1 inch thick. Definitely look for that 1-inch thickness, as thinner fish fillets won’t cook up as nicely and tend to fall apart easily. Also look for fish fillets with the same thickness throughout, so your fish cooks evenly.

Video: Watch Us Make This Recipe

How to Make Fish With Lemon Butter Sauce

Simple Equipment:

• A heavy, large and even-cooking skillet is your kitchen essential and worth every cent. My All Clad is my trusty kitchen workhorse for everything, including Seared Ahi Tuna.
• For flipping delicate food like fish, I use an extra wide stainless steel turner with a smooth/narrow edge to get underneath the food and flip it easily.

Basic Pantry Ingredients:

• Melted butter (I use salted, but unsalted is fine) – real butter makes a huge difference in flavor, so skip the butter substitutes.
• Juice and zest of lemon — avoid bottled lemon juice. If your lemon is on the larger size, use less of it.
• Kosher salt, plus extra to taste – Here’s why we always, always use kosher salt in our cooking.
• Paprika, for a bit of smoky flavor and natural color
• Garlic powder; it serves as your weeknight time-saving aromatic. Note that while freshly minced garlic is fantastic for marinades, it can burn easily in the skillet.
• Onion powder, for the same reasons as above.
• Freshly ground black pepper – we always use fresh peppercorns, with whole black tellicherry as our favorite. Use a pepper grinder to grind your black pepper fresh. It makes a huge flavor difference.
• Olive oil; we use olive oil for most of our cooking, which is healthier and works really well with most recipes. We even use it in chocolate cake — ridiculously moist, with no trace of olive flavor.
• Freshly chopped basil or parsley leaves, for garnish and flavor
• Lemon slices for serving – fish always looks prettier with freshly sliced lemon slivers on top.

More to Cook and Eat

• Baked Sheet Pan Salmon – this one’s easy, big on flavor, and healthy.
• Marinated Seared Ahi Tuna – our popular seared ahi tuna is a reader favorite for good reason.
• Easy Perfect Mahi Mahi Recipe – see why so many home cooks gained confidence cooking restaurant-quality fish with this simple recipe.
• Lemon Garlic Swordfish Recipe – swordfish is made simple, yet wildly delicious.
• Pistachio Crusted Salmon – we love this salmon recipe for serving friends!