Branzino, Baby!

🐟 WHOLE ROASTED BRANZINO 🐟

Simple and delicious meal to impress whether it’s a date night, dinner party, or whatever. It only takes a few minutes to prep and 20ish minutes fuss-free in the oven. I got these branzinos (about 2.5lbs total) from Whole Foods and asked them to gut and de-scale it for me. If you’re ‘grossed out’ by handling whole fish, this is your chance to conquer that silly squeamish feeling (or use fish filets instead).

Everyone always asks me for “non salmon easy fish recipes” so here you go:

Ingredients:
- whole branzino (gutted + scaled)
- 1 head garlic, cloves smashed
- cherry tomatoes (I used sun gold and heirloom)
- capers (I like to chop them)
- castelvetrano olives
- 2 lemons (1.5 sliced, .5 for serving)
- salt
- pepper
- olive oil

Directions:
Season the cavity of the fish with salt, pepper, garlic cloves (can also do grated garlic for more intense flavor — branzino is super mild), and lemon slices. Toss fish in a sheet pan with more garlic cloves, capers, cherry tomatoes, and lemon slices. Drizzle on a fair amount of olive oil. Bake at 400° for 20 minutes or until the fish is done. The skin will be crispy and the meat with be nice and flakey and tender, you’ll know that it’s ready bc the meat is white and doesn’t look like sushi lol. Very easy to pull apart and serve. Transfer to a platter and squeeze on lemon juice!