This Baked Fish recipe comes with a Lemon Cream Sauce and is made in ONE baking dish! Yup, just throw it all in one pan, bake it, and you end up with a tender juicy fish in a creamy lemon sauce. The the juices of the fish mingles in with the sauce while it’s baking, as if made from the best fish stock!
This is a reader-favourite recipe included by popular demand in my debut cookbook “Dinner”!
Baked Fish
If the idea of baked fish conjures up the words pale, colourless and bland, then this one’s going to be a game changer for you!!
It’s an effortless 15 minute recipe one pan recipe where fish is baked with a creamy lemon sauce. It’s the sort of recipe you can make no matter how hectic your household is, or on a lazy Sunday night because it’s this easy:
Mix butter, cream, garlic, mustard and lemon;
Pour over fish; and
Bake – no flipping required.
And out comes this – tender baked fish fillets with a beautiful lemon cream sauce that’s perfect with fish!
This recipe will work for most fish, but is especially great for white fish fillets
When you bake fish, you just can’t get colour on it like you can with pan frying, and this means loss of flavour. So I like to either have a flavoured crumb, like I do for my other Emergency Fish recipe, Parmesan Crusted Fish (10 minutes, no messy dredging!) or a Sauce.
The Lemon Cream Sauce for Fish
This recipe really is all about that Lemon Cream Sauce for fish which is made in the same pan while the fish is baking. It’s a simple sauce which actually tastes pretty unimpressive when you first mix it up.
But once it’s baked and the fish juices mix in with it, it transforms into an incredible sauce. It’s basically like making a sauce with real homemade fish stock – just like fine dining restaurants do!
What this tastes like
The recipe name implies that the sauce is rich but actually, it is not! I describe it as kind of light and fresh, yet a bit creamy. You will be thankful there is a decent amount of sauce because it’s perfect for mopping up with bread or spooning over mashed potato!
What you need
Not very much!
White Fish fillet – any fairly flat white fish fillet is fine here, about 2 cm/ 4/5 ” thick or less. Any thicker, and the fish will take longer to bake which will thicken the sauce too much so you’ll need to thin it with a splash of water.
Escallot/French onion – those small onions, they’re more delicate than normal onions so they work well in a quick fish recipe like this. Use the white part of green onions as a sub, or really finely minced normal onion.
Dijon Mustard – sauce thickener. Can sub with other non seedy mustards.
Garlic – goes in almost everything in my world!
Cream – use heavy / thickened cream if you can, to help with sauce consistency. Low cal sub – evaporated milk. It’s not quite the same, but I’ve been known to use it when I’m trying to be “healthier” 😂
Butter – there is no substitute! 😂
Lemon – lime would work in an emergency situation. Sub: 1/3 cup white wine simmered to reduce to 2 tbsp, use in place of lemon in recipe.
Really QUICK Baked Fish Fillets
I say this is a quick recipe – and I mean it. It takes longer to heat up the oven than it does to prepare this recipe! Watch the video and see!
Dinner on the table in just 15 minutes. Tender, juicy fish with a creamy lemon sauce. A really fantastic way to make baked fish – it’s so, so good! – Nagi x
Try these on the side:
Everyday Cabbage Salad, big juicy Greek Salad
Fresh Garden Salad with Balsamic Dressing, French Dressing or Italian Dressing
Potatoes au Gratin, Easy Creamy Potato Casserole or Mini Potato Gratin Stacks
And more fish recipes:
Watch how to make it
This recipe features in my debut cookbook Dinner. The book is mostly new recipes, but this is a reader favourite included by popular demand!
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Baked Fish with Lemon Cream Sauce (One Baking Dish!)
Ingredients
- 4 x 150- 180g / 5 – 6 oz fish fillets , about 1.5cm / 1/2″ thick, skinless and boneless (Note 1)
- 50g / 4 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup cream, heavy / thickened (See Note 2 for sub options)
- 1 – 2 garlic cloves , minced
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
- Salt & pepper
- 1 1/2 tbsp eschallots (French onion) , finely chopped (Note 3)
- Fresh parsley and lemon slices , to serve
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200°C / 390°F (all oven types).
- Place fish in a baking dish – ensure the fish isn’t crammed in too snugly. See video or photos in post. Sprinkle both sides of fish with salt and pepper.
- Place butter, cream, garlic, mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a microwave proof jug or bowl. Microwave in 2 x 30 sec bursts, stirring in between, until melted and smooth.
- Sprinkle fish with shallots, then pour over sauce.
- Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, or until fish is just cooked. Remove from oven and transfer fish to serving plates. Spoon over sauce, and garnish with parsley and lemon wedges if using.
Recipe Notes:
- salmon (too fatty, sauce splits)
- very thin delicate fish like flounder, Dover Sole
- small whole fish like sardines or mackerel
Nutrition Information:
Originally published October 2016, updated with much needed new photos, brand new video and updated writing. No change to recipe, it’s a firm reader fave that I wouldn’t dare change!
Life of Dozer
Yesterday was a day of experimenting with slow cooked curries. So there was plenty of downtime spent doing THIS!
And from when I originally published this recipe in October 2016:
From a little camping trip last weekend – getting smashed in the waves at beautiful Jimmy’s Beach, NSW Australia. He’s a sucker for punishment, that one. I really have to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t get swept away by a rip!!
This was absolutely delicious!! We ate this with wild rice and a salad. It was a perfect meal. Nagi, your recipes are such a gift! You make meal planning for my family so much easier!
Try this and again it’s amazing flavor is just perfect everybody love it serve with brussel sprouts side. Thx Nagi!
Tried this tonight with cod with side of asparagus and mashed potatoes. The sauce was good, not great. Was just hoping for more. Maybe my fish was off I’m not sure. Hubby seems to like.
I got sooo many compliments from this recipe! I spooned the extra sauce over Brussels sprouts and red and gold rice. An absolute keeper !!!!!
Quick and easy, delicious flavour, toddlers also loved it! I’ll be making this again.
Oh, that was a real surprise! It was so tasty and easy.
Made this for dinner tonight with halibut and it was a hit! 5 stars!
I’ve mentioned before that this is one of my favourite, memorised recipes, particularly for quick turnaround meals. My most recent adventure with it – I was part way through making this (veg boiling, cream mix ready and poured over the fish), and opened the pre-heated oven to a blast of cold air… As we needed to get out of the door in less than twenty minutes, I took a risk and decided to see if it would work in the microwave. I heated the dish for four minutes, then stirred the edges of the cream (trying not to bash the fish about too much!) and heated for another four minutes. It came out nearly perfect – not quite as great as the oven, but certainly better than the alternative 🙂 This was with lemon fish, so a relatively thin fillet.
This is absolutely delicious! It’s also an elegant dish. I’m trying to eat more fish, so this recipe will help me to do that:) Thanks for sharing.
I wanted to make this recipe but there was no way to print it out, so I had to use a different one. Very poor web design!
Hi Sherri, The “Print” button is right underneath the blue title block for the recipe. It works for me. Give it a try.
Cooked this tonight. Used snapper fillets and served it with jasmine rice and steamed broccoli/cauliflower. Absolutely delicious definitely a keeper in our house.
Sorry I forgot to give my 5 star rating…
Just made this for my family I used Swordfish and made mash potatoes to go with it. It was amazing I made a little extra sauce to pour over the mash potatoes. I didn’t have any Shallots so I used red onions and chopped it very fine I also added a little ricotta cheese….Absolutely wonderful will be making this again..Thank you for the recipe..I have not made any of your recipes and not be satisfied…
We made this tonight and paired it with the Garlic Kale Rice. What a lovely dinner! My 2 young kids even asked for more fish. Delish!
This recipe is soooo delicious!!! Silly story…I dreamt about a fish in lemon cream sauce that I put on …macaroni…when I winked up I had to find a recipe and this is exactly it! I even made macaroni and macaroni cod in parm and lil heavy cream then put fish and sauce on top and baked 12 min…it was so good! No clue where that crazy foodie dream came from but so glad it led me to this recipe!!
Well I should have read that before I sent it…needs editing…sorry!
The simplest sauces make miracles. This was divine. Thank you!
I made this last night dairy free, with coconut cream and nuttelex as the subs. Still tasted amazing and my dairy-eating friend enjoyed it too. Thanks Nagi 🙂
The best fish recipe I have ever had! I am going to stick on this recipe from now on…. Easy, quick and… Taste is amazing ❤️❤️❤️
I cooked this for my dad who has problems swallowing food. It was so soft and fall apart he said it’s the best thing he’s eaten in ages and so tasty!
I then used the leftover sauce with some cooked pasta, a tin of tuna (I chose chilli style) some capers and chopped baby spinach and put in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Just delicious! Thank you
My entire family loved this dish. So much flavor and super quick and easy to make.