African · Lunch · Dinner
Grilled Tilapia
Whole tilapia rubbed with a fiery ginger, garlic and pepper paste, then grilled until the skin is smoky and the flesh flakes from the bone. It is served with a fresh tomato and onion kachumbari salad and lemon wedges, as at roadside grills from Accra to Kisumu.
- Prep
- 50 min
- Cook
- 20 min
- Total
- 70 min
- Serves
- 4
Calories come from: Carbs 19% · Fat 25% · Protein 56%
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Ingredients
For 4 servings- 2 medium (about 600 g each)whole tilapia, scaled and gutted
- 1 small70 gonion
- 4 cloves12 ggarlic
- 2-inch piece20 gfresh ginger
- 18 gscotch bonnet or habanero pepper (optional)
- 3 tbsp45 glemon juice
- 1 tbsp (2 tsp for the paste, 1 tsp for the grill)14 gvegetable oil
- 1 tsp6 gsalt
- 1 tspsmoked paprika
- 1 tspground coriander
- 1 tspdried thyme
- 1/2 tspblack pepper
- 2 medium240 gtomatoes
- 1/2 medium70 gred onion
- 1/4 cup chopped10 gfresh cilantro
- 1 tbsp15 glime juice
- 160 glemon, cut into wedges
Steps
- 1
Rinse the tilapia inside and out and pat dry with paper towels.
- 2
Cut 3 deep diagonal slashes down to the bone on each side of each fish.
- 3
Blend the small onion, garlic, ginger, scotch bonnet (if using), lemon juice, 2 tsp of the oil, salt, paprika, coriander, thyme and black pepper into a thick paste.
- 4
Rub the paste all over the fish, pushing it into the slashes and the belly cavity.
- 5
Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
- 6
While the fish marinates, finely dice the tomatoes and red onion and chop the cilantro.
- 7
Toss the tomatoes, red onion and cilantro with the lime juice to make the kachumbari, then chill.
- 8
Heat a grill or grill pan to medium-high and brush the grates or a fish basket with the remaining 1 tsp oil.
- 9
Grill the fish for 8-10 minutes per side, turning once carefully, until the skin is charred and the flesh flakes easily and reaches 63 °C / 145 °F at the thickest part.
- 10
Serve the fish hot with the kachumbari and lemon wedges.
Swaps, storage and make-ahead
Swaps
- Use whole sea bream, snapper or branzino of a similar size if tilapia is hard to find.
- Swap the scotch bonnet for half a seeded jalapeño, or leave it out, for a milder paste.
- Use skin-on tilapia fillets instead of whole fish and grill them for about 3 to 4 minutes per side, until the flesh flakes easily.
- Use extra lemon juice in the kachumbari if you don't have limes, or flat-leaf parsley if you don't like cilantro.
Storage
Grilled fish is best eaten fresh. Refrigerate leftover fish within 2 hours in a covered container for up to 3 days, and reheat it until steaming hot or flake it cold into salads. Kachumbari goes watery, so eat it the same day, and don't freeze either one.
Make ahead
Blend the spice paste up to 2 days ahead and keep it covered in the fridge, then marinate the fish for up to a few hours before grilling. Dice the tomatoes and onion a few hours ahead, but add the cilantro and lime juice just before serving.
Nutrition values are for the recipe as written.
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Allergens and nutrition
Contains: Fish
Check the labels of packaged ingredients for allergens and suitability for your diet.
Full nutrition
| Per serving (442 g) | Per 100 g | |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 221 kcal | 50 kcal |
| Protein | 31.8 g | 7.2 g |
| Carbohydrates | 11 g | 2.5 g |
| of which sugars | 4.2 g | 1 g |
| Fiber | 2.6 g | 0.6 g |
| Fat | 6.5 g | 1.5 g |
| of which saturated | 1.5 g | 0.3 g |
| Sodium | 667 mg | 151 mg |
Nutrition is calculated from USDA FoodData Central data and may differ from what you cook.
