Broiled Cod

Broiling is one of the fastest ways to cook fish, and this broiled cod is a great choice for lunches or dinners. A marinade made of fat-free Italian dressing and extra spices, along with dots of butter once the fish is cooked, turn basic cod into an amazing main course. Cooking the fish doesn’t take long; in fact, you can have this recipe marinated, broiled and ready to eat in fewer than 30 minutes. This is a good recipe to use whenever you’re serving food to someone who doesn’t like overly “fishy” fish.

Broiled Cod Ingredients

Ruthie Darling for Taste of Home

• Fat-free Italian salad dressing: This dressing forms the majority of the marinade for the fish and helps the spices stick to the fillets. You do want to use fat-free dressing here for broiling.
• Sugar: Adding a little sugar helps balance out the spicy flavor of the marinade.
• Spices: Garlic powder, curry powder, salt, pepper and paprika all add more flavor to the fish.
• Cod fillets: Fillets that are 6 ounces each are best for this recipe.
• Butter: A little butter added to the top of the cooked fillets gives each bite you take that wonderful, warm, buttery aroma and taste.

Directions

Step 1: Marinate the cod fillets

Ruthie Darling for Taste of Home

Preheat the broiler in your oven. Mix the dressing, sugar, garlic powder, curry powder, paprika, salt and pepper in a shallow bowl, and place the cod fillets in the mixture. Turn the fillets to coat them thoroughly. Let the fillets and marinade stand for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Step 2: Broil the cod

Ruthie Darling for Taste of Home

Grease the rack for a broiler pan. Place the fillets on the rack and throw away the rest of the marinade. Place the rack 3 to 4 inches away from the heat and broil for 10 to 12 minutes. When ready, the fish should flake easily with a fork. Top the fillets with butter before eating.

Ruthie Darling for Taste of Home

Broiled Cod Variations

• Try other types of fish: Cod isn’t the only type of fish that broils well. Try salmon, catfish or a similar fish. If you prefer to leave out the dressing, try using this broiled fish with lemon-butter sauce recipe.

How to Store Broiled Cod

Place leftover broiled cod in an airtight container and refrigerate it for no more than three to four days. The sooner you eat it the better.

How do you reheat broiled cod?

Reheat the cod in the oven at 275°F for 10 to 15 minutes. Use a lightly greased baking dish covered with a sheet of foil. The thicker the fillet, the longer you’ll have to let it reheat.

Broiled Cod Tips

What can you use if you don’t have a broiler pan?

Use any oven-safe metal pan with a metal rack that elevates the fish off the pan. Do not use pans with nonstick coating; some are listed as being broiler-safe, but most are not. You’re better off just finding an uncoated metal pan. Also, never use a glass pan, as even the most oven-safe glass can crack when exposed to the intense heat of a broiler. If you’ve never used a broiler before, by the way, take a look at these 10 mistakes you don’t want to make when broiling food.

Can you bake or pan-fry the cod instead?

You can easily pan-fry cod fillets; it should take only a few minutes per side over medium-high heat for thinner fillets. The thicker the fillets, the longer they will take to cook. As for baking, 10 to 15 minutes at 400° is a good place to start for thinner fillets. The length of cooking time depends on the thickness of the fish, with 10 minutes per every 1 inch of thickness at 400° working as a general rule of thumb.

Can you use conventional or homemade Italian dressing that has oil in it?

It’s not really advisable if you’re planning to broil the cod. A lot of Italian dressing uses oils with lower smoke points, such as olive oil, which can easily catch fire under a broiler. Oils with higher smoke points are still a fire risk because the heat of a broiler is so intense. Placing the rack farther away from the broiler element may help reduce that risk. But there is still a problem: the fish sat in the marinade. This gives the marinade, oil and all, more time to seep into any crevices in the fillet, which means more oil near those super-hot elements. Rather than go back and forth about whether this or that factor makes using oil-based Italian dressing safe to use here, you’re better off finding some fat-free Italian dressing for this recipe.