This easy Greek-style baked cod recipe has quickly become a regular on my dinner rotation! A handful of Mediterranean spices, plus a mixture of lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic, give it glorious flavors! Be sure to watch the video below and grab my tips for what to serve along and how to store leftovers.
You may also like: Easy Seafood Paella; Mediterranean Whole Snapper with Garlic and Veggies; Grilled Shrimp with Roasted Garlic Cilantro Sauce; Greek Chicken and Potatoes.
Following the Mediterranean diet, fish is kinda essential for my family. It’s about the one food that shows up on the menu twice every week.
Sometimes, our fish dinners go far–as far as a fish stew from Sicily or an Egyptian-inspired fish Shakshuka cooked in a tasty tomato sauce. But more often than not, I opt for something simple like steamed salmon or today’s baked cod recipe with lemon and garlic.
Why this Cod Recipe Works?
Cod fillet is a beautiful thing. It’s easy to cook, and because it’s a mild-tasting fish, the ways to give it glorious flavor are endless.
This baked cod recipe takes on a bit of a Greek twist. The cod is lightly coated with a spiced flour mixture with coriander, paprika, and cumin. Quickly seared, then baked with lemon juice, Greek olive oil, and lots of minced garlic.
What to serve with this baked cod recipe?
It feels like I’m always recommending this Lebanese rice with vermicelli, but it makes the perfect bed for this lemony baked cod. Keep the Greek theme going by adding a side of traditional Greek salad. Or, for a heartier salad option, try this Mediterranean chickpea salad with eggplant.
Can I refrigerate or freeze leftovers?
When I make this baked cod recipe, I don’t typically have leftovers. But, a reader recently asked this relevant question as she cooks for fewer people. The answer is yes, you can store the leftovers either in the fridge or even in the freezer.
First, cool the fish a bit, but don’t leave it in room temperature for more than 1 hour before refrigerating or freezing. Arrange the cod in a shallow glass container with a tight lid and refrigerate for 2 to 3 days. If you need to warm it up, simply use a medium heated oven until just warmed through.
Generally, cooked fish can be frozen for up to 1 month. My personal preference is not to freeze it, I do feel that the texture of the fish changes a little.
Here’s the video for how to make this baked cod recipe:
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Mediterranean Baked Cod Recipe with Lemon and Garlic
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 12 mins
- Total Time: 22 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Best baked cod recipe out there! Prepared Greek style with a few spices and a mixture of lemon juice, olive oil and lots of garlic. Bakes in 15 mins!
Ingredients
- 1.5 lb Cod fillet pieces (4–6 pieces)
- 5 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
Lemon Juice Mixture
- 5 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 5 tbsp Private Reserve extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp melted butter
For Coating
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 3/4 tsp sweet Spanish paprika
- 3/4 tsp ground cumin
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Mix lemon juice, olive oil, and melted butter in a shallow bowl. Set aside
- In another shallow bowl, mix all-purpose flour, spices, salt and pepper. Set next to the lemon juice mixture.
- Pat fish fillet dry. Dip fish in the lemon juice mixture then dip in the flour mixture. Shake off excess flour.
- Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat (watch the oil to be sure it is sizzling but not smoking). Add fish and sear on each side to give it some color, but do not fully cook (about a couple minutes on each side) Remove from heat.
- To the remaining lemon juice mixture, add the minced garlic and mix. Drizzle all over the fish fillets.
- Bake in the heated oven for until it begins to flake easily with a fork (10 minutes should do it, but begin checking earlier). Remove from heat and sprinkle chopped parsley.
- Serving suggestions: Serve immediately with Lebanese rice and this Mediterranean chickpea salad or this traditional Greek salad.
Notes
- Cook’s Tip: This recipe has been edited adding step #5 to achieve more color and a more crispy texture.
- Leftover Storage: If you have any leftovers, let the fish cool a bit, then arrange in a shallow glass container with a tight lid. You can refrigerate for 2 to 3 days, or freeze for up to one month. My personal preference is not to freeze fish as, sometimes, the texture does change.
- Recommended for this Recipe: Our Private Reserve Greek Extra Virgin Olive Oil (from organically grown and processed Koroneiki olives). SAVE! Try our Greek Olive Oil Bundle!
- And from our organic and all-natural spice collections: Coriander; Spanish Paprika; Cumin. SAVE! Try our Ultimate Mediterranean Spice Bundle, or create your own 6-pack or 3-pack or our organic or all-natural spice collections!
- Category: Entree
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Greek
Keywords: Baked Cod, Cod Recipe, Baked Cod Recipe, Cod Fish
Delicious! Best cod recipe I have made! So full of flavor, definitely recommend.
★★★★★
Thanks, Andrea! Happy to hear you loved it!
Made this today, had beautiful flavours,
I don’t think I heated the pan hot enough, coating wasn’t crispy.
Will try again.
Thanks for sharing, Jo! Glad you enjoyed it.
Hi Suzy – I am new to this site and am going to try this recipe for tonight’s dinner. I do not each much fish as I feel it needs a lot of flavour in it so if this works I may start eating more fish.
I will let you know how it goes
I hope you love it, Janet!! Please let me know!
The flavors were great, but I had major issues with the breading. It became gummy almost immediately although I allowed the fish to drip a bit before putting it in the flour mixture. I even went back in to make sure that all three ingredients went into the lemon dip. I ended up using my fingers to smear the remaining flour mixture on the last piece. Any clue what I may have done wrong?
★★★★★
Hmmm thanks so much for sharing, Lynn. You’ll want to be sure to shake excess flour off and keep just super thin layer. Also, you can omit the breading all together, if that may work better for you:-)
Can you make this without the flour? We have a celiac teen in the house that does not like things dredged in almond flour. It gives it a weird taste and I don’t want to experiment with other gf flours. Thanks!
Sure, you can skip the flour. Although, you can also use gluten free flour of your choice.
Hmmm…. don’t understand all the positive reviews. I love cod, garlic and lemon. I made this recipe exactly as written and could not even eat it. The taste, texture were not my favorite.
Thanks for sharing, Bob. Honestly, this is one of our favorites and we make it exactly as written. I’m sorry it didn’t work as well for you. We have many fish recipes that don’t involve breading that might be a better fit for you.
Can I bake in a glass dish?
Sure, CK! Once you’re done with the stovetop part, you can transfer to a glass dish and bake.
Great recipe. I rarely cook fish because I couldn’t make it tasty. Now I will do it more often.
Little problem that I mix up cumin and carum in spices. I do not know what is more correct to translate into Russian “cumin” 😉
★★★★★
Haha! I’m glad we’re turning you into a fish lover! Thanks, Kirill!
Wow! I’m from New Mexico, love to cook and my family loves fish…I made this with the Lebanese rice and some broccoli with garlic….was a huge hit!!! My family loved it! Thank you for an amazing recipe!
★★★★★
Sounds like an amazing meal! Thanks!!
Why so complicated? What’s the point of the cast iron? Just to use it? This could have been done with an easier clean up.
★★
Hi J, In this recipe because the fish is cooked stove-top briefly, then moved to the oven for baking, cast iron is a good option because it works in the oven as well. We use it to save an extra dish actually 🙂
Hi Suzy – I’m new to your site and legally blind so was pleased to find you have video – but for me, this did not work this time! Is there a reason please?
Thank you so much for sharing, Gabbie! The video on this particular recipe does not have voice instructions, but rather just the steps. Moving forward however, we plan to only produce videos with voice instruction. Thank you for bearing with us.
Thank you Suzy for your reply. Actually, not even the picture video works. But I was using iPad. This morning I am trying my iPhone – which is more difficult but I have video!
I really need it to work on pc and iPad. Will keep checking.
I tried this, but for a large group and while it was tasty. The flour mixture went on more heavy than I would have liked and it didn’t crisp up as much as I hoped it would. I think getting the pan hotter would have crisped it more, but do you have any tips for thinning out the flour?
Hey Zac. Thanks for sharing! Glad everyone enjoyed it. I would say, a couple of things with respect to the breading
1) Shake the fish super well to get rid of excess flour and keep only a super thin dusting just enough to create the breading. 2) Yes, as you mentioned, get your pan more hot
I would love to try this with scallops. I think the cooking time would be the same.
Let us know when you give that a try. We do have a scallops recipe here: https://www.themediterraneandish.com/easy-scallops-recipe/
Do you have any suggestions to make this ahead in the frying pan and then heat/finish in the oven? Need an idea for Xmas eve and looking to brown the filets before mass and come back and pop them into the oven.
This recipe is best made as suggested 🙂
Very nice recipe. Whole family loved it (8 year olds included).
I’m going to experiment with the spices since they overpowered the fish a bit. Cod is so mild. I do like fish, so I want to see if there is anything I can do to get a little more of the fish flavor out.
Overall, A+. Great stuff.
★★★★★
So glad to hear it, Matt! Thanks for sharing
This fish is delicious and is a great blend of flavors. We used some Italian bread to wipe up some of the leftover sauce too. However, there is still a good amount of breading and sauce left over in the pan, do you have any recommendations for repurposing it?
That’s great to hear, Kathy! I’ll think on your question some more, but you can maybe re purpose over some roasted veggies?
My first time with this recipe and I didn’t heat the frying pan as hot as i should have, but that said, the flavors were delicious and we really like it. I will make again.
★★★★★
Fabulous! Thanks, Elaine!
Suzy,
pictures aren’t printing out anymore and haven’t been for awhile, too bad as that is the decider sometimes when going through for meal plan – ‘picture worth thousand words’ they say. Need to put them back in, a little snapshot in the upper right corner worked wonderful.
Love your recipes – no need to change things – except maybe all the ADS, lot of distractions going on when trying to focus on your videos – yikes! just saying …
Thank you for sharing. We will look into this
This was fantastic! I added calamata olives when I put it in the oven, so good. Next time I will reduce the lemon. Will be making all the time and was thinking what a great recipe to use on scallops.
Thank you
Robin
So glad you enjoyed it, Robin!
This was so good!! I modified it a little bit to my needs and what I had on hand. I made this with Mahi mahi, subbed cassava flour to make gf and subbed vegan butter for the regular butter. I also left out parsley because I didn’t have any. It turned out amazing! We love your other recipes too, Mediterranean shrimp is my husbands absolute fave.
★★★★★
Thanks so much for sharing, Jackie!
Hi,
What type of cod should be used; fresh, salted or just frozen?
Thanks,
Rose
Hi Rose, I often use wild cod from frozen.
Hi Suzy,
It is difficult for me to find Cod where I stay. What other fish could I use.
Hi, Andries! Maybe try Pollack, Haddock or Mahi Mahi?