Sarah's Cucina Bella | Quick and easy recipes from scratch

Fabulous Fish: Baked Lemon Herb Cod Recipe

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Looking for a great baked cod recipe? This quick and easy recipe for Baked Lemon Herb Cod is simple but yields a rich, flavorful dish everyone will love.

Sometimes, you taste something – just a little bite of it – and it blows you away. That was the case with this dish. It was rich, buttery even (although there is no butter in the recipe), and absolutely mouthwatering.

This was a dinner that the kids devoured so fast that I did a double take. Really, this Baked Lemon Herb Cod was just that good.

The fish itself is good and full of flavor. I used thin wild-caught cod fillets that were on sale at my local grocery store. But that alone isn’t amazing.

It’s the pan sauce that you drizzle over everything that knocks this up a notch. Rich, garlicky and a little tart thanks to the lemon juice, it takes good fish and makes it extraordinary.

Another thing I love about this Baked Lemon Herb Cod recipe? It takes less than 25 minutes to make, which makes it absolutely perfect for those busy evenings when dinner needs to get on the table fast. I think you know the ones I’m talking about.

I served this with Basmati Rice Medley from Trader Joe’s (love that!), which I season with salt, pepper and sometimes some barbecue spice. The dish would go really well with a side of roasted broccoli.

And one more thing … this is totally economical too. This meal — including rice and a vegetable — can be made for well under $10. High flavor at a low cost? Love it.

Baked Lemon Herb Cod Recipe

Baked Lemon Herb Cod Recipe

Yield: 4 servings
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 17 minutes
Total Time: 22 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 lb cod fillets
  • 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 cloves garlic, , crushed and minced
  • 1 tsp fresh thyme, , lightly chopped
  • sea salt
  • pepper
  • Sweet Hungarian Paprika

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Get out a 9×13 glass baking dish.
  2. Rinse the cod fillets under cool water and place in the baking dish. Drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil. Then sprinkle with garlic, thyme, salt, pepper and paprika. Try to divide the seasonings as equally as possible between the fish.
  3. Bake for 13-17 minutes until the flesh is opaque in color. Serve with rice, spooning the juices from the pan over the fish and rice.
  4. Devour.

Notes

recipe adapted very slightly from EatBetterAmerica @ Tablespoon

© Sarah Walker Caron

Love this recipe?

Then you’ll want to check out my cookbook, The Super Easy 5-Ingredient Cookbook, published by Rockridge Press. It’s all about cooking well, easily and simply. It’s filled with easy, accessible recipes that the whole family will love. We’re talking one-pan, 30-minute and no-cook recipes for every meal of the day.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. Emily

    Made this for my husband’s supper. Used bottled lemon juice and regular paprika as that’s what I had on hand. He liked the balance of flavors and it was nice and quick. I did not bother to chop the thyme–just pulled the leaves off the stem and left them whole.

  6. Chris

    I will be trying this tonight. I have some thawed cod fillets in the fridge that I got from Costco. They actually sell WILD cod fillets there. I was pretty stoked to find them. I’m a little worried as I don’t have any “fresh” thyme at the moment… going to try dried and see how that works.

  7. Kathy

    I love cod and was glad I found this recipe, it was delicious!! I’ m plan on making it again when I pull the extra cod from the freezer .

  8. Evelyn

    This is a very good recipe, however, I found it easier to mix all the sauce ingredients together in a little bowl, and then drizzle the sauce with a teaspoon all over my cod. It’s just a different technique, but the outcome was the same: delicious!
    Nice change from the usual fried cod.

  13. EmmaSue

    I bought a FROZEN package of wild caught cod loins – per the package it says not to thaw them. Is that your suggestion for this recipe?

  14. Russ

    Made this earlier in the week after getting cod on sale at Whole Foods. I was slightly skeptical as it seemed just too simple. But it was really great. My wife thought it was so good that she asked that we make it again for her parents who are in town visiting. My only semi-changes were to use smoked pimento instead of sweet paprika and I had a Meyer lemon handy so I used that instead of a regular lemon. Thanks for a great and super easy recipe.

    • Sarah W. Caron

      Russ, so glad it was a hit! I love dishes to be simple — it makes them so much more doable on busy nights, which we have a lot of. But I totally get how that can make you a little skeptical. 🙂 Also, I’ve made it with both Meyer lemons and regular lemons — personally, I like the little extra tartness regular lemons have. But if you liked the Meyers, that’s great too!

  15. Alan

    Your recipe just landed in Devon England. The weather means that our local fishermen have been stuck in port so deep sea cod seemed a good call. And it was. The recipe has just the right degree of sharp and sweet. Thank you and best wishes from a soggy Britain.

  16. Shashi Ishai

    I am going to try this delicious recipe tomorrow. I am not familiar w spices, so…………can I use chopped garlic in a jar, instead of grinding fresh garlic? How much garlic should I use? Thyme. If I can’t get fresh, will thyme in the seasonings jar do the same? Other than thyme, is there something else I can substitute for? I don’t know what thyme tastes like. I have lemongrass (fresh).

    • Sarah W. Caron

      You’ll want to use about 1/2 tsp jarred minced garlic for each clove the recipe calls for. As for the thyme, I can only recommend fresh time. I haven’t tested this recipe with lemongrass so I have no idea if the flavor will work with it — honestly, if you make a big substitution like that, the results will vary a lot.

  17. Jackie

    This is amazing…I made two wild cod loins for me and it is amazing! One for dinner and one for lunch tomorrow. I used regular paprika and dried oregano, I can just image the flavor if I’d used fresh! Thank you, this will be a staple in my cupboard. BTW I am from Newfoundland, Canada, and grew up with fresh cod. It does have a very buttery flavor, absolutely delicious!

  18. Shawn

    Mmmm…I love this recipe it is my second favorite cod recipe. Quick, easy, and delicious! We love to eat cod fish and finding good cod fillets is hard sometimes if you live in the Midwest.

  19. Rich

    Simply delicious!!!

    The local Fresh Market here in Pensacola, FL has wild caught Alaska cod on sale each Friday of Lent, so I picked up a couple of filets. After getting home I ran across your baked lemon herb cod recipe via a good ol’ Google search.

    WOW… so yummy… and soooo easy.

    Now have your wonderful website bookmarked. Thanks for sharing and keep up the GREAT work.

    V/R,
    Rich

  20. John Humphrey

    Very good! I followed the recipe exactly using Alaska True Cod (I live on the West Coast) which was on sale at the local supermarket. I will fix it again. The recipe mentions that when the cooking is completed you can spoon the juices over the fish and the separately prepared rice. I had enough to do the fish, but not the rice.

  21. Chris

    This was a fantastic meal. Thank you for posting this recipe. We actually put each cod fillet in its own foil wrapping and the juices were amazing on the quinoa that we had it with. A nice portugese red wine was the icing on the cake of this fabulous meal.

  22. Gene Scott

    Made this last night and it was yummy. Used ingredients on hand – garlic salt plus a smidge extra of garlic powder, ground thyme, white pepper and paprika mixed together and sprinkled over the fish. Fresh lemon and olive oil. We had with fresh roasted asparagus. Mmm – good!

  23. nikki

    Its okay. Not at all buttery, more like oily. I prefer it in a cream sauce with fresh mushrooms. This is great for folks who really don’t know what the palette is for or how to cook.

  24. SongLinh

    The recipe looks simple enough I am trying it right now, but have a question: Do I need to cover the baking dish when baking? or just leave it “open”? thanks.

  25. Molly Burkett

    You don’t have to cover it. I used fresh basil and it was delicious. I also served it with Quinoa mixed with fresh zucchini, tomato, green onions all sauteed in a little olive oil. This whole thing was so yummy. Will definitely do this one again. Thanks for sharing it.

  28. Sandra

    Really enjoyed this lemon cod dish,to serve with it I cooked baby potatoes then browned off in wok with chopped zucchini red onion & broccoli bit more lemon juice it was bril!

  29. Joia

    Absolutely delicious and very easy! My husband and I loved this dish. We are adding it to our repertoire! Thank you!!

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