Parmesan Baked Grouper

If in the mood for a rich, delicious Grouper dish you’re in luck! In this recipe, we’ll walk you through cooking the perfect baked parmesan Grouper, with just a few easy steps.

With grouper’s mild flavor, moist large flakes, and firm texture combined with a flavor-packed cheese topping, even picky kids will love this fish recipe. But first, let’s answer some of the questions you might have in preparing this baked grouper recipe.

Tips for Baking Grouper

Most fish needs to be brought up to an internal temperature of 145 degrees Fahrenheit before consumption. You’ll know when your baked grouper is done when the flesh becomes white, and you can easily flake it using a fork.

You can bake your grouper from frozen. Simply remove it from the packaging and rinse with cold water until the ice crystals are gone. If you don’t want to cook a frozen grouper, you can thaw it inside your refrigerator overnight or seal it in a bag and submerge in water. Defrosting the fish in the microwave is also an option, however, as it’s easy to accidentally cook part of the fish, we don’t recommend it.

Arrange the grouper (steaks or fillets) pieces in a single layer on a baking sheet. Remember to preheat your oven to 400 degrees. It is recommended that you lightly brush the pieces with olive oil on each side to avoid drying. Grouper is low in fat and tends to dry out quickly. Bake your fish for about 8 to 11 minutes, or you can test if it flakes using a fork.

Nutritional Value and Health Benefits

Grouper is a high-protein and low-fat food. Thus, it offers many benefits including increased HDL or good cholesterol, decreased metabolic score and decreased triglycerides. In short, eating grouper can help reduce blood pressure and lessen the risk of getting overweight.

According to the Food Data Central of US Department of Agriculture, a 3-ounce serving of grouper has 78 calories, 45mg of sodium, 16.5g of protein, and less than a gram of fat.

Now that you know the most important things about baking grouper, it’s time to start! Get your ingredients ready and follow the steps below.

Parmesan Baked Grouper Recipe

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Servings: 4 servings

Ingredients

The Grouper

1 pound grouper fillet (skin on one side is okay here), cut into approximately 6-ounce pieces

*Note, we highly recommend fresh, wild-caught Grouper as the taste of long-frozen Grouper will just never compare. If you’ve had both, you know what we’re talking about here.

Don’t Forget

A lemon
4 tbsp freshly shredded parmesan (optional)
Salt & Pepper (to taste)

The Parmesan mixture

About a cup of sour cream
Roughly 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3 tbsp of butter (salted or unsalted is fine)
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper seasoning
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

First, preheat the oven to broiling.
Rinse the fillets and dry them using a paper towel. *Drying is very important here.
Grease a baking dish or baking sheet and place the fillets in a single layer. Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of the fillets.
In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, grated Parmesan cheese, and hot sauce. Mix all the ingredients well. You can actually taste test this concoction and get an idea of the amount of spice you want to add. The consistency should be fairly thick so that when you put it atop the fish it does not quickly run off the sides.
Cut your lemon in half and squeeze a decent amount directly onto the top of the fillet (pretty side up). Use your hand to rub the fresh lemon juice around the fillet. Only use enough lemon juice to cover, but not so much that the fillet appears very wet.
Put your tray into the oven and cook for just 6 minutes. Give or take depending on how hot your broil temperature is.
Remove from oven but keep the oven on.
Spoon a dollop of the sour cream mixture on the fillets and spread out to cover the top. You should have enough to cover all your fillets fairly thick. Use the fresh parmesan sprinkling it atop the covered fillets.
Now put the dish back into the oven for just about 45 seconds.
Serve the fillets with lemon wedges and parsley.

Cooking Notes

Check the temperature of the fish by inserting a meat thermometer in the thickest part. It should read 145 degrees before adding the sour cream mixture. You can also tell if it’s done when the flesh turned white in color and easily flakes when you fork it.

This recipe calls for fillets that are at least one-inch thick. You can use thicker fillets but be sure to adjust the cooking time.

Though you can bake frozen fillets, it is more advisable to thaw them beforehand, or better yet, start with fresh fillets and purchase them the same day you plan to cook. Pat each fillet with a paper towel to remove excess liquid.

Whole Gag Grouper and Fillets. Only sold as fillets on WildSeafoodMarket.com

For this recipe, we used fresh Gag Grouper which started as a 10 pound whole fish and was filleted. With half of the fillet (one side of fish) we made Grouper nuggets. For this dish, we only used half the remaining grouper fillets. Hence, our 10-pound Grouper yielded about 4 pounds of fillet thanks to the expert deck hands here at Wild Seafood Market.