Wild-caught fish skewers are a festive, fun way to enjoy seafood al fresco this summer. They’re ridiculously simple to make, typically requiring you to compose an easy marinade as well as an equally easy, fresh dipping sauce or condiment to serve alongside the skewers.
To do this right, you’ll want to make sure your grill is properly prepped. When cooking wild-caught fish on the grill, it’s especially important to make sure the grill grates are clean, oiled, and hot so that your skewers remain intact. Even meaty fish like halibut or salmon can fall apart if you neglect this grill prep. Additionally, don’t fuss with the skewers when they’re on the grill! Let them be; the fish will let you know when it’s ready to be turned, as the flesh will begin to pull away from the grates once it’s developed nice grill marks. By the way, if you don’t have access to a grill, you can cook these skewers on a stovetop using a hot cast iron grill pan instead.
While you can always put together a basic fish-onion-veg skewer with little more than salt, pepper, and oil, we think you’ll want to do better than that with even just a couple more ingredients in the mix. Here are 7 recipes for seafood skewers that go well beyond basic:
Yemeni-Spiced White Fish Skewers
These marinated white fish skewers are straight outta Yotam Ottolenghi’s book Jerusalem. Marinate your cubes of cod or halibut overnight, or for at least an hour, in a homemade Yemeni hawayej spice mix — coriander, cumin, cloves, cardamom, turmeric, peppercorns. For best results, you’ll want to freshly grind most of these ingredients in a spice grinder or by hand with a mortar and pestle. (Pro tip: Whole spices tend to keep their potency longer than pre-ground spices.) Serve with a squeeze of lemon juice.
Wild Salmon Skewers with Tomato Jam
Yellow or orange tomatoes, exceedingly sweet during the summer, cook down readily into a gorgeous, ginger-spiced tomato and basil jam. You can serve this jam with practically anything, but in this case they’re the perfect condiment for wild salmon skewers from Food & Wine, marinated simply in garlic.
Wild Salmon Skewers with Grain Bowl
Fish and fruit go together! This Food52 recipe for salmon skewers has Asian fusion written all over it, in all the best ways, threading a soy-ginger-mustard-honey marinated salmon onto skewers with chunks of juicy pineapple. The pineapple will actually help to prevent your salmon from drying out on the grill. Serve the skewers while they’re piping hot over a bowl of quinoa jazzed up with avocado and edamame.
Fish Skewers with Grilled Fruit
Mark Bittman’s recipe for fish skewers with grilled fruit is customizable to what you have on hand: salmon and apricots, halibut and figs, cod and mangoes, it’s totally up to you. As with many of bittman’s recipes, simplicity is key — these skewers basically only require you to have bread and fruit, along with fish and pantry staples like oil, salt and pepper — so make sure you’re using the good stuff to make this dish really shine.
Lemon-Dill Marinated Sablefish Skewers
Buttery chunks of sablefish, or even salmon, are marinated in a simple lemon, dill, and salt mix for clean, summer flavors in this recipe from Naomi Duguld. The marinade works quickly, since the acidity in the lemon juice will lightly “cook” the fish as it sits, so you’ll only need to set aside 30 minutes to an hour to marinate your fish of choice.
Thai Fish Skewers
Pollock isn’t typically a fish you would use on the grill, as it can be a bit delicate and is prone to falling apart. But that doesn’t mean you can’t load it up onto skewers: Instead of grilling pollock skewers, you can bake them. Using a dry Thai-inspired spice blend like this one from Forks Over Knives, you can use your pollock quick cuts for BBC Good Food’s simple recipe for oven-baked Thai fish skewers. Serve with jasmine rice, wedges of lemon or lime, and a sprinkle of fresh cilantro.
Turkish Halibut Skewers
David Tanis’s recipe for Turkish-spiced halibut skewers is flavored with a blend of cumin, coriander, paprika, bay leaves, and a bit of lemon and onion. As per the recipe, some of the slices of lemons and onions will end up getting charred on the grill as the halibut cooks — and this is certainly not a bad thing. Serve the skewers with a side of garlicky, herby cucumber yogurt sauce.
