This vibrant pesto sea bass is a delicious and healthy way to eat fish. The nutty coriander pesto with chilli, garlic and lemon gives it a great flavour! It's perfect for a midweek fish supper.
A lighter fresher pesto recipe
Don't you just love pesto? I've made lots of different pestos over the years. Some of them have featured on this blog. Some of them haven't. Until now they have all had one thing in common. CHEESE! This pesto is the first one I've made without cheese and it is so good. I was aiming for a lighter and fresher pesto recipe and I've definitely managed it.
Pesto Sea Bass for my first ever Recipe Redux
The reason I really wanted it to be a healthier pesto is that I was taking part in the Recipe Redux. The Recipe Redux was a food blogging challenge set up by dietitians where the focus was on creating delicious but also healthy dishes. This month the theme was double dinners. We were challenged to either make a healthy meal from the leftovers of a dish on our blog or to cook a new dish but to show how the leftovers could be used to make another delicious dinner as well.
I chose to make two meals with coriander pesto but adapted the coriander pesto recipe already on my blog to make it less oily. For my first meal of pesto crusted sea bass I wanted the pesto to have quite a thick consistency so it would coat the fish like a crust. That way it keeps the fish moist but also adds lots of pesto flavour. I kept the pesto thick by not adding too much olive oil to it.
Do you need Cheese in pesto?
It worked brilliantly without parmesan. The fish was moist and the pesto made it so yummy. Not adding cheese to the pesto was definitely the best option for this dish. It just doesn't need it. The flavours from the lemon, garlic, chilli pepper and coriander are perfect for the sea bass. Or any other white fish you choose to use.
Can you adapt this pesto sea bass recipe?
If you can't get hold of sea bass then any other white fish would work well for this recipe.
If you want to adapt the pesto then please do. You can make a more traditional pesto with basil and pine nuts. Or just use different nuts. I often make variations of pesto and the recipe just depends on what I have in the kitchen on that particular day!
How to use the leftover pesto
For my second dinner we just mixed the pesto with pasta. As the coriander pesto was quite thick I left quite a bit of the cooking water in with the pasta. That meant that the pesto sauce was liquid enough to coat all of the pasta. Although you can't see it in the picture, I then topped each plate of pasta with a small handful of grated parmesan, making a slightly richer but just as delicious pesto dinner.
Coriander Pesto Crusted Sea Bass
Ingredients
- 60 g coriander leaves and stalks
- 50 g cashew nuts
- 1 clove garlic roughly chopped
- 1 green chilli pepper
- 1 lemon juiced
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 600 g sea bass fillets
Instructions
- Put the cashew nuts into a dry frying pan and toast them until they are turning golden. Keep tossing the pan so they don't burn.
- Put all the pesto ingredients into a food processor and blitz until everything is well combined.
- Put a tablespoon of the pesto on each sea bass fillet and press it down so it coats the whole of the top of the sea bass.
- Grill (broil) for 10 minutes.
Notes
Nutrition
More Delicious Fish Recipes
Fish with lemon and parsley sauce
Jamie Oliver's Brazilian Fish Bake
You might also like this sea bass with a green herb salsa. It's delicious as well as nut-free so perfect if you are cooking for people with allergies.
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Do let me know if you make this pesto sea bass recipe. I love to get feedback from readers.
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petra08
I love seabass and I have never done pesto without the cheese. I use more or less depending on how healthy I want to be but will see what happens next time without it! I seem to have a craving for healthier food, most likely spurred on by the terrible thought of wearing a bikini in public at some point, and this looks delicious 🙂
Corina
I'm constantly intending to eat more healthily too. I don't have any beach holidays planned for this summer but if I did I'm sure it would add a little extra motivation!
petra08
Oh I don't either but I live by the sea and don't want to get caught out! just being vain! 🙂
Dana Fashina
Oh my gaaad nom!
That seabass is all i'm looking at right now.
Great use of pesto too!!
Corina
Thanks!