Healthy Catfish Recipes

Here's an easy method for quickly cooking fish fillets. We love the simplicity of just using salt and pepper to season the flour for dredging, but feel free to get creative and experiment with other seasonings. If you like a little heat, add a pinch of cayenne; for a smoky flavor, add a touch of smoked paprika; try white pepper, a common ingredient in Chinese cooking, instead of black pepper if you're pairing the fish with the Black Bean-Scallion Sauce.

This baked catfish has a crispy cornmeal coating with a hint of spice from the Cajun seasoning, while the interior stays flaky and moist. Serve with tartar sauce, lemon wedges or your favorite hot sauce and with a green salad on the side.

Purchased Cajun or Creole seasoning flavors both the catfish and vegetables in this 30-minute dinner. This dish is best with fresh vegetables, but we were pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out with frozen okra and corn. Serve with cheese grits and a green salad.

Although the classic Cajun stew, étouffée, is usually made with crayfish, it's also delicious with catfish. The cooked butter-and-flour mixture, also called a brown roux, gives the sauce a nutty flavor. We added a bit of reduced-fat sour cream and stewed tomatoes to make the sauce rich and flavorful without a lot of extra calories or fat. Serve with brown rice.

This fast tartar sauce comes together in just 10 minutes and makes a great topping for simple sautéed fish fillets. Serve with toasted potato wedges and coleslaw.

Here, we use healthier extra-virgin olive oil with a bit of butter added for its flavor instead of the tablespoons of butter usually used to make classic “amandine” sauce for pan-fried catfish fillets. The results are delicately flavored and have only a third of the calories, fat and sodium of a classic version.

Serve simple sautéed fish fillets with jalapeno-spiked pineapple salsa for a Caribbean-inspired meal. Serve with black beans and brown rice.

This catfish and sausage jambalaya recipe is one you might find in a neighborhood eatery in Creole country. Turkey sausage links have fewer calories and less fat than traditional pork sausage, but still deliver amazing taste to this dish.

Hash isn't just for corned beef. It's also great made with catfish--or other flaky white fish. Any ham adds flavor to the hash, but we think a higher-quality smoked ham will give you the biggest flavor-bang for your buck. Serve with a poached egg on top and a green salad.

Cajun courtbouillon (pronounced koo-bee-yon) is a vegetable-and-fish stew recipe. In this healthy catfish recipe from Louisiana native chef Donald Link, the catfish and stew are combined at the end, making for a pretty presentation and keeping the catfish nice and crispy.

Catfish has a sweet, mild taste, so we flavor it with Cajun seasoning and pair it with crispy polenta. This is one unique meal you'll want to make over and over again.

Crunchy, battered catfish fillets have jumped out of the Louisiana backwaters to become a national favorite, thanks in large part to the Cajun cooking craze that started in the '80s. Here, the fillets are coated in a spicy mélange of cornflakes and pecans and baked for a traditional yet surprisingly healthy take on this bayou favorite.