Seafood Side Dishes
Side Dishes to Serve with Fish
Often when we are cooking seafood, we focus so much on our main ingredient, the fish, that we forget to think about serving side dishes for our fish. Have you ever planned a seafood meal while only focusing on how to season and perfectly cook your fish that you ended up with lackluster side dishes with your fish because you neglected to plan your side dishes until the last minute?
We can help with that!
We've created a guide to the best side dish recipes for fish to help you plan and execute a well-rounded meal that focuses both on the main course, as well as perfectly curated side dishes that complement and highlight your chosen seafood.
Lets us help you create a perfectly balanced fish dinner!
Side Dishes for Fish Tacos:
Fish tacos make a delicious and refreshing meal. You may find yourself concentrating on marinating your fish and perfectly grilling your fish for tacos that you forget all the toppings and sides that create a complete fish taco dinner. Vegetable side dishes for fish are perfect for fish tacos because not only do they serve as side dishes but also as toppings for your fish tacos.
Fish tacos are more than perfectly grilled fish in corn or flour tortillas. Fresh salsas and creative coleslaws add a crunch and a tang that blend perfectly with your spicy fish tacos.
Rice is also a good side dish for fish tacos. You can flavor your rice side dish for fish tacos with citrus and cilantro to complement the marinade flavors used for your fish tacos.
Best Side Dishes for Fish Tacos:
- Cilantro Lime Rice or wild rice dish for fish tacos
- Tangy Vinegar and Apple Cole Slaw
- Fresh Tomato Salsa
- Spicy Tomatillo Salsa
- Mango Salsa
- Pineapple Salsa
- Pickled Red Onions
- Fresh Guacamole
- Pickles Watermelon
- Siracha or Salsa Crema
Coleslaw is one of our favorite side dishes for fish taco dinners. When eating coleslaw next to fish tacos, always go with a vinegar-based coleslaw. The tangy flavors of vinegar or even fresh squeezed lime juice, pair with whatever fish you choose for your fish tacos. The refreshing crunch of cabbage and onion with every bite of the fish taco creates a blend of tastes and textures that all complement one another for a fantastic meal.
Tangy Apple and Cider Vinegar Coleslaw:
Ingredients:
- One head of green cabbage thinly sliced
- 1/2 of a large red onion, thinly sliced.
- 1-2 large red apple washed and cut into thin matchsticks. Be sure not to peel. The peel adds color and texture to the coleslaw.
- Two tablespoons of high-quality extra virgin olive oil.
- Two tablespoons of raw apple cider vinegar
- Two teaspoons of red wine vinegar
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
- Prepare your ingredients by thinly slicing your cabbage, apples, and red onion. A mandoline is tremendously helpful in speeding up this process.
- Mix all of your vegetables in a large glass or stainless-steel bowl.
- Add your olive oil, vinegars, and salt and pepper to your cabbage, apple, and onion mixture.
- Wash your hands and hand mix your coleslaw thoroughly.
- Refrigerate your coleslaw at least one hour before serving. This coleslaw is even better if made a day ahead of your fish tacos, so the flavors have time to marinate with your cabbage, apples, and onion.
Serve this coleslaw alongside or directly on top of your fish tacos.
For a quick and easy crema for your fish taco dinner, mix sour cream and salsa or your choice of hot sauce until combined. Thin this mixture slightly with cold water until you get a somewhat thinner consistency that you can drizzle over your fish tacos.
Fish tacos are light and delicate with lots of flavors, making them an excellent choice for a healthy and flavorful meal.
Side Dishes for Fried Fish:
Fried fish can be a slightly more substantial meal with the breading or batter that accompanies your fried fish. To counter the heaviness of the fried fish, pair your meal with vegetable side dishes.
Tasty side dishes for fried fish:
- Cucumber salad
- Creamy coleslaw
- Corn and Jalapeno hushpuppies
- Cowboy Caviar
- Corn Salsa
- Succotash
- Homemade potato chips
- Grilled or steamed corn on the cob
- Cold Pasta Salad
A vinegar-based pasta salad is an excellent choice to accompany fried fish. The tang of the vinegar and the crunch of fresh veggies creates a flavor and texture combination that blends nicely with the salty and savory fried fish.
A simple way to create a nice pasta side fish for fish combines cold cooked pasta of your choice with some fresh chopped veggies such as onion, bell, pepper, and zucchini. Toss those ingredients together and dress with your favorite vinegar-based salad dressing or a combination of 1-part olive oil to two parts vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and serve with your fried fish dinner.
Side Dishes for Fish Sticks:
Fish sticks are a great way to introduce your kids to eating seafood. The tender white fish encased in a breaded coating is one of the first ways many kids learn to eat seafood. Some favorite side fishes for fish sticks include:
- Buttered peas or mixed vegetables
- Oven-baked french fries
- Creamy mac n cheese made with a veggie-based cheese sauce. (A great way to sneak extra veggies into your kids)
- Creamy mayo-based coleslaw
Side Dishes for Baked Fish:
Baked fish is an easy and healthy way to cook fish, and there are many good side dishes for fish baked in the oven. You can serve baked fished up with just about any side dish for a well-balanced meal. Try to incorporate a starch and a vegetable for a fully well-rounded meal.
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Favorite Baked Fish Side Dishes:
- Creamy mashed potatoes (Try them with garlic or horseradish!)
- Roasted fingerling potatoes
- Blistered green beans
- Roasted Asparagus
- Roasted carrots
- Pureed minted peas
- Grilled or steamed summer vegetables
- Roasted Root vegetables
- Rice pilaf
- Herbed Wild rice
- Oven-Roasted Cauliflower
- Corn Casserole
- Fresh Caesar salad
- Crusty sourdough bread
- Herb-roasted tomatoes with feta cheese
Something as simple and easy as a box of rice pilaf or flavored couscous can complement your baked fish. Your side dishes don't have to be complicated, especially if you're just learning how to make fish.
Just remember that fish fillets can bake up quickly, so be careful and accurate when timing your meal. Most of the time, roasted vegetables and other side dishes take longer to cook than the main course itself.
Lobster Side Dish Ideas:
Lobster is a dominating main course and often doesn't need grandiose side dishes. Still, it's essential to serve your lobster up with a lobster side dish because bite after bite of lobster alone can become too rich for many people's taste buds.
Lobster Side Dish Recipes:
- Homemade Mac N Cheese
- Creamy Dill potato salad
- Steamed corn on the cob
- Crusty white bread
- Baked potato
- Biscuits
- Simple Salad
- Twice-baked potato with cheese
A side dish for lobster should be simple and easy to make. Something at easy as a baked potato or slices of crusty white bread are perfect to accompany lobster. Lobster is such a rich tasting fish that you usually dip in melted butter, so serve lobster with something that you can splash with butter and enjoy in between bites of lobster. Serve a baked potato and a fresh salad as side dishes for a lobster dinner, and you won't be disappointed. After all, you want the lobsters to be the main character of your lobster dinner.
When serving a lobster tail, you can opt for more complicated side dishes to compliment your main course. Side dishes for lobster tail can include clam chowder or other varieties of shellfish such as steams clams and mussels, steamed rice, or homemade mac n cheese.
Lobster tails are smaller than eating a whole lobster, and you can complement lobster tails with more substantial side dishes.
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Simple baked potato side dish for lobster tail:
Ingredients:
- Large Russet Potatoes washed and not peeled.
- High-quality extra virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt or coarse ground sea salt
Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees
- Wash and try your potatoes, do not peel
- Poke your potatoes all over with a fork.
- Rub each potato with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with salt.
- Place each potato directly on your oven rack and bake in the oven for 1 hour. Be sure to turn or rotate your potatoes every 20 minutes. It's ok if you forget this step!
- Serve with melted butter and sour cream
Baked potatoes hold their heat well and can be reserved in the oven after baking. Simply turn off the oven and leave potatoes in the oven until you are ready to serve your lobster dinner!
Side Dishes for Crab Cakes:
Crab cakes are another main course that speaks for itself. Serve your crab cakes with too heavy of side dishes, and you'll end up with a heavy, overly rich meal that leaves you feeling bloated and uncomfortable.
When it comes to rich seafood such as crab legs or crab cakes, opt for side dishes with fresh ingredients and light flavors.
Side Dishes for Crab Cakes:
- Vinegar Coleslaw
- Tomato relish or remoulade
- Simple green salad
- Grilled summer veggies
- Potato salad
- Clam Chowder
- Lobster Bisque
- Corn Salad
- Gazpacho
All of these side dishes would work as crab leg side dishes as well. Any type of crab deserves light and refreshing side dishes to compliment the sweet and tender crab meat in your main course.
Soup is a perfect crab side dish recipe—especially cold soup like gazpacho. The tangy and fresh flavors of cold soups complement the heaviness of fried crab cakes for a satisfying and not overly heavy crab cake side dish recipe. Gazpacho makes for an elegant side dish for crab cakes, and we think it's one of the best side dishes for crab cakes.
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Easy Homemade Tomato Gazpacho (best side dish with crab cakes)
Ingredients:
- Four large tomatoes, diced. (peeled for a smoother gazpacho)
- 1/2 large cucumber diced (peel for a smoother gazpacho)
- One bell pepper, diced. Red or green would be perfect
- Three scallions, minced
- One Jalapeno, de-seeded and minced. Optional
- Two cloves of garlic, minced.
- One teaspoon of salt
- One Tablespoon of freshly chopped oregano
- Pinch of cumin
- Pinch of black pepper
- One cup of cherry tomatoes
- 1/2 cup of high-quality extra virgin olive oil.
- Juice from one lime
- Two teaspoons of balsamic vinegar
- Finely sliced basil for garnish
Directions:
- In a large bowl, combine cucumber, diced tomatoes, scallion, jalapeno, and garlic.
- Add salt, cumin, oregano, and black pepper, stir to combine and set aside.
- Into a blender, place your cherry tomatoes, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Puree until smooth.
- Combine both mixtures in a bowl and stir to combine.
- Chill your gazpacho in the fridge for at least two hours before serving.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste before serving. Top with basil before serving.
Side Dish for Crab Legs:
Crab legs are another filling main course that benefits from lighter side dishes. If you're wondering what goes with crab legs for a side dish, often it's dipping sauces. Typically, you serve crab legs with melted butter. Exploring a variety of dipping sauces to serve with your crab legs can break up the richness of crab dripping with melted butter.
Crab legs are sweet and decadent by themselves. If you're ordering king crab legs and making crab legs, they are usually the centerpiece and main dish of your crab leg meal. Try some of these dipping sauces to complement your crab legs:
- Minty Basil Pesto dipping sauce
- Mediterranean crab dip
- Garlic and herbed butter dipping sauce
When it comes to eating crab, it's better to let the crab speak for itself. Simple flavors and lighter sides are always a better choice when it comes to side dishes for crab.
Side Dishes for Scallops:
Scallops are a delicate shellfish that benefit from the addition of side dishes. Whether you are frying, broiling, or sautéing your scallops, we've got some great suggestions for side dishes with scallops for you!
Scallop Side dishes:
- Garlic butter pasta
- Lemon roasted asparagus
- Roasted potatoes
- Pomegranate and kale salad
- Mint basil and pea bowtie pasta
- Roasted root vegetables
Pasta makes a good side dish with scallops because it’s a starchy side dish that compliments the delicate texture of the scallops. When serving scallops with a pasta seafood side dish recipe, opt for garlic and oil-based sauces rather than traditional tomato-based sauces.
Side Dishes for Salmon:
Salmon is another rich and satisfying seafood, but you don't often serve salmon alone. Whether you're serving a side dish for smoked salmon lox, or grilled salmon fillets, including at least two side dishes to go with salmon creates a perfectly balanced meal. Here are a few of our favorite salmon side dishes:
- Bakery style bagels with homemade cream cheese (best side dish for smoked salmon)
- Lemon and herbed wild rice or your favorite rice side dish for salmon.
- Mixed green salad with balsamic vinaigrette (best side dish with salmon cakes).
- Blistered garlicky green beans.
- Sautéed lemon and garlic kale
- Honey roasted carrots
- Garlic and rosemary roasted potatoes
When it comes to salmon, the side dishes you choose will vary depending on the flavors you use to marinate your salmon. Honey glazed salmon would blend nicely with roasted carrots and a quinoa side dish for salmon. The best side dish for salmon will depend on how you choose to flavor and cook your salmon. Salmon is an extremely versatile choice of fish, and the options for side dishes are just as vast as the ways to cook salmon.
Side Dishes for Halibut:
Halibut is a firm white fish with a mild flavor and tender texture. Halibut is versatile in that it stands up to a variety of cooking flavors and cooking methods. As such, halibut pairs beautifully to a variety of side dishes. You can opt for a seafood side dish such as crab stuff halibut fillets, or a more traditional halibut side dish such as wild rice pilaf and roasted vegetables.
Here are a few of our favorite gourmet halibut side dish recipes:
- Haricot Verts with lemon and herbs
- Braised Fingerling potatoes
- Pesto Roasted tomatoes
- Honey and Soy glazed carrots
- Minted English peas
- Roasted asparagus and olives
- Garlic creamed fennel
- Tomato and Pineapple Gazpacho
- Asparagus Risotto with pureed peas
- Halibut Fish tacos with Strawberry salsa
Halibut is the kind of whitefish you can use in a wide variety of seafood dishes. From halibut tacos to halibut ceviche to a simple oven-roasted halibut fillets, you can cook halibut in a variety of ways and with a variety of flavors. Similarly, you can serve halibut with a huge range of side dishes. Choose from any of our side dishes in this guide, and they would probably go well with your halibut dinner.
Side Dishes for Tuna Steaks:
Tuna steaks are a firm textured seafood with a mild flavor. Believe it or not, tuna steaks are a perfect first-time seafood for non-seafood eaters because the texture of tuna is so firm, and the taster is so mild. When looking for side dishes with tuna steaks, be sure first to consider the flavors you will be using when marinating your tuna. Soy marinated tuna will go perfectly with soy-glazed vegetables as a tuna side dish, but not so well with creamed spinach. Like with salmon, the tuna steak side dish recipes will depend on the flavors you are using with your tuna.
Whether you're making tuna kabobs on the grill or pan-searing tuna steaks indoors, we can help you come up with ideas for a side dish for tuna steaks.
- Sliced tomato and cucumber salad (best side dish for grilled tuna steaks)
- Stir-fried vegetables
- Ahi Tuna and vegetable kabobs
- Teriyaki broccoli and rice
- Grilled asparagus
- Sesame rice pilaf
- Oven-roasted potato wedges
- Citrus fruit salad with pomegranate and honey dressing.
- Honey Roasted Sweet potatoes
One of our favorite tuna steak side dishes is a citrus salad with honey dressing. This salad is so simple to make, but it looks so elegant and would pair beautifully with a grilled Ahi tuna steak.
Citrus Salad with Pomegranate and honey dressing:
Ingredients:- 4-6 cups of mixed greens
- One blood orange
- One Cara Cara orange or any variety of your favorite oranges
- 1/2 a pink grapefruit
- 1/4 cup of pomegranate seeds
- One avocado peeled and sliced
- Honey for drizzling
Directions:
- Peel and wedge your citrus fruits
- Divide your mixed greens into two salad bowls
- Divide your citrus evenly amongst both bowls
- Sprinkle pomegranate seeds on both bowls
- Add slices of avocado on top of each salad
- Drizzle with honey
As you eat your salad, the citrus juice will blend with the honey for a honey citrus salad dressing that is both refreshing and compliments your grilled Ahi tuna steaks. This salad is light and healthy, with lots of flavors blending together in one beautiful side dish. Elevate this salad with a honey dressing by combining honey with olive oil, lemon juice, and yellow mustard for a tangy salad dressing that you can even drizzle on your tuna steaks!
Side Dishes for Mahi Mahi:
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Mahi Mahi is another mild-flavored white fish that is slightly more delicate than halibut. Like halibut, mahi mahi takes on many flavors and can be enjoyed in a variety of ways. From spicy blackened mahi mahi to a simply grilled mahi mahi, you can pair this fish with many flavors. There are many side dishes for mahi mahi, including any of the side dishes we've described above. We particularly like Mahi Mahi tacos with grilled pineapple and jalapeno salsa. Here are a few of our favorite mahi mahi side dish ideas.
- Avocado and corn salsa
- Coconut and mango rice pilaf
- Mango Salsa
- Lemon parsley potatoes
- Herbed mashed potatoes
- Mixed greens with a simple vinaigrette
- Grilled summer vegetables
- Sautéed arugula
- Grilled eggplant
Whether you're new to cooking seafood or just looking for new ideas to add some variety to your seafood meal, this guide can help you find some new flavors and side dishes to mix in with your seafood meals.
We love seafood and think you should too! Seafood is a healthy way to incorporate lean proteins and heart-healthy omega-three fatty acids into your diet. Compliment your main fish dishes with these bright and colorful side dishes.
When you order seafood with us, we guarantee your wild-caught seafood will arrive at your door still frozen over dry ice.
What are your favorite side dishes to serve with seafood?
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