Home Kitchen Lemon Brown Butter Perch

Lemon Brown Butter Perch is a simple yet incredibly savory recipe. Perch filets are lightly dredged in flour and fried in brown butter and served with a squeeze of lemon. Serve with your go-to rice, a simple salad or your go-to veggie side dish. This dish will serve 4 in about 25 minutes.

Hello, unfussy weeknight dinner!

This dish checks all the boxes. Short and straightforward – check! Few ingredients – check! Flavor-packed – check! It truly takes minutes to whip up and tastes memorable. The nuttiness of the brown butter with the freshness of the lemon is – *chefs kiss*.

I serve it with fluffy cooked jasmine rice and a simple arugula salad.

To cook this Lemon Brown Butter Perch Set out:

• unbleached all-purpose flour
• fine salt
• ground black pepper
• perch
• salted butter
• lemon

In a shallow bowl, add 2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon fine salt and 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper. Whisk to combine.

Start with 1-1/2 pounds of perch filets. Because these aren’t too thick, I serve 2 perch filets per person. I also left the skin on. Why? Because these are pretty thin filets and I want to get as much meat as possible. Perch skin is edible, however it’s also particularly unfussy to eat the perch even if the skin is intact.

You could also make this dish with tilapia, rockfish or red snapper. I find it hard to believe that a fish wouldn’t work in this dish.

Dredge each piece of fish, pressing it into the flour.

Coat on both sides.

Shake off any excess.

Repeat with the remaining filets.

Next melt 4 tablespoons salted butter in a 12-inch skillet.

Stir and cook over medium to medium-low until the butter has browned and smells nutty.

Work in batches of 2, placing 4 filets down (skin side up) and cook 3 minutes.

Turn and continue to cook another 2 to 3 minutes or until the fish flakes easily. Transfer to a clean platter and repeat with remaining perch.

Add the last of the perch to a platter and drizzle with with the brown butter from the pan.

Squeeze lemon over top right before serving. And season with salt and pepper IF needed, to taste.

And that’s it! SO unfussy! I promise you are going to love this one!

Enjoy! And if you give this Lemon Brown Butter Perch recipe a try, let me know! Snap a photo and tag me on twitter or instagram!