Halibut with Lemon and Olive Tapenade

Halibut with lemon and olive tapenade is one of my go-to quick-but-light warm weather dinners. Fresh halibut is marinated in lemon, garlic, and olive oil, baked, then topped with cool olives in a fresh lemon, garlic, chive sauce.

Summer Dinners

Like many people, I start craving “light” foods as soon as the weather starts hinting that it’s about to get oppressively hot. Cold cucumbers (so unappealing in winter – so irresistible in summer), fresh, uncooked tomatoes, herbs, cold capers, cold olives, etc.

When it comes to dinner proteins, white fish is near the top of that list. It has the benefit of being quick to cook. And over the years I’ve started serving it with cold and tangy olive tapenade.

The one caveat is that this is a good early summer dish. Because you do need an oven, which might not be ideal on days where the heat gets over 85F. I suppose you could try this on the grill – I will be trying that out later this summer. But I haven’t yet experimented with that option. Will provide notes once I’ve dug into this. For now, I recommend sticking with the oven.

The Importance of Good Halibut

This dish highlights the delicate flavor of halibut – mild, slightly sweet, and briny. This means you need good halibut for the recipe. In other words, when you prep the fish – you should notice no smell. This is not a good recipe for when you have a fillet that is a bit past its prime but still edible.

If you do notice a smell when you start to prepare the dish, I would suggest pivoting toward a recipe that has more of a sauce, where the flavor of the fish is a complement, but not the star of the show. For instance, this white fish baked with tomatoes, olives, and capers is a great option. It’s a quick, very tasty, and summery dish.

Frozen Fishes

In trying to minimize the risk of past-prime halibut, I’ve had the best luck with frozen halibut. There are lots of good options online these days that have great halibut. I move my fillets from the freezer to the refrigerator the night before so it’s ready to go by dinner. This is the most reliable option, because I know I have very fresh fish available pretty much whenever I want. Provided I remember to move the fish to the fridge the evening before, of course.

FYI – The evening-before freezer-to-fridge move is by far the best way to defrost fish. I do not recommend trying to speed up the process by soaking it in cool water (the other, fast, method to defrost fish). While I have had this work out without issues, I have also had it spectacularly not work out, and it’s never a pleasant discovery. For this recipe in particular, where you really want to maximize freshness, I wouldn’t take the gamble.

Grocery Store Fish

I’ve also had decent luck with halibut at our local grocery store, but it is more hit or miss. Sometimes they don’t have it, sometimes it doesn’t look great.

To find good fish, you’re at a disadvantage already when you’re buying a fillet. The best way to judge freshness is to see the whole fish. For a whole fish, lots of people check the eyes – but fish stored in ice can have cloudy eyes, even if the fish is otherwise fresh. Also, the eyes vary between species and based on how the fish is handled. The two most important things I would check are the gills (which should be bright red or pink, not brown, gray, or sticky/slimy), and the smell (you want the fish to smell like the ocean, not fishy).

For fillets, you’re looking for translucency, vibrancy of color (bright white for halibut), a moist appearance (but not sliminess), and a tight, firm texture (i.e., no flaking or separation into segments). The edges should not look discolored or dry. The best method here is to ask if you can smell the fish – this is always a pretty solid indicator of whether or not something is fresh.

Halibut with Lemon and Olives

This dish started out with a Lemon-Marinated Halibut recipe from Serious Eats. My husband and I started making this back before we had kids and loved it. Since then we’ve tweaked the recipe a bit.

Most importantly, I always felt like something was missing until I started chopping up olives, garlic, and herbs and eating them alongside the halibut. Maybe because the fish is so light, it needed a punchy but fresh flavor alongside. Whatever it is, the brine of the olives and capers and the more subtle brine of the halibut work really well together. When it’s a really fresh halibut, I feel like I’m standing by the harbor, eating something straight out of the ocean.

Note for Moms, Moms-to-be, and Kids

Halibut is one of those fish that the FDA considers a “good choice” fish, not a “best choice.” This is because, as a larger fish species, it tends to accumulate more mercury. That means you shouldn’t serve it to young kids, or eat it yourself if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, more than once a week, no matter how delicious it is.

What does once a week look like?

The FDA guidelines explain that for pregnant women, this means a single 4-ounce serving (think the palm of your hand), once a week.

For kids ages 1-3, a 1-ounce serving, once a week.

For kids ages 4-7, a 2-ounce serving, once a week.

For kids 8-10, a 3-ounce serving, once a week.

For kids 11+, a 4-ounce serving, once a week.

Olive Tapenade

I like the olive tapenade on this fish tastes best without capers. It’s less complex and therefore more punchy. Because I make it without capers, it technically is not tapenade. But I still think tapenade is the best descriptor here, so I’m sticking with it. So now I’ve said it, and now we can move on.

Also – my kids have an off-and-on-again relationship with olives. So I let them eat the fist topped with olive oil and a bit of salt if they prefer. Maybe a squeeze of lemon. It’s truly very delicious that way.

Now, on to the recipe.

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