Baked Citrus Tilapia

Here is our second tilapia recipe. Our first was Jerk Tilapia. Jerk is a popular method of seasoning in Jamaica and other nearby islands, and is wonderful although it requires quite a few spices.

Although spices are great for bodybuilders and others as they add flavor with essentially zero calories, this recipe uses fewer ingredients.

Tilapia is a sustainably farmed fish that is high in protein, low in carbs and fat, and widely available. It is a mild flavored fish so it is great for flavored recipes like this Baked Citrus Tilapia, based on a recipe in Dave Ruel’s Anabolic Cooking.

It’s simple, fast, and easy, using fewer ingredients than Jerk Tilapia.

First the ingredients (I often double the recipe):

• 1 pound Tilapia fillets
• ¼ cup lime or lemon juice
• ¼ cup orange juice
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt (I like seasalt)
• A few shakes of black pepper
• 2-3 teaspoons of lemon or lime zest (see below)

• Optional: hot sauce of your choice or a hot chili or jalapeno, seeds removed and sliced into thin pieces.

First make the marinade. It’s pretty simple.

Combine the lemon or lime juice, orange juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, and the lemon or lime zest.

Zest is simply the grated outside of a citrus fruit: lemon or lime in this case. About one lemon or lime worth is perfect – use a grater and just grate off the very exterior  (a microplane grater, if you have one, makes this super fast but any grater will work).

If this is too complicated (or you do not have a lemon or lime), it’ll taste a little different but fine without zest.

Freshly squeezed juices are best, but bottled are absolutely fine. I use whatever I have on hand. In the pictures, I actually used a blood red orange because I happened to have one.

Optionally, if you want it hot, add hot sauce or hot peppers as described above in the ingredients.

Add the tilapia to the marinade and make sure it gets all over the fillets. Put the tilapia and the marinade in a baking pan. If you want to cut down on things to wash, you can even mix the marinade in the baking pan.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Once it is preheated, place the tilapia inside.

It’ll take about 12 minutes to cook. It is obvious when it is done as the fish will flake easily with a fork and be opaque.

Nutritionally, an entire pound of tilapia cooked this way has only 800 calories, 130 grams of protein, 4 grams of carbs, and 28 grams of fat. That is for an entire pound!

I’ve slightly modified the recipe, but thanks to Dave for the inspiration!