Garlic Butter Lemon Baked Cod Recipe - Savory Nothings (2024)

Impress your family for dinner tonight with this incredibly easy Garlic Butter Lemon Baked Cod! It’s made with just 5 ingredients (plus salt and pepper), which makes it perfect for those busy weeknights.

With the zesty lemon and the rich garlic butter sauce, this will get the thumbs-up from even the pickiest eaters.

Easy baked cod recipe

This is one of my favorite easy and absolutely foolproof ways to prepare fish – any fish really, but especially cod. I’ve been using this recipe for years now, because it’s quick, easy and absolutely delicious. I make it at least once a month, and it’s always a huge hit at our house.

• Prep is super quick and easy – you’ll need just 5 ingredients, plus salt and pepper!
• All of the cooking happens in the oven – I love how the cod kind of poaches in the lemony garlic butter sauce, and it’s super hands-off because it’s baked in the oven.
• No platters and much less fish smells in the house vs cooking it on the stove!
• The fish stays super succulent and delicious this way, and you automatically get a delicious sauce to mop up with bread, rice or potatoes. Win!

Ingredients you’ll need

Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for quantities!

Ingredient notes

• Cod loin fillets: Cod loin is thicker and stays juicier compared to regular cod fillet pieces. I highly recommend using loin for best results, although you can definitely use the more budget-friendly fillets. Reduce the oven time to 10-15 minutes, depending on the exact thickness of your fish pieces.
• Garlic: Feel free to use ½ teaspoon dried garlic powder in place of the freshly minced garlic.
• Lemon juice: I use fresh lemon juice for this recipe, but bottled is fine in a pinch. If you’re not a fan of the slight bitterness in cooked lemon, leave out the sliced lemon (the bitterness comes from the pith, so juice only is perfectly fine to use without yielding this hint of bitterness).
• Parsley: The parsley is absolutely optional and I often don’t have any on hand. It’s not crucial to the success of this recipe, but it adds a nice pop of flavor.

How to bake cod

There are many different ways to make oven baked cod, but this is the method I use the most, right next to foil baking.

1. Season the fish with salt/pepper and place in a greased baking dish (skin-side down, if there’s skin on your fillets).

2. Combine lemon juice, garlic and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, then pour over the fish.

3. Dot with butter and bake!

So easy, but so good.

Recipe FAQs

Serving ideas

We love serving this with vegetables and any carb that helps mop up the delicious sauce – mashed potatoes, roasted baby potatoes, rice or even some crusty bread are all a great choice.

For a vegetable side, we love sautéed green beans (or air fried green beans), roasted broccoli (or air fryer broccoli) or roasted asparagus (or… you guessed it: air fryer asparagus).

Or to make a super easy dinner

Just place the baking dish with fish on one side of a rimmed sheet pan and fill the remaining space with veggies that will cook in 15-20 minutes (bell peppers, zucchini, red onion, asparagus, cherry tomatoes…), drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper.

Then bake as directed in the baked cod recipe below and serve with bread. So, so easy!

Video tutorial

PSIf you try this recipe, please leavea review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along onPinterest,FacebookorInstagram.

Printable recipe

Recipe first published on 03/06/2019. Updated with new photos, better text and minor changes to the wording in the recipe on 05/26/2021.

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