Grilled Fish Fillets
Grilling fish at home is easy and delicious. Follow these steps using Kingsford® Charcoal to get moist and flaky fish fillets.
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Ingredients
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4 fish fillets
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olive oil
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salt and pepper to taste
1 Food Prep
Pat your fish fillet dry with a paper towel. Run your fingers over the fish, feeling for bones and remove them with kitchen tweezers. Then, very lightly oil both sides of your fish with cooking oil, which will help prevent it from sticking to the grate.
Season your fish as you like, and keep your fish refrigerated until your grill is ready — you don’t need to bring your fish fillets to room temperature before grilling.
2 Grill Prep
Fuel: We recommend Kingsford® Original Charcoal Briquets
Method: Two-Zone Method
Temp: 350°F (Medium Heat)
Carefully hold your hand about 5” to 6” above the grate, and refer to the temperature settings below:
• High Heat (450° to 550°F):
2 to 4 seconds
• Medium Heat (350° to 450°F):
5 to 6 seconds
• Low Heat (250° to 350°F):
8 to 10 seconds
Make sure your clothing doesn’t touch the grate, and always move your hand away from the heat before you feel discomfort.
When you’re at temp, put cooking oil on a folded paper towel. Grab the oiled paper towel with long-handled tongs and oil the grate thoroughly.
3 The Cook
- Scrub and oil the grate by dipping a folded paper towel in cooking oil and oiling the entire clean grate using long-handled tongs.
- If there’s skin on one side of the fillet, place it onto the grate skin-side down first, directly over the coals. Avoid moving your fish for the first 2 minutes to get a good sear and prevent it from sticking. When it’s time to turn, be sure to use a wide spatula — or two spatulas facing each other — and gently roll the fish over as opposed to flipping it. Like with most foods, only flip once.
- If you want to grill very delicate, thin filets, lay some slices of lemon or orange on the grill first instead of putting them directly on the grates.
- The time it takes to grill a fish filet varies greatly with thickness, but a general rule is 10 minutes per inch of thickness. Your fish is ready to serve when it reaches an internal temperature of 145ºF.
The time it takes to grill a fish fillet varies greatly with thickness, but a general rule is 10 minutes per inch of thickness.*
Use a knife to check the center of your fillet when it’s nearing done. For thin fillets, when the meat is consistently opaque and flakes easily, it’s done. For thick fillets, you want to remove it when the middle is just slightly translucent, because thicker fillets will continue to cook for a few minutes after you remove them from the grill.
* USDA Safety Guidelines recommend cooking fish to 145°F to make sure any harmful bacteria are destroyed.For safe meat preparation, reference the USDA website.
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