BBQ trout is easier to make than grilled trout or smoked trout, although all are good. Slow and low with your favorite seasonings, fillets, whole trout and butterflied trout all work.

The coolest thing about BBQ trout is that you can play with the flavors, and it can be done on any sort of grill or smoker. 

Barbecuing a trout necessarily is slow and low, hopefully with lots of smoke involved. That said, it still shouldn’t take you more than 2 hours to make BBQ trout, where proper smoked trout takes several hours more. You can find my smoked trout recipe here.

And to be clear, this is not grilled trout. This is barbecued trout: The fish is getting indirect heat, ideally smoke, and the process is gentle. 

Best Trout for BBQ

Any species of trout or char will work for barbecued trout, but I prefer larger rainbows, browns, cutthroats or smallish pink salmon. A big kokanee would work well, too. 

Regardless, you will want a fish at least 12 inches long, and ideally about 18 inches long. And while you can certainly make BBQ trout whole, or just headless, and in the case of very large trout fillets, I really like to butterfly my trout first. (Here are my instructions on how to butterfly a fish.)

the reason is because the trout is almost boneless and the meat is opened up for seasonings and smoke — and it cooks faster than a whole fish. Easier to eat, too, since you simply lift off the meat from the skin. 

Making the Best BBQ Trout

Once you have your fish, you will want your grill hot, but not overly so. Nothing hotter than about 225°F. I use a pellet smoker for this, but any grill will work. Barbecued trout is cooked with the cover down.

A good tip is to oil the skin of the fish, so it won’t stick to the grates. This is important with a delicate fish like trout. 

Use a pair of spatulas to lift the BBQ trout off the grill grates and onto a baking sheet. Serve it hot or cold, as a centerpiece or flaked into a salad or sandwich. It’s especially good in trout dip. 

Variations

After that, flavors are up to you. You will want to salt or brine your fish first, then apply whatever flavoring you like. A simple brine would be 1/4 cup kosher salt and 1 quart of water, for maybe 2 to 4 hours. You can then do a spice rub, or a barbecue sauce when the trout is cooking.

I decided to take my BBQ trout in a Japanese direction. I soaked the trout in soy sauce, patted the fish dry, then slicked it up with some sesame oil, then sprinkled the Japanese spice mix togarashi all over it. I can tell you it is out of this world good, either by itself or flaked over simple steamed rice.

This same technique can be done with similarly oily fish, such as bluefish, mackerel, whitefish, grayling, and small jacks. It’s also good on catfish, for those of you who live inland.