If there is one pompano recipe you’ll want to learn, it’s grilled pompano — a perfect method for cooking this tasty fish. No pompano? This recipe works with all similarly shaped fish, such as large crappies or bluegill, pomfret or butterfish.

This recipe works because of the shape of the fish: Pompano and similar fish are flattened vertically, so they are skinny on the grill and cook quickly. Even large fish are rarely more than about 2 inches thick total. This makes them perfect for grilling hot and fast.

You’ll notice that most pompano recipes are for whole fish. This is because their bone structure is such that filleting them wastes a ton of meat, even on a larger fish. Sure, you can fillet a pompano, or pomfret or bluegill, but they are so good whole you should try it sometime.

The basic grilled pompano recipe goes something like this:

• Scale, gut and remove the gills of the fish.
• Wash it well in salty water, seawater or a simple brine of 1/4 cup kosher or sea salt to 1 quart of water.
• Make a few slashes along the sides of the fish. In this case, don’t cross-hatch the cuts because that exposes too much of the meat to the fierce heat of the grill. (Cross hatching is great for fried pompano.)
• Rub the fish down with oil. I like olive oil, but you do you.
• Salt it well, inside and out.
• Get your fire hot. Real hot. Clean those grates!
• Using tongs and a paper towel soaked in oil, slick down your grill grates right before you place the fish on the grill. Let them cook a solid 4 to 8 minutes, depending on the heat of your grill, before flipping.
• Remove them, and finish with lemon and black pepper.

That’s grilled pompano in a nutshell. Now we get to play…

You’ll notice that the pictures in this post show a more elaborate recipe. That’s because marinated, grilled pompano is a popular dish all over the Caribbean, where they are native.

grilled pompano variations

My recipe is based on one from the Mexican state of Campeche. The pompano is marinated in a base of achiote (annatto) paste and sour orange juice, plus spices, then grilled over hardwood coals and topped with cilantro and thinly sliced habaneros.

It’s amazeballz. And it’s easy to make.

The paste comes premade and is in any Latin market, or on Amazon. The sour orange juice will also be at the Latin market — it’s shelf stable — or you can sub in 1 part lime juice, one part grapefruit juice and 2 parts orange juice.

other grilled fish ideas

Grilled pompano are an ideal fish for this, and remember this method works well with crappie, pomfret, small sheepshead, porgies, big bluegill and such.

If you’re interested in grilling other types of fish, you might like my recipes for simple grilled fish with basil, grilled fish on the half shell, grilled trout or grilled tuna steaks.

how to get meat off grilled fish

If you’re wondering how to serve a grilled pompano or other fish, you will want to use a knife to cut along the center line of the fish, from the gill plate back to the tail.

Now use a fork or spatula to lift meat off the top of the fish, lifting back toward the tail. It should lift off easily. Now lift the meat off the bottom of the fish behind the rib cage; that should lift off easily, too.

The meat over the ribs is a little trickier. Run the fork over the ribs and lift it away; this takes a little practice.

Now pull the backbone up and away from the tail to the head, then lift out the other ribs. Discard the skeleton.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below; I’d love to hear how everything went. If you’re on Instagram, share a picture and tag me at huntgathercook.