Healthy Fish Fingers Recipe

This recipe for fish fingers is tasty, healthy, and fast and avoids the additives and GMOs of commercial brands at the store.

Fish fingers are generally considered junk food by parents seeking to feed their children a healthy diet. A little investigation of the commercial brands available at the supermarket quickly reveals why.

Typically fried in cheap, rancid, (genetically modified) GMO vegetable oils like soy or canola with a long, eyebrow raising list of ingredients filled with unpronounceable additives and fillers, it’s no wonder this simple dish that has been made and enjoyed for centuries is on the avoid list of the food label reading public.

The sad thing is that brands at the healthfood store aren’t that much better with the same cheap, rancid oils used in most cases.

Here’s the ingredients list of a very popular (and expensive) gluten free fish fingers brand I examined recently. Ironically, the motto of the company making these fish fingers is “tested, true, and trusted”.

Trust? Seriously? Not with these ingredients! 

Commercial Fish Finger Ingredients

Ian’s Gluten Free Fish Sticks: FISH STICKS [WHOLE ALASKAN POLLOCK FILLETS, BATTER (WATER, YELLOW CORN FLOUR, CORN STARCH, SEA SALT, GARLIC POWDER), BREADER (MILLED CORN, CANE SUGAR)]. BREADING SET IN EXPELLER PRESSED CANOLA OIL.

Wow, LOTS of GMOs laced with Roundup residue in that list (corn flour, corn starch, canola oil).

Not to mention the nasty tap water used to make the batter.

Interestingly, Ian’s Foods has significantly cheapened this product since I first wrote this recipe in 2016. It used to prominently list non-GMO canola oil in the ingredients.

Slow cheapening of products over time is par for the course for Big Food.

Uh, no thanks!

Make. It. Yourself.

Two Keys to Healthy Fish Fingers

The key to delicious, healthy fish fingers you make yourself is twofold:  The quality oil selected for frying and the freshness of the fish.

You can select any mild, flaky white fish you want to make your homemade fish fingers.

I typically use snapper (either red or yellow) simply because it is readily available fresh, whole, and wild in my neck of the woods.

For frying, I use expeller coconut oil and keep the temperature at or below 325°F/ 163 °C to ensure that no free radicals form during cooking.  

It is simple to keep tabs on the cooking temperature with an inexpensive food thermometer. This really is an essential cooking tool that I use all the time!

Keeping the temperature as low as possible also minimizes the carcinogenic acrylamides that form during high heat cooking of any starch (the breading on the fish fingers is the culprit here).

Note that you don’t need to use coconut oil if you don’t want to as there are plenty of other healthy fats that are great such as beef tallow.

I prefer expeller coconut oil because it is very cost-effective and the results taste great. I also don’t always have tallow on hand.

Preparation and Serving Tips

Prep/cooking time for this simple dish is only 20-30 minutes total!

Feel free to substitute homemade sourdough breadcrumbs for the flour if you prefer a panko-style texture.

It is much faster even than pizza delivery (that’s a yuck idea anyway, so skip that thought).

Be sure to serve them with a healthy sauce!

Two options we enjoy are a simple homemade cocktail sauce (my favorite) or a tangy fermented tartar sauce.

A little organic mustard and raw honey emulsified together with a fork makes a yummy and fast sauce too.

5 from 1 vote

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Homemade Fish Fingers Recipe

This recipe for homemade fish fingers is tasty, healthy, and fast and avoids the additive and GMO ingredients of commercial brands at the store even the organic ones!

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Keyword easy, healthy

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 6

Calories 310 kcal

Author Sarah Pope

Ingredients

• 1-2 pounds fresh, wild, mild white fish fillets (I use snapper)
• 1/4 -1/2 cup expeller pressed coconut oil
• 1 cup sprouted flour preferably freshly ground
• 2 eggs preferably free range
• sea salt
• pepper

Instructions

1. Pour the coconut oil in a large frying pan and place it on a large burner on the stovetop. Turn the heat to medium.

2. Crack the eggs in a large bowl and beat lightly with a fork. Sprinkle some sea salt and pepper into the egg mixture and beat once more with the fork.

3. Sprinkle and evenly distribute the flour onto a large plate.

4. Dip each fish fillet in the egg mixture and then cover both sides of the fillet with flour by gently dragging it through the flour on the floured plate. Repeat until all the fillets are battered.

5. Check the temperature of the oil in the frying pan with a food thermometer. It should be about 325°F/ 163 °C or slighly lower, as it's been heating up while you were battering the fish. Place the battered fillets gently into the hot oil in the pan.

6. Cook for about 3 minutes and then turn each fillet over with a large stainless steel utensil or wooden tongs (please don't use plastic!). Cook for 3-4 minutes more.

7. When a knife easily cuts through the center of each fillet like butter, the fish fingers are ready. Don’t cook them a moment longer or the fish will get chewy. Remove the fillets from the pan with the tongs and place on a large plate. Cut each fillet lengthwise and then again across the middle to form four fish fingers per fillet. If you used very large fillets, feel free to cut them down making more than four fingers per fillet.

8. Serve immediately with your choice of vegetables, salad, or soup.

9. Refrigerate leftovers and serve as fish sandwiches for lunch the next day.

Nutrition Facts

Homemade Fish Fingers Recipe

Amount Per Serving (0.25 pound)

Calories 310 Calories from Fat 162

% Daily Value*

Fat 18g28%

Saturated Fat 16g80%

Polyunsaturated Fat 1g

Monounsaturated Fat 1g

Potassium 210mg6%

Carbohydrates 24g8%

Fiber 1g4%

Protein 13g26%

Calcium 18mg2%

Iron 1mg6%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.