How Much Your Branzino Fish Should Weigh To Feed 2 People
Branzino has been one of the trendiest fish in the last few years. A whole branzino is just the thing to impress any dinner guests, and you needn't be afraid to grill it, since it's firm enough not to fall apart on the grill grates as more delicate fish might do. Should you be dining à deux, however, will a whole fish be too much? Not enough? Just right? Well, some of that will depend on whether you're dining partner is Goldilocks or Papa Bear. To get some general guidance for average appetites, The Takeout spoke with Hidekazu Kato, a chef who works at the Park Hyatt Niseko Hanazono in Hokkaido, Japan.
According to Kato, "If cooking the entire fish, 400 grams to 500 grams is necessary for one person." That means you'll need to double that for two, and if you're not fluent in metric, this works out to about two pounds of fish for two people. If the branzino is cut into steaks, however, you won't need nearly as much. "For a steak, you would need 300 grams to 400 grams for two servings," says Kato, which comes out to about ¾ pound.
What if you're eating alone, though?
If you're dining solo, can you also enjoy branzino cooked whole? Of course you can — eating by yourself shouldn't mean subsisting on nothing but canned soup and salad. In fact, the very demure, very mindful TikTok food trend of 2024 involved creating elegant, yet healthful, meals even when alone. Even if you can't find a branzino weighing just one pound, you can go ahead and cook a two-pound fish, enjoy half of it, and then repurpose the leftovers. (According to the USDA, you have up to four days to finish cooked fish kept in the fridge.)
What can you do with it, though? One idea would be to use it in a rice or grain bowl or a green salad. As branzino is native to the Mediterranean, sun-dried tomatoes, feta crumbles, pepperoncini, and a lemon vinaigrette would all be appropriate accompaniments. It can also be used to fill tacos or mixed with marinara and poured over pasta. Only warm it very gently, though, since re-cooking fish for any length of time tends to dry it out. However, one exception to that rule is using it in fish cakes. When flaked and mixed with mashed potatoes and eggs, the branzino is insulated from the frying pan's heat by those extra ingredients.