Easy Baked Cod With Lemon Sauce
on Feb 25, 2022, Updated Jun 12, 2025
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
A truly simple fish dish, but with a nice personality thanks to a drizzle or dollop of lemon yogurt sauce.
This is one of the easiest fish dishes ever, perfect for a weeknight dinner. The cod fillets are roasted with just oil, salt, and pepper, and then a small drizzle of lemon yogurt sauce gives the tender, mild fish extra personality.
You can use halibut, or scrod, any flaky white fish in this baked cod recipe. You can fill a ziptop baggie with the yogurt sauce, snip a tiny triangle off one of the bottom corners, and squeeze a squiggle or two over the fish. If you want to skip the yogurt in the baggie part, you can just top each filet with a spoonful of the lemony sauce.
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy.
Serve the cod with Bulgur Wheat with Caramelized Onions and Parsley, Roasted Carrots with Tapenade Dressing, and Parmesan-Roasted Brussels Sprouts for a very pretty meal. In the spring, try it with any version of asparagus.
Also try Grilled Cod!
What's In This Post?
Baked Cod: A foolproof, simple recipe that lets the flavor of the fish shine (with extra personality thanks to a drizzle of lemon yogurt).
How Long to Bake Cod
The rule of thumb for cooking fish is 10 minutes per inch of thickness. You want the cod to be opaque and separate into chunks of large flakes when you stick a fork in it. If you are baking larger fillets of fish, even if they are not thicker, you’ll need to add more time. For this baked cod, if your filets are 1 inch thick, they should take 10 minutes to bake at 400 degrees. The internal temperature should be 145 degrees.
Kitchen Smarts
If you want to make roasted vegetables to go with the fish, you can slide the cod into the oven for the last 10 or so minutes of roasting time, maximizing your oven space and energy.
How to Bake Cod
- Preheat the oven.
- Roast the fish.
- Make the sauce.
- Serve: When the fish is done, drizzle some sauce over the fish. That’s it!
More Sauces for Baked Fish
Drizzling or dolloping a piece of simply roasted fish with a sauce is such an easy way to make dinner interesting. Try sesame drizzle, olive drizzle, green goddess sauce, chimichurri sauce, or persillade — this is a smart use for leftover sauces of all stripes.
What to Serve With Baked Cod
More Fish and Seafood Recipes
- Cod with Fresh Herb Sauce
- Rosemary Orange Cod Filets
- One Pot Cod, Cabbage, and Edamame
- 5-Ingredient Honey Ginger Salmon
- New England Baked Haddock
Pin this now to find it later
Pin It
Easy Baked Cod with Lemon Sauce
Ingredients
- 4 6 to 8 ounces filets of cod (about 1-inch thick)
- 1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
For the Lemon Yogurt Sauce (Optional)
- ½ cup plain whole milk Greek yogurt
- ½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- ¼ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 F. Spray a shallow baking dish or rimmed baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray.
- Place the fish in the prepared baking dish and rub the tops with the oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast the cod for about 10 minutes until it is cooked through and flaky — if the pieces of cod are thinner or thicker than 1 inch, you may need to reduce or extend the cooking time by a couple of minutes.
- While the fish is roasting, place the yogurt, lemon juice and zest in a sealable plastic bag. Seal the bag and mush it all around until blended. When you are ready to serve the fish, snip a tiny corner off of the baggie, and drizzle it over the fish. Serve hot.
