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This Chilean Sea Bass Tastes Like a Restaurant Dinner: My lemon caper butter Chilean sea bass is one of those recipes that feels like a restaurant splurge, but I designed this to be surprisingly easy to make at home! The fish always comes out buttery, rich, and it practically melts in your mouth- while the lemon caper butter adds just the right balance of brightness and savory flavor.
This is the kind of dish I love making when I want dinner to feel special without spending hours in the kitchen – and also one I recommend for beginner home cooks to try for a fancy dinner. We’re using simple ingredients with a quick cooking method, to get a big payoff. Whether it’s a date night at home, a dinner party, or just treating yourself to something really good, this recipe delivers every time. This is truly The Easiest Way to Make Chilean Sea Bass at Home!
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At Sweet C’s, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe. My goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.
Table of contents
How to Cook Lemon Caper Seabass
This lemon caper butter Chilean sea bass is tender, flaky, and finished with a bright, buttery sauce that’s packed with flavor. This fish is easy to make, but also elegant enough for entertaining. I tested lots of seabass recipes to come up with this restaurant-quality seafood dinner you can make at home!
Check out my web story on this easy Chilean Sea Bass!
Simple Ingredients for Chilean Sea Bass
To make this recipe, you’ll need:
- Chilean Seabass filets – Chilean seabass is a light, flaky fish that has a similar flavor to cod, but a rich and fatty texture. Chilean seabass often tastes buttery, crisps beautifully when pan fried, and is not prone to drying out. It has a mild flavor, and doesn’t taste “fishy” at all.
- Shallot – shallot is earthy, pungent, with a flavor of onion and garlic, but less intense.
- Garlic – garlic adds an earthy, addictive kick to seafood that seriously ups the rich, addictive flavor.
- Lemon juice – lemon juice adds a bright, acidic, lightly sweet kick to butter sauce, helps to kick through the fat in the butter and fish, and neutralizes any fishy smells and flavors some people associate with seafood.
- Capers – capers are unripe flower buds of Capparis spinosa with a tangy, lemon and olive-like flavor.
- Italian Herbs seasoning – a blend of basil, thyme, oregano and marjoram is lightly earthy, sweet, and peppery.
- Butter – butter is used both to fry our fish and as the base for our lemon caper sauce – the rich milkfats bring a delicious addictive flavor to both the fish and sauce, creating an unforgettable dinner!
- Salt – I recommend using a high quality celtic sea salt when cooking.
- Pepper – using freshly cracked black pepper brings a spicy heat that has a bit acidic and bright. For best flavor, use fresh cracked pepper, as the flavor can fade quickly.
Chilean Sea Bass and Lemon Caper Butter Sauce Step-by-Step
Once you’ve gathered your ingredients, we will use the following process:
Cook Fish
Melt butter in nonstick pan and place fish in hot pan on medium high heat. Cook face-down for 4-6 minutes, until golden brown and very crispy.
Flip and cook skin side down until fish is 135-140 internal temp, and skin is golden and crispy.
Let Rest
Remove fish from pan and set aside to rest. Fish should rest 5-10 minutes before serving, use this time to make the sauce.
Make Sauce
Melt additional butter in pan and cook shallots and garlic until soft and fragrant. Stir in lemon and capers, then reduce heat and let thicken, about 3-4 minutes total.
Top Fish with Sauce & Serve
Drizzle sauce over fish and garnish with microgreens, parsley, cilantro, or green onions as desired. Serve immediately and enjoy!
How to Get Tender, Flaky Sea Bass
Don’t flip often. Seabass gets a lovely, crispy crunch when cooking in butter – let it develop. Resist the urge to over-flip fish, instead flipping just when browned.
Let fish brown. One of my favorite parts of seabass is the lovely texture it takes on when browned in butter – it gets a crispy buttery crust that is savory and unctuous – you can’t beat it. Let the fish brown before flipping so you don’t miss all that flavor!
Crisp the skin. Chilean Seabass skin is delicious when crispy – really let is brown and crisp up for the most intense, salty, buttery flavor.
Pat the fish dry first. This helps achieve a beautiful golden sear.
Don’t overcook. Sea bass is done when it flakes easily and is opaque throughout.
My Pro Tip
Why This Lemon Butter Sea Bass Always Impresses
Since Chilean Seabass is a thicker and a fattier fish, it is very forgiving, making it less prone to overcooking and drying out. This is a great beginner dish to try – it comes out restaurant quality, even if you’re still learning how to not overcook fish!
Use fresh lemon juice. It brightens the rich butter sauce.
Add capers at the end. This keeps their briny flavor bold and balanced.
Spoon the sauce generously. The lemon caper butter is a big part of the dish.
What to Serve With Lemon Caper Chilean Seabass
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Lemon Caper Butter Chilean Seabass
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 6 oz chilean seabass filets
- 3 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons butter, 4 total, 3 for sauce, 2 for pan frying fish
- 2 tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon capers
- 1 large shallot, finely minced
- 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 1 teaspoon Italian Herbs seasoning mix
- 1 teaspoon celtic sea salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- diced parsley, or microgreens, to garnish, optional
Instructions
- Heat a large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat.
- Melt 2 tablespoons butter in pan until light and foamy.
- Add seabass, fat side face down in butter.
- Cook about 6 minutes, until fish is golden brown on one side.
- Flip, cook skin-side down, until crispy and golden brown. Fish should be golden brown on top and bottom and flake easily when done.
- When fish has crisped, remove from pan, and set aside on a plate. Discard butter in pan.
- Add pan back to stove, and return to medium-high heat.
- Melt 3 tablespoons butter in pan and add shallots and garlic. Cook to soft and lightly browned, fragrant, and softened, about 2 minutes, stirring often.
- Stir in lemon juice, pepper, salt, herbs, and capers.
- Let reduce slightly and thicken, about 1 minute.
- Spoon sauce over seabass and top with parsley or microgreens.
- Serve immediately.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Everything You Need to Know About Lemon Caper Chilean Sea Bass
Chilean seabass is done cooking when it flakes easily and has reached a temperature of 140 degrees internally.
This recipe can be stored in an airtight container for up to three days in the refrigerator.
Chilean seabass is actually the rebranded name for Patagonian toothfish – a species of notothen found in cold waters in the southern Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans and the Southern Ocean. It’s flavor is light, similar to cod.
Chilean seabass is a protein-rich seafood and our lemon caper sauce is keto and low carb diet compatible.
To be sure your fish doesn’t stick, be sure to use enough butter; get your pan nice and hot before adding the fish (letting it sear right away in hot, melted butter will create a barrier to keep fish from sticking to pan); cook skin side up first; and
To keep fish from sticking to pans, even very well seasoned cast iron pans, we recommend cooking this recipe in a nonstick skillet. We personally use a ceramic skillet instead of skillets treated with chemicals that can break down in food.
Since Chilean Seabass is a thicker, fattier fish, it is much sturdier, and will hold up to cooking in a pan and being flipped without breaking apart. However, we recommend only flipping once and using a fish spatula that is wide and slightly curved to make flipping fish without breaking even easier.
You can use sablefish, also known as black cod, as a great swap for Chilean seabass. Sablefish also flakes when cooked, and has a similar flavor and fat composition and texture to Chilean seabass.
Yummy! I added white wine to the sauce, but otherwise followed the recipe. Will definitely be making this again!!
So delicious and flavorful, thank you!
Glad you love it!
Such an amazing recipe. I used it last night it was a true hit for my husband.
So glad you loved it! Thank you for the wonderful comment!
It was a delicious recipe, I used pea sprouts, and a sea salt herb mix.
Very tasty
Glad you enjoyed it, thanks for commenting!
It’s hard to believe that this simple recipe is so delicious. We’ve used it with Seabass and thick loin, cuts of halibut, and cod.
So glad you love it!
Really nice recipe. We all really enjoyed it. Thank you for posting.