Ina Garten’s 20-Minute Roasted Snapper Is So Dreamy

After more than 25 years with NBC, Hoda Kotb hosted her final episodes of the Today Show last week. The longtime anchor has done a little bit of everything, from reporting from war zones and Olympic villages to hanging out in the Today studio with the likes of Prince Harry and Snoop Dogg. 

As part of her big send-off, the Today Show featured all kinds of “Hoda-bration” fanfare last week, including a visit from the Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten. Garten brought along a few recipes, plus some glasses of French 75—a classic gin-Champagne cocktail—to give a final toast to Hoda’s hosting days.

One of the recipes Garten brought along is a simple, six-ingredient snapper recipe that Garten is hoping will make it into Kotb’s dinner rotation. After all, it’s almost as easy as the two-ingredient Ponzu Fish dinner that Kotb loves to recommend—and we’re pretty much guaranteed to try both recipes.

How to Make Hoda Kotb’s Ponzu Fish

Kotb has had a steadfast appreciation for her Ponzu Fish recipe, and she’s often shared the recipe on episodes of the Today Show. With only two ingredients, its simplicity is certainly part of the allure. To make it, Kotb starts with a baking dish, some black cod and a bottle of ponzu sauce.

Kotb places her pieces of cod in the baking dish—a spritz of cooking spray will help you avoid sticking—and drizzles the ponzu sauce over each piece until there’s a pool of ponzu in the baking dish that rises about halfway up the fish. Then she bakes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes. To be safe, you can use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature of the fish, which should be 145 degrees Fahrenheit when done.

The resulting fish is similar, Kotb says, to the black cod served at Nobu, where it’s prepared in a delish miso marinade. Since this version has just two ingredients and takes a fraction of the time to make, it might be one of the easiest copycat recipes we’ve come across.

How to Make Ina’s 20-Minute Snapper

In tribute to Kotb’s dedicated love for easy recipes like her Ponzu Fish, Garten brought along one of the simplest, most flavorful fish dinners in her arsenal. Her easy Mustard-Roasted Fish is just a touch more complicated, with six ingredients, but it takes even less time to make—you can get this supper on the table in 20 minutes. 

“This is Hoda-friendly,” Garten told a laughing Kotb during their Today Show segment.

The recipe, which Garten says she learned from a coat check attendant in Paris, starts with arranging red snapper on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Garten sprinkles each piece with salt and pepper, then gets out some crème fraîche, Dijon mustard, whole grain mustard, minced shallots and capers. She combines all of those ingredients in a bowl, then spreads a layer of the mixture over each piece of fish. 

With the fish covered in flavorful topping, she bakes the snapper at 425 degrees Fahrenheit until cooked through, about 10 to 15 minutes. With it, Garten suggests serving roasted broccolini, which she tosses with olive oil, salt and pepper, then bakes with the fish for just about seven minutes. After a quick bite, both Kotb and her co-host, Jenna Bush Hager, were thoroughly won over.

“That fish is so yummy,” Kotb said after a taste. As for the broccolini, which Hager and Kotb said they both usually avoided, it received rave reviews, too. “You’ve changed my mind on broccolini,” Hager said.

Since Garten finished off the little taste test with a plate of bright and fruity lemon bars, you’ve basically got a whole dinner menu on your hands.

Making Ina’s Fish at Home

No one loves celebrities *or* fish more than we do, and we appreciate that Kotb and Garten prove that cooking delicious fish can be so simple. Garten’s recipe might be more complicated, but her combination of punchy mustards brings tons of vinegary flavor to the dish. The addition of aromatic shallots and salty capers balance that acidity with fun texture and a savory bite. Overall, it’s a mostly nutritious preparation. 

That being said, the other main ingredient is crème fraîche, which is definitely delicious, but also supplies a decent amount of saturated fat. Most folks should aim to get no more than 10% of their calories from saturated fat, and if you’re eating a heart healthy diet, you may aim for even less saturated fat in your routine.

If you’d like to decrease the amount of saturated fat in this recipe, we have some ideas for modifying it. The recipe calls for 8 ounces crème fraîche for four servings, which ends up being about ¼ cup sauce per fillet. One option is to simply decrease the amount of sauce you use to cover the fish—use 2 tablespoons per fillet, for example. You could also try leaving the crème fraîche out entirely, so you end up with a more concentrated mustard mixture, like we use in our Smoky Maple-Mustard Salmon.

And if you’re really feeling up to experimenting, you could try subbing in some low-fat sour cream or plain Greek yogurt in place of the crème fraîche. We haven’t tried it ourselves, but with a little tinkering, you’re sure to figure it out.

No matter how you serve it up, a quick squeeze of lemon over the top is a must—especially if you spritz a little over your broccolini, too,