The Best Stuffed Tilapia EVER (Or fish of your choice)

A while back I found tilapia on sale for hardly nothing.  They were pretty nice sized fillets.  Normally I bake or fry tilapia with a special mix and reduced with white wine but they were so nice sized I thought why not stuff them.  I have to be honest, I had never stuffed fish before.  I had no clue what I was doing, as usual.  I tend to just look at recipes for ideas then make it how I wanna make it.  

Most searches brought up crab stuffed tilapia.  Since this was not a per say SPECIAL meal I just could not see my frugal heart wasting money on lump crab meat.  I opted for a spinach and cheese base stuffing.  Of course, not just any ole cheese will do with fish.  I think you need a strong one.  Something to compliant the fish.  I chose a swiss and gruyere mix.  

I love onions and since I have 80lbs of them I opted to take a small onion and dice it along with 5 cloves of garlic.  Yes, I love garlic.  Of course, if you do not, you do not have to add the garlic.  I sauteed the onion until it was starting to caramelize and threw in the garlic and the fresh spinach.  I wilted the spinach pretty good.

While that was going on I had to make a base to put it in.  I used bread crumbs, one egg, lemon juice, my cheese mixture, and a bit of mayonnaise.  You have to let your hot stuff cool a while before you add it to the other mixture.   This gave me time to season my fish fillets.  I put a bit of pink salt, fresh ground pepper and some fish seasoning I had picked up a while back.  

Once everything had cooled down I divided the mix onto each fish fillet.  I had to use several toothpicks to keep the fish wrapped around the mix. 

Then in the oven, it went.  I honestly had no clue what I was in store for when it was finished.  Oh, my goodness was it good.  I thought I was heaven.  I normally am a quick eater but I savored every single morel of my piece.  It was that good.  

Stuffed Tilapia with Swiss, Gruyere Cheese, and Spinach 

Ingredients

• 4 large tilapia fillets or fish of your choice
• small onion diced
• 5 minced garlic cloves - optional
• shredded swiss cheese
• shredded gruyere cheese
• one egg 
• 1/2 C bread crumbs
• 1/4 C mayonnaise
• 2 tsp lemon juice 
• Fish seasoning
• salt
• pepper 

Directions

• Saute onion until almost caramelized, add spinach and garlic.  Wilt spinach.  Set aside to cool.
• Mix cheeses egg, bread crumbs, mayo and lemon juice together. 
• Add both mixtures together.
• Sprinkle salt, pepper and fish seasoning over the tilapia then divide the stuffing mixture to the fish.  I did not measure.  I just seasoned.
• Wrap fish over the stuffing mix using toothpicks to keep it together.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Place in a casserole dish and cook for 15 minutes or until fish is opaque.
• Serve 

I honestly was blown away by the flavor of this dish.  Plus it came together in less than 15 minutes.  If you add the cook time the whole dish took a total of 30 minutes.  This would rival any stuffed fish at a restaurant.  I was just playing around with my tilapia because again I tend to get in a rut and cook it one of 2 ways, I found this dish amazing and easily made into a special something kind of dinner.  

I really hope you will try this recipe and please let me know how you like it.  

Now it is off to the zoo with my daughter and grandson.  

Enjoy!!