A childhood favorite gets a healthy makeover. Baked Fish Sticks with Homemade Tartar Sauce are oven-baked and made with real food ingredients. They’re gluten-free, paleo and Whole30-friendly.
This post was created in partnership with our friends at King Arthur Flour.
Not your average fish stick.
As I think back to my childhood meals, one meal that comes to my mind consists of fish sticks (from the freezer), peas and carrots (from the freezer) and some kind of fruit (likely from a can). My guess is that this meal might also be familiar to you! So today, I’m sharing a recipe for Baked Fish Sticks. But instead of them coming in a yellow or blue box from the freezer section of the grocery store, I’m making them with real food ingredients. Because that’s how we roll.
Made with real food ingredients including King Arthur Almond Flour.
While yes, it’s much easier to buy a box of frozen fish sticks and just pop them in the oven…our mission is to show you that some of our favorite convenience foods can be made pretty darn simply with real food ingredients. Ingredients that do the body good. Baked Fish Sticks are made with just a few ingredients including King Arthur Almond Flour and Coconut Flour, whole eggs, seasonings, and white fish fillets. You could also use King Arthur’s NEW Paleo Baking Flour, a perfect blend of almond, cassava, and coconut flour. This recipe is gluten-free, grain-free, dairy-free, paleo and Whole30-friendly!
King Arthur’s Almond Flour is milled from blanched whole almonds. It has a super fine texture and full of protein, fiber, and good fats. It makes for a fabulous grain-free flour option in everything from scones to muffins to cookies to waffles for a rich, buttery flavor. Almond flour is also a perfect certified gluten-free substitute for bread crumbs in savory dishes like these Baked Fish Sticks.
A tasty lunch or dinner option that will bring you back to your childhood days!
A part of my job that gets me excited is choosing some of my favorite childhood meals or comfort foods and giving them a healthy makeover. This isn’t always an easy task to do and some meals/recipes I leave as is because they’re just too good to be messed with, but thanks to King Arthur Flour, I set out on a mission during my maternity leave to create a recipe for Baked Fish Sticks.
You’ll find that this recipe is easy to make, full of protein and healthy fats, and with all of the dipping and dunking, it’s fun for kids to get involved, too. In addition, these Baked Fish Sticks reheat nicely, so leftovers make for a great next day’s meal. I like to reheat them in the oven set at 350ºF to really crisp them up again. For a well-balanced meal, I serve them with a side of veggies (cooked or raw), fresh fruit for lunch or sweet potato fries for dinner and you can’t forget the tartar sauce for dipping. Speaking of tartar sauce…
Dip ’em in our easy Homemade Tartar Sauce.
In the recipe below, I also include my Homemade Tartar Sauce recipe. Now like the fish sticks, there are pre-made tartar sauces you can very easily buy from the grocery store, but I will say that making your own is pretty simple to do. Plus, you know exactly what goes into it, and it’s much better tasting in my opinion! With that said, I recommend you take 5 minutes of your time to whip up a batch of Homemade Tartar Sauce.
Baked Fish Sticks with Tartar Sauce
Ingredients
For the Fish Sticks:
- Olive oil or avocado oil cooking spray
- 1 lb. cod fillets or white fish of choice, cut into 2–2 1/2 inch long pieces about ~½-¾ inch thick
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 cup King Arthur Almond Flour (86g grams)
- 2 Tbsp. King Arthur Coconut Flour (16 grams)
- 1½ tsp. garlic powder
- 1½ tsp. onion powder
- 1 tsp. sweet or smoked paprika
- 1 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. black pepper
For the Homemade Tartar Sauce:
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- 3 Tbsp. finely chopped dill pickles
- 2 tsp. fresh dill or ¾ tsp. dried dill
- 1 Tbsp. lemon juice, more to taste
- ¼ tsp. garlic powder
- Pinch of black pepper
- 1 tsp. honey or maple syrup (optional, adds a touch of sweetness. Omit for Whole30)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Spray parchment with cooking spray.
- Prepare the fish. With a paper towel, pat the fish to absorb the liquid and place it on a plate.
- In a shallow dish, whisk the eggs.
- In another shallow dish, combine the flour, garlic, onion, paprika, salt, and pepper.
- Make an assembly line with the ingredients in this order. Fish, egg wash, breading and prepared pan.
- Dunk the fish pieces into the egg wash, let excess egg drip off before coating the fish generously with breading – press the breading onto the fish to make sure it sticks and then place on the pan. Repeat until all of the fish is used up.
- Spray the breaded fish sticks with a generous amount of cooking spray. This will help them brown and crisp.
- Bake for 8 minutes. Flip carefully, spray again with cooking oil and bake for another 5-6 minutes. For extra crisp, broil for 1-2 minutes (watch closely as almond flour burns easily).
- While fish sticks are in the oven, make the homemade tartar sauce by combining and mixing all of the tartar sauce ingredients in a small bowl. Place in the fridge until ready to serve.
- When fish sticks are done baking, remove from the oven and serve warm with tartar sauce and lemon wedges.
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Nutrition Information
- Serving Size: 1/6 of recipe + 2 Tbsp. Tartar Sauce
- Calories: 305
- Fat: 25g
- Sodium: 900mg
- Carbohydrate: 7g
- (Fiber: 3g
- Sugar: 2g)
- Protein: 18g
Dietary
I can’t wait for you to give this recipe a try! Comment below if you do. We love hearing from you!
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This post was made possible by our friends at King Arthur Flour. Although we received compensation for this post, the opinions expressed here are – as always – 100% our own. Thank you for supporting the great companies we work with thereby allowing us to continue creating great recipes and content for you.
Photo Credit: The photos in this blog post were taken by Jess of Plays Well with Butter.
ABG says
These were delicious. I didn’t have cooking spray on hand so they weren’t crispy, but the flavor is great. And the tartar sauce was easy to do. I omitted the honey, and it was still yummy. Love your recipes!
Kirsten says
These look delicious!! Is there something that can be used instead of the eggs to get the breading to stick?
Jessica Beacom says
Thanks, Kirsten! We haven’t tested the recipe without eggs though a slurry of arrowroot (or tapioca or corn starch) might do the trick.
Lenore says
Hi, is the coconut flour necessary, I’m unable to use it. Can I just add 2 extra Tbls. of the almond flour? Thank you!
Stacie Hassing says
Hi Lenore, yes you could use 2 extra Tablespoons of coconut flour. Let us know how they turn out! Thanks!
Amy Ferrier says
Could you explain the serving amount to me. The nutrition facts show 1/6 of the recipe but it says it makes 5-6 fish sticks. So does that mean the nutrition facts are for 1 fish stick? The numbers don’t seem right for 1 fish stick. Just asking for an estimation for tracking purposes 🙂
Stacie Hassing says
Hi Amy! Sorry for the confusion. It is 5-6 servings so it depends on how many fish sticks you make. I’ll make that more clear on the recipe. Thanks!
Sandra says
Ladies, Ive made these for my family and everyone LOVES them! So thank you for the amazing recipe. I would like to freeze them for future meals however I don’t want them to be dried out when I reheat them. I was thinking to prep them without cooking them and freezing them that way and just bake as needed. Have you tried this before? Just wondering if you think that would. work. I’d also like to try them using chicken instead of fish.
Jessica Beacom says
We’re so happy you enjoy these. We haven’t tried making them and freezing them but it SHOULD work. I would suggest baking them from frozen as thawing before cooking may make the coating soggy. If you have an air fryer (or convection oven), that might be work really well for cooking them. If you try it, we’d love to hear how they turn out.