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This Spanish-Inspired Simmered White Fish with Chickpeas is simple enough to cook for an elevated weeknight meal, but elegant enough to impress at your next dinner party! The layers of flavor are seriously out of this world and I know you are all going to love this one.
I absolutely love the flavors of this skillet dinner! Saffron comes together with white wine, garlic, warm spices, parsley, and more to create a sauce that is layered in flavor for the base of your meal. In under an hour, you will have tender chickpeas, a delicious sauce, and perfectly flaky fish. What more could you want?
Step-by-step:
Step one: bloom the saffron
To start, bloom your saffron in the white wine. Set aside while you begin preparing the rest of the recipe!
Step Two: Saute the Veggies
In your large skillet or braiser, sauté the shallot, bell pepper, and garlic in olive oil with the salt and pepper until just tender.
Step Three: Start the Chickpeas
Add the chickpeas, smoked paprika, and cumin to the skillet. Continue to cook until the spices are lightly toasted and fragrant. Next, pour the white wine and saffron mixture into the skillet. Let everything simmer until the wine is reduced by half.
Step Four: Make the Sauce and Cook the Chickpeas
To the skillet, add the tomato sauce, broth, and parsley then stir to combine. Bring to a rapid simmer. Once simmering, reduce to a light simmer, cover, and cook until the chickpeas start to get tender.
Step Five: Add the spinach and Fish
Now, it’s time to add the spinach and fish. Remove the lid and stir in the spinach until wilted. Nestle the fish filets into the chickpeas and spoon some of the sauce over each of the filets. Sprinkle the top of the filet with a pinch more of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cover and poach the fish until cooked through.
Step Six: Serve and Enjoy!
To serve, transfer the fish to a plate and ladle the chickpeas around and over the fish. Serve with a lemon wedge and a sprinkle of crushed red pepper flakes, if desired.
Recipe FAQ:
This enhances the flavor, aroma, and color of the saffron leading to a delicious final recipe.
I typically use halibut here, but you can also use cod. You may just need to adjust the cooking time if the cod is a thicker filet.
The fish only needs to cook for 8 to 10 minutes. Once you can easily flake the filet with a fork you know it is ready!
I hope y’all love this Spanish-Inspired Simmered White Fish with Chickpeas! Comment below once you make it!
looking for more fish recipes? try these!
Creamy Poached Halibut with Leeks
Sheet Pan Miso-Marinated Cod with Broccolini
Spanish-Inspired Simmered White Fish with Chickpeas
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- Pinch of saffron (about 20 threads)
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2 medium shallots, halved and thinly sliced
- 1 red bell pepper, seeded/core removed and diced small
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed well
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1/2 cup low-sodium vegetable or seafood broth
- 1/2 cup roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
- Zest of 1/2 lemon
- 4 cups packed baby spinach
- 4 (6-ounce) skinless boneless filets of halibut (cod works here, too)
- 1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving
- red pepper flakes, optional, for serving
Instructions
- In a measuring cup, add the white wine and add the pinch of saffron, crumbling the saffron between your fingertips to break them up a bit. Set aside to allow the saffron to bloom.
- Heat the oil in a large skillet or braiser over medium heat. Add the shallot, bell pepper, garlic, salt, pepper and cook, stirring until the veggies are tender, about 3 minutes.
- Add the chickpeas, smoked paprika, and cumin and continue to cook, tossing gently to gently to toast the spices, about 2 minutes.
- Pour in the white wine and saffron mixture and let simmer until reduced by half, 2 to 3 more minutes.
- Add the tomato sauce, broth, and flat leaf parsley and stir to combine. Bring to a rapid simmer. Once simmering, reduce to a light simmer, cover, and cook until the chickpeas are starting to get tender, about 10 minutes.
- Remove the lid and stir in the spinach until wilted. Nestle the fish filets into the chickpeas and spoon some of the sauce over each of the filets. Sprinkle the top of the filet with a pinch more of salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Cover and poach the fish until cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes. You will know the fish is done when it flakes easily with a fork.
- To serve, transfer the fish to a plate and ladle the chickpeas around and over the fish. Serve with a lemon wedge and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, if desired.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Food Photography and Styling by Eat Love Eats.
Delicious! Was hesitant with the amount of prep – but while I was idly unloading groceries, prepped the chickpeas and veggies which made it so easy to assemble – sushi rice in the in the zojirushi and served on top- yum.
So glad that you found it easy!
Ok the fact that I’m giving this 5 starts is a real testament to how good this recipe is. I messed up in a several places with this one because I was distracted, but it was still delicious and a definite make again! In retrospect, I think I self-sabotaged. I don’t usually flub things (I’m a mise en place type girl.) But I was supposed to go to a girls dinner that got cancelled, and my husband had been hunting all weekend, and I don’t think I was in the right headspace to cook. Plus it’s Thanksgiving week.
Anyway, back to my errors. First, I forgot to ask the seafood counter to skin the halibut for me. (again, maybe going to HEB the Monday of Thanksgiving week was a mistake on my part- it was a gauntlet in there). So, I salt and peppered the skinless side before adding them to the garbanzo mixture and placed them skinless side down. Still spooned a bit of sauce over the top/skin side. Easily removed the skin once they were cooked through (really had to rely on my intuition with cooking time since I couldn’t see the skinless side, but I had a pretty good idea).
Second, I started on the saffron/wine mixture right after the vegetables- accidentally skipping the garbanzo and spices. I was pretty mad about this because I am a believer in the benefit of toasting the spices, but really couldn’t do much so just went ahead and added them in pretty quickly to the simmering wine. End flavor result was still great, but anxious to do in the proper order next time.
I didn’t see when to add the lemon zest, so I added it with the tomato sauce step. Turned out good, but I started rethinking that after I did it. I feel like usually zest goes in pretty late in the steps of most recipes.
Lastly, I enthusiastically nestled the halibut in before stirring in the spinach. So I had to remove it, stir in the spinach, and re-nestle it, this time less lovingly. In the meanwhile, I disregarded my HEB Organics parbaked bread loaf timer, so that was a wash. Luckily I had roasted some Brussel sprouts as a side, miracle I didn’t mess those up, too. Next time I want to do with a yummy loaf of bread for sopping up the sauce.
All this to say that despite all my user error, this still turned out absolutely delicious! 10/10 and will make again!
Also – sorry for the typos. And for some reason every time I post a review here the time stamp shows a wild crazy time (2:57 am this time, but it was actually 8:57 pm central time). Just want to clarify that I’m not a pyscho posting recipe reviews in the middle of the night.