This post may include affiliate links; see our disclosure policy.
This baked tilapia recipe is bursting with flavor! Pair the fish with lemon, tomatoes and feta for an impressive yet easy dinner. This recipe has become a fan-favorite with many 5 star reviews!
Here’s a tilapia recipe with a total wow factor: this baked tilapia with tomatoes and feta! The tender, flaky fish is covered in a lemon garlic sauce, cozied up with burst cherry tomatoes, Mediterranean seasonings and gooey bits of feta cheese.
If you think baked fish sounds boring, this recipe is for you! Each bite is savory with just the right pop of brightness. It’s ready in just over 30 minutes and great for impressing on weeknights or dinner parties. This one has been made and loved by many readers over the years!
Featured reader comments
“I loved this recipe. Simple, tasty and healthy. Even my fussy eaters enjoyed it. This will become a regular meal at my home.” -Nicole
“This is my new favorite A Couple Cooks recipe! So flavorful and easy to make. This is absolutely going on the regular dinner rotation at our house!” -Sarah
Ingredients for this baked tilapia recipe
This baked tilapia recipe is the ideal healthy dinner that’s impressively delicious. To be honest, when we’re meal planning the idea “baked fish” never feels that exciting. But this one? It was so tasty the first time we made it, we couldn’t wait to share it with you. The zing of the lemon, melty feta and tomatoes, and briny pop of capers make it irresistibly fresh. Here’s what you’ll need for this recipe:
- Tilapia fillets
- Cherry tomatoes, shallot, garlic, and lemon
- Olive oil
- Feta cheese
- Italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, smoked paprika
- Capers
- Parsley, for garnish
How to bake tilapia
Tilapia is a white fish with a mild, subtly sweet flavor. It doesn’t tasty fishy, so it’s good for people who think they don’t like fish. Tilapia is easy to bake: you can simply season with olive oil and salt, or add the tomatoes and feta like in the recipe below. Like any fish, how long to bake tilapia depends on its thickness:
- Preheat the oven to 400°F.
- Season the fish with olive oil and salt, and add any vegetables that will be cooking alongside it (see below.)
- Bake for 23 to 28 minutes, depending on thickness, until the tilapia is flaky or reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
A few tips for seasoning
This baked tilapia is one of our favorite weeknight dinner recipes to date, because it looks and tastes so beautifully fun and fresh. A Mediterranean diet recipe, it goes big on lemon, garlic and olive oil. Here are a few notes on the seasoning here:
- Bake the tilapia with lemon slices, then remove when serving. Mixing the lemon slices right into the veggies makes for bold citrus flavor. Remove them when serving: unless you love very citrusy flavors. If so, you can definitely eat the lemon slices: they’re extra tangy!
- Don’t omit the capers! Capers are a berry of the caper bush that’s native to the Mediterranean. They’re round and dark green gray, about the size of a peppercorn. Find them in the jarred section next to the olives at the grocery store. Their briny, salty flavor absolutely makes the dish!
- Feta is also key. You can omit it for dairy-free diets. But the small melty chunks of feta cheese sprinkled throughout is what makes this dish! We’ll admit, we were loosely inspired by the viral TikTok baked feta pasta for this flavor combination: and it’s spot on.
What to look for when buying tilapia
Is tilapia a sustainable fish? The vast quantity of tilapia available to buy is farm raised, so you’ll want to look for responsibly farmed tilapia. Here’s what Monterrey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch recommends:
- Look for tilapia farmed in Peru in raceways and Ecuador in ponds. Then look for tilapia from Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Indonesia, and Taiwan.
- Tilapia is a Best Choice when farmed in indoor recirculating tanks with wastewater treatment and a Good Alternative when the wastewater isn’t treated.
- Also, look for tilapia certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, Best Aquaculture Practices, and Naturland.
Sides to serve alongside
Make this baked tilapia into a meal by pairing it with a quick salad or veggie side dish! Here are a few ideas that keep the oven free:
- Green salads like romaine salad, butter lettuce salad, fennel salad, endive salad, frisee salad, kale salad or arugula salad.
- Sauteed vegetables like sauteed green beans, sauteed broccolini, pan fried broccoli, or sauteed vegetables.
- Whole grains like spinach rice, lemon rice, or seasoned quinoa.
- Pasta like angel hair pasta, linguine pasta, couscous, orzo, or couscous salad
Dietary notes
This baked tilapia recipe is pescatarian and gluten-free. For dairy-free, omit the feta cheese.
Baked Tilapia
This baked tilapia recipe is bursting with flavor! Pair the fish with lemon, tomatoes and feta for an impressive yet easy dinner.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Main dish
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Mediterranean
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
- 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 small lemon, thinly sliced into rings
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 ounce block feta cheese
- 1 1/2 pounds tilapia
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes (optional)
- ½ teaspoon smoked paprika (or standard paprika)
- 2 tablespoons drained capers
- Finely chopped fresh parsley or basil, for garnish
- Fresh ground black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Chop the tomatoes, shallot, garlic, and lemon as noted above.
- Place the chopped vegetables and lemon slices in the bottom of a 9 x 13″ baking dish and mix with 1 tablespoon olive oil, ¼ teaspoon salt, and fresh ground black pepper. Crumble the feta cheese into rough chunks and add it to the pan, tossing gently to combine.
- Pat the tilapia dry. Rub it with 1 tablespoon olive oil and ½ teaspoon kosher salt, split between the filets. Place it on top of the vegetables and feta in the pan. Sprinkle both fillets with the Italian seasoning and a few grinds fresh ground black pepper, then add the red pepper flakes and smoked paprika. Sprinkle the capers over the top.
- Place the pan in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes (depending on the thickness of the fish), until the fish is flaky and the internal temperature is 140 degrees Fahrenheit when measured with a food thermometer. Garnish with chopped parsley and remove the lemon slices when serving (or eat them if you like!).
More tilapia recipes
Tilapia is a favorite fish around here: it’s even milder than salmon, so it’s great for pleasing everyone. Here are a few more tilapia recipes to sample:
- Grab crispy parmesan crusted tilapia or blackened tilapia
- Make tasty pan fried tilapia or lemon pepper tilapia
- Make crowd-pleasing tilapia fish tacos or fire up the grill for grilled tilapia
- Try other fish recipes like our cod recipes or salmon recipes
I am so glad I stumbled upon this recipe! Have made it twice now and love it. We add asparagus as well and it cooks them perfectly. Last night I paired it with Greek potatoes and it was so good!
So glad to hear that!
This recipe made me subscribe to your emails. So easy and delicious. Comes out perfectly every time.
So glad to hear that! Thank you for making :)
This is so very good! It’s easy, quick, economical, and delicious. Thank you for sharing this recipe with us!
looks like some very delicious recipes. I need ordering the cookbook .
Delicious! Thanks!!!
We love seafood but have family members we regularly cook for who do not …. so I’m asking if this could be prepared with chicken fillets & if so can you give me pointers?!?
Thank you!
You could combine it with our method here: https://www.acouplecooks.com/oven-baked-chicken-breast/#tasty-recipes-163400-jump-target
This was really flavorful, and its heart healthy ingredients made it a perfect dish to start off the New Year right.! It had that WOW factor for me on the first bite!!
I loved this recipe. Simple, tasty and healthy. Even my fussy eaters enjoyed it. This will become a regular meal at my home. I used Snapper fillets as I’m in Australia.
Love this Tilapia recipe. Easy to make.
Absolutely delicious – so flavorful. Served this with sautéed green beans (also delicious) and roasted red potatoes. Yummy!!
So flavorful and quick to whip up! I am dairy free and used vegan feta cheese and this dish was still so yummy. Will be making again!
This is my new favorite A Couple Cooks recipe! So flavorful and easy to make. This is absolutely going on the regular dinner rotation at our house!
So glad you enjoyed!
My husband and I are blown away by this recipe. I put his portion over brown rice and I put mine over greens to make a warm salad. Both equally delicious. The only thing I would change is covering the pan with foil because the capers got a bit too crispy. Otherwise, super delicious! Very complex flavors
So glad to hear that! Thank you.
I made that last night with tilapia and also 2 chicken breasts for my kiddos. It came out so perfectly! So flavorful! Fast! Healthy! I will definitely repeat this recipe again.
WOW, this dish was superb! I started with excellent tilapia and followed exactly as described (except using regular paprika and not smoked). Zero left in the dish after dinner tonight. We are eating the Mediterranean diet as much as we can. This hit all my happy tastebuds, with the lemon, garlic, tomatoes, capers, feta, seasonings…A dish of perfection! I will be making this on a regular basis 😋
This is a new favorite. Tastes so fresh and comes together easily.
This was so easy and delicious. I cut the recipe in half cause I only used 1/2 the fish, but the sauce was so delicious that the next time I will use all the cheese and tomato you list.
Came out great! We baked it in an air fryer on “bake” setting at 415 for 20 min, and it came out perfect. Next time, I will add capers UNDER talapia filet, not on top, into the tomato/onion/feta mix. Great recipe!
Tried this recipe 3 weeks ago, my wife and I loved it. I added my own touch to it sinceadded 3 tablespoons of lemon juice to the mix. Delicious
I’m making this for dinner tonight. I decided to put some fresh asparagus in with the other vegetables. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Made this for wildcard weekend. Boyfriend was hoping for buffalo wings, nachos, something greasy & gross — which I don’t do. This worked perfectly. Healthy, clean & satisfied my need to cook. Go Giants! And thank you!
This looks delicious! Probably a silly question but should I thaw my tilapia from frozen before baking?
Yes! In refrigerator overnight.
Just made this for lunch and it was so good! I, unfortunately, did not have the cherry tomatoes so I used a can of Rotel instead and it was great. Next time I will go drag myself to the store to get the fresh tomatoes.
My husband and I are trying to adventure with more fish dishes. We tried this last night with Haddock instead of Tilapia and it was AMAZING! I could not stop eating it and I am not the typical fish eater. Thank you for the wonderful dish. Quick, easy and delicious. This will now be in our rotation of recipes.
My husband and I are trying to adventure with more fish dishes. We tried this last night with Haddock instead of Tilapia and it was AMAZING! I could not stop eating it and I am not the typical fish eater. Thank you for the wonderful dish. Quick, easy and delicious. This will now be in our rotation of recipes.
We LOVE this recipe!! It has become a weekly staple in our house. We serve with quinoa & asparagus!
So glad to hear it!
I just finished my supper, and had to tell you it was the BEST TILAPIA I ever had! Calling my family members to give them your url cause I KNOW they will love it too! Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!
You’re welcome!
Omg! I just finished eating this…..I am still in heaven! Shamefully, I are my husband’s fish, too, ’cause I just HAD to have more! He only eats junk, so I wasn’t being mean, but I didn’t make him try a bite first, cause I was afraid he’d tell me he wanted some.😜😜
This dish just knocked it out of the ball park! My chef husband loved it and said I should be a Master Chef. He’s so cute. Thank you for this winner recipe!
Haha! So glad you enjoyed :)
Absolutely a hit with my husband! So much flavor, thanks!!
Delicious! Didn’t have capers or feta cheese, still excellent. Cooked 12-15 min. Served on bed of angel hair pasta with Italian seasoned steamed zucchini, yellow squash and tomatoes. Sprinkled grated Romano cheese. So colorful. Will definitely make again!
Delicious! We absolutely loved this and my husband asked if I’d make it again. Definitely will! I paired it with a quinoa/ spinach dish.
Loved the recipe, didn’t have Italian seasoning so I just used salt,pepper,dill,oregano, and paprika and it turned out great, also used cream cheese instead of feta and cilantro instead of parsley. The cooking time was perfect, thank you for the recipe, my mom loved it
Love this recipe. Will be making it again and again!
So glad you enjoyed!
Okay, thanks! I bought a bag of tilapia from Indonesia at Costco because all the other tilapia I found was farmed in China; avoiding that at all costs.
Made this for dinner tonight. Very good, quick and easy. Served with roasted broccoli and roasted yukon gold potatoes.
Yummy! You make my mouthwatering, I’ll try this dish on this weekend!!
Just started weight watchers with a friend. This was such a great dish. With the olive oil and feta it was about 4 points a serving, but tasted so much better than that. It was fun to make and paired well with grilled vegetables. Thank you for this recipe. Best to you both.
This is probably a dumb question. I’ve never made tilapia or any fish before. In this recipe are you using fresh or frozen tilapia?
Generally speaking, we try to buy fish from the fish counter as it usually tastes more fresh. Often these are also previously frozen, but we have found them to be higher quality.