You want dinner on the table in less than 10 minutes…this recipe is for you!
While the tilapia is baking, the sauce is roasting in the pan…put it all together 10 minutes later…and boom.
Ka-boom.
$5 DINNERS TV
Served with a side of bread and some veggies…supper in minutes, y’all.
Tilapia with Pan Roasted Tomato & Pesto Sauce
Yield – 4 servings
Preparation Time – 5 minutes
Cooking Time – 10 minutes
Ingredients
- 4 tilapia filets ($3)
- Salt and pepper
- 1 Tbsp olive oil ($.05)
- 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved ($1.49)
- 2-3 Tbsp store bought or homemade pesto sauce ($.75)
- Side dish – bread, brown rice, quinoa ($.50) and veggies ($1)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375. Lightly grease a glass baking dish, large enough for all the filets. (I used a 9×13.)
- Place the tilapia in a baking dish and season with salt and pepper. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, or until the fish is white and flaky all the way through. Cooking time may vary, depending on thickness of the filet.
- Once you put the fish in the oven, whip up the sauce. Add the olive oil to a medium sized skillet over medium-high heat. Add the halved tomatoes and pesto sauce. Let the tomatoes sweat out and start to roast in the pan. Once the skin starts to get a little “shrivel-y,” remove from heat.
- Plate each fish filet and pour the sauce over each serving.
- Serve Tilapia with Pan Roasted Tomato and Pesto Sauce, along with a side of bread, rice or other veggies.
Cost $6.80
Yes…seafood is generally more expensive to cook with…but you can still make a delicious and low cost meal with it…even if it is a little more than $5. By pairing expensive ingredients, like seafood, with other inexpensive ingredients like rice or bread, and seasonal veggies…you’ve got a great, well balanced and “fancy” meal for not too much outta the pocketbook. (Also, my “never pay more than” price for seafood (either frozen or from the case) is $3/lb. You’d be surprised how often it’s on “unadvertised sale.”)
Also, here are a few other ways to use homemade pesto sauce!
Wow! I wish I could find Tilapia for $3 a pound! I gotta move to Texas!
I was all set to make this and realized I was out of pesto. 🙁 But I did have basil frozen in butter so I used that in lieu of the oil and pesto. I imagine this dish would be so awesome with pesto, but it was quite delicious the way it was! Thanks for a great recipe!
My biggest issue is trying to find frozen tilapia that is not from one of the NO-NO places like China or Vietnam.
I can get a great bag of frozen fillets and we love them for dinner but quit buying them when it came out NOT to buy if from those places because of pesticides, poisons, improper food or feeding them things that are not meant to be eaten, etc.
Any ideas or brands or places to get them? We live in Pacific NW. And I cannot afford FRESH.
Katrina, if you have a local Costco, they have frozen tilapia that are raised cleanly (no bad stuff fed to them) and in humane conditions. We buy it all the time and it is delicious, white and very clean smelling.