Our 25 Favorite Trout Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the best food for trout? ›

Depending on what baitfish species are available to trout and salmon you are likely to see fish feeding on smelts, sticklebacks, shiners, killifish, dace, and small sunfish. Other common food items include: leaches, freshwater snails, amphipods(scuds), worms, and grass hoppers.

The best side dishes to serve with trout are mashed potatoes, couscous, grilled asparagus, quinoa, blooming onion, cauliflower mash, butternut squash, bok choy, creamy spinach, roasted root vegetables, cilantro lime rice, and green beans.

Put a large frying pan on a medium heat. Season the trout on both sides with a pinch of salt and pepper. Add a good lug of olive oil to the pan and scatter in the thyme tips, followed by the trout, skin-side down (you may have to do this in 2 batches). Press down on the fish with a fish slice to help the skin crisp up.

Make a small cut at the base of the tail.

Make a cut here with a knife, or by inserting a fork. This will create a path to pull the bones away from the meat. You should be able to locate the best place begin separating the backbone by following the cut used to gut the trout to where it ends at the tail section.

Food Habits – For the most part rainbow trout feed on aquatic and terrestrial insects. Unlike other trout, rainbows are a little less secretive in their feeding habits. They will feed in broad daylight, in open water, on insects, fish, frogs, and even small mammals.

Berkley PowerBait is a go-to bait when it comes to fishing for trout. They have a strong odor that draws in trout from far away. They also come in all kinds of colors, which because of their excellent vision, it triggers the predatory instinct of them.

Bread is like a secret weapon for fishing. You can catch a bunch of freshwater buddies with it: Carp: They love bread, especially in calm waters like ponds. Trout: Sometimes, especially in stocked ponds, they can't resist bread bits that look like tiny insects.

The best time of year to trout fish in lower elevation lakes is in the spring and fall when the water is cooler and the trout are more active. This also is when most lakes are stocked. In the warm summer months, anglers can look for trout in cooler, deeper waters, or in high mountain lakes that remain cool year-round.

Washing raw fish can spread bacteria

Instead of washing your raw fish, you should cook it to the proper temperature to kill off harmful bacteria. Per the USDA, that temperature is 145 degrees F.

Lisa Featherby, Gourmet Traveller food editor, writes: Soaking fish in brine or water before cooking to remove any muddy taste is not necessary.

Should you eat the skin of rainbow trout? ›

Eating the skin along with the flesh helps you consume the most nutrients possible from fish. By removing the skin and eating only the flesh, you'll miss out on the many beneficial nutrients and oils in the skin, as well as those found in the mucus and layers of flesh just below the skin.

Vinegar is very acidic. Drinking vinegar may help break down the fish bone, making it softer and easier to swallow. Try diluting 2 tablespoons of vinegar in a cup of water or drinking 1 tablespoon straight. Apple cider vinegar is a good option that does not taste too bad, especially with honey.

In the center of each fillet is a row of Pin Bones that can be annoying to eat around. While they're pretty harmless even if you do swallow one by accident, I still like to remove them for a more pleasant experience.

There are approximately 17 intramuscular floating pin bones on each side of the fish, but there will also be a few small bones near the head toward the front of the flesh as well. Use your finger to ascertain the position of these bones.

Diets for fry and fingerling trout require a higher protein and energy content than diets for larger fish. Fry and finger- ling feed should contain ap- proximately 50 percent protein and 15 percent fat; feed for larger fish should contain about 40 percent protein and 10 percent fat.

The best baits for this are Berkley PowerBait and inflated earthworms, but many others work too, including: maggots, meal worms, blood worms, hellgrammites, minnows (live, dead, or chunked), corn, cheese, bio-plastics, and many more.

* It is advisable to restrict feeding to 1-3 times per week when the water temperature is less than 45^oF or greater than 68^oF. Only feed as much as the trout will consume in a few minutes. If you see these signs, discontinue feeding immediately. Trout can survive a month or more without any feed.