Skip to main content
The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Wrap whole trout in bacon and grill it for a smoky, no-stick fish

May 17, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. EDT
(Photos by Justin Tsucalas for The Washington Post; food styling by Nicola Justine Davis for The Washington Post)

If I write about cooking fish, I almost always get a comment about how smelly it is. If I suggest moving the cooking outside to the grill, I hear from folks with sad tales of losing fillets to the white-hot coals or winding up with overcooked, dried-out food.

Enter grilling expert and cookbook author Elizabeth Karmel’s grilled bacon-wrapped trout.

The beauty of this technique for cooking whole fish is its simplicity. The head-on, tail-on, cleaned fish are rubbed with a bit of olive oil, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, and stuffed with sprigs of fresh herbs. Then they are wrapped in strips of thin, center-cut (this is important, so more on this later) bacon, placed on a grill over indirect heat (see notes below for more details), covered, and grilled until the bacon crisps, about 15 to 20 minutes. No flipping required.

The resulting fish is moist with a scrumptious, smoky flavor. We have done this several times at my house now. The last time, we ate two of the fish hot off the grill. Then we deboned the rest and ate the smoky fish cold the next night on a makeshift dinner board with the bacon, rough chopped, next to crackers, hummus, grape tomatoes and olives. It was delicious that way, too.

I agree with Karmel, who said: “It’s crazy simple. … The taste is elevated and complex, but it’s so easy to execute. It’s almost not like cooking. It’s like a craft project, and it is beautiful on the plate, too.”

Karmel does have a few tips. First, she warns that this is not the time for that thick-cut, artisanal bacon. “I buy Oscar Mayer center-cut,” she said. The thinner bacon needs to sit out for about 20 minutes until it loses its chill. That way it will wrap easily around the fish and require no messy toothpicks to keep it in place. Center cut is important because it is leaner. Bacon that is too fatty will shrink as it cooks, leaving your fish naked in spots.

Karmel introduced me to the wrapping technique late last summer when I talked with her about tips for grilling fish. She’s a big proponent of putting things between the delicate creatures and the grill. She recommends the bacon-wrap method to first-time or anxious fish grillers.

Bacon buying guide: What uncured, center-cut and other package terms really mean.

“Everything I do is problem-solution based,” she said. “One of the biggest problems people have when they are grilling fish is that it sticks. If you use the fish basket, then it sticks to the fish basket. So obviously, a barrier between the grate and the fish will eliminate that stickage.”

How to grill fish without sticking and other common pitfalls

She might slip a salmon fillet atop chevroned layers of lemon slices or onto a well-soaked cedar plank. Unlike foil or other barriers, bacon, citrus and cedar also add flavor, she said. (If you do put your fish directly on the grill, Karmel is adamant that you oil the fish, not the grate. Do not argue!)

For flavor, she likes trout stuffed with fresh tarragon but encourages folks to use any herbs they like, such as cilantro, or maybe try sliced garlic and/or thin lemon wedges.

Ready, set, grill: A guide to outdoor cooking

If you can’t find trout, she recommends snapper or branzino, and adds that keeping the head and tail on results in more flavor and helps keep the fish in one piece as it cooks.

“Any small whole fish would work with this method,” she said. “It’s going to take 15 to 20 minutes for the bacon to cook, so anywhere between ¾ to 1½ pounds should be okay. With the skin and whole herbs and bacon, it is very hard to overcook it because there’s so much moisture.”

Karmel urges grillers to wait until the bacon is nice and crisp before removing the fish.

If you are using a charcoal grill, it might take a bit longer for the bacon to get there, but it will, she said.

We also tested the technique in a hot, hot oven, too, and found that, in a conventional oven, the fish got too oily before the bacon crisped. The technique worked better in a convection oven, but you have to flip the fish halfway through. Also, we found it best to quickly run it under the broiler right at the end to crisp up the bacon. So, for me, it’s back to the grill.

Convection cooking: How and when to use this oven setting

If you’re cooking four small, whole fish like this, you probably also have room to add vegetables to the grill. We found sliced quick-cooking zucchini to be a great complement to this dish.

Get the recipe: Grilled Bacon-Wrapped Trout