Monkfish substitute

Best substitute

Lobster tail

Use the same amount by weight as the monkfish you are replacing

Best for poor man's lobster preparations

Close match

There is no fish that behaves quite like monkfish, so the honest answer depends on what your recipe needs. For the firm, chunky texture in a stew, bourride or brodetto, use thick halibut, grouper or swordfish cut into cubes at 1:1. For the lobster-like sweetness in a butter-and-garlic or roasted preparation, use lobster tail or large sea scallops and cut the cooking time sharply. Large shrimp are the cheapest way to get sweet, firm bites into the dish.

Other monkfish substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Thick halibut steak or halibut cheeks
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
The best fish answer and the easiest to buy.
What changes
A thick halibut steak is firm, sweet and holds together well enough to sear and to sit in a stew, and halibut cheeks in particular have a rounded, scallop-like texture that comes very close. What changes is that halibut is a flaking fish: press it and it separates into large leaves rather than staying in a solid piece, so a chunk in your bouillabaisse will look shaggier at the edges than monkfish would.
Best for
bourride, brodetto, bouillabaisse, roasted fish, grilled fish skewers, curries
Buy pieces at least an inch and a half thick and cut them into cubes. Halibut is lean and dries out fast, so pull it the moment the center turns opaque.
3Large sea scallops
Different taste
Use the same amount by weight
Scallops nail the two things monkfish is prized for, sweetness and a firm dense bite, and they take a hard sear brilliantly.
What changes
The catch is timing: scallops are done in ninety seconds a side, so any recipe that simmers monkfish for fifteen minutes has to be restructured to add the scallops at the very end. Flavor-wise they are noticeably sweeter and more delicate than monkfish, which makes garlicky and buttery dishes lovely and heavily spiced ones a slight waste.
Best for
seared fish dishes, butter and garlic preparations, brothy seafood dishes, skewers
Buy dry-packed scallops if you can; treated wet scallops leak liquid and will not brown. Pat them bone dry before searing.
4Grouper or other firm snapper-type fish
Different taste
Use the same amount by weight
A genuinely good practical swap for stews and curries.
What changes
Grouper is one of the few affordable fish with enough backbone to sit in simmering liquid for ten minutes and come out in recognizable chunks. It is milder and less sweet than monkfish and does eventually flake, so the finished dish tastes cleaner and slightly less rich, and looks a little less meaty on the spoon.
Best for
fish stew, curries, fish tacos, grilled fish, chowder
Cut into large cubes rather than small, since smaller pieces break down faster. Corvina, red snapper and rockfish behave similarly.
5Swordfish or other fish steak
Different taste
Use the same amount by weight
Use this when the recipe wants monkfish treated like meat: skewered, grilled, roasted whole or wrapped in ham.
What changes
Swordfish is dense, sliceable and holds up to fire better than almost anything, and it will not fall apart on a grill. It is meatier, oilier and considerably more savory than monkfish, so the sweetness the recipe was aiming at goes missing and the dish tastes richer and more assertive.
Best for
grilling, skewers, roasting, fish steaks, wrapped in prosciutto
Swordfish overcooks into something dry and chalky, so aim for just-opaque. Note that swordfish is high in mercury and public health guidance advises pregnant people and young children to avoid it.
6Large shrimp or prawns
Different taste
Use the same amount by weight
The cheapest route to firm, sweet, springy bites of seafood, and a perfectly respectable one.
What changes
In a tomato-based brodetto or a garlicky roast, large prawns deliver the same snap and even more sweetness. What you lose is the substantial, forkable chunk: shrimp curl into small crescents rather than sitting as a meaty cube, so the dish reads as a shrimp dish rather than a monkfish one.
Best for
brodetto, seafood stew, garlic and butter dishes, skewers, paella
Use the largest shrimp you can find, leave them whole, and add them in the last two or three minutes of cooking.
7Skate wing
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
An overlooked option that shares monkfish's clean sweetness and its cartilage-rather-than-bone structure, and it is often sold at a similar counter for less money.
What changes
The texture is genuinely different though: skate cooks into long parallel ribbons that pull away in strands, so it cannot be cut into cubes and will not hold in a stew. Reserve it for pan-frying with brown butter and capers.
Best for
pan-frying, brown butter and caper preparations, roasting
Skate must be very fresh or it develops an ammonia smell. Cook it the day you buy it.

What is Monkfish?

Monkfish is the boneless tail meat of the anglerfish, nicknamed poor man's lobster, a dense, sweet, almost muscular white fish that stays in solid pieces instead of flaking, which is why recipes reach for it where an ordinary fillet would fall apart in the pot.

Cooking tips

Monkfish is sold with a tough grey-purple membrane over the tail, and if you leave it on the fillet shrinks and curls hard in the pan. Slide a knife under the edge and peel it off in sheets before cooking; a good fishmonger will do it for you.
Monkfish releases a surprising amount of water. Salt the pieces and leave them on paper towels for fifteen minutes, blot them again, then sear in a properly hot pan. Crowding a cool pan with wet monkfish gives you grey poached cubes instead of a browned crust.
Because it is dense rather than flaky, monkfish takes noticeably longer to cook through than a cod fillet of the same thickness, and its doneness is judged by firmness rather than by flaking. Whichever substitute you choose, adjust the timing to the new fish rather than following the recipe's clock.
Recipes such as bourride, brodetto and bouillabaisse call for monkfish specifically because it survives a simmer. If you swap in a soft flaky fish like hake, cod or whiting, add it in the last five minutes off the boil rather than at the start, or you will end up with fish soup instead of fish stew.
The nickname poor man's lobster comes from the texture, not the flavor, and it shows up best when monkfish is cooked simply in butter with garlic and lemon. Heavy spicing hides the very quality you paid for, so if you are substituting a cheaper flaky fish, lean into a sauce-forward recipe instead.

Frequently asked questions

Is there really no good substitute for monkfish?

Not a perfect one. Monkfish is unusual in combining lobster-like sweetness with dense meat that does not flake, and no affordable fish does both. Lobster matches it best but costs far more; halibut, grouper and swordfish give you the firmness without the sweetness; scallops and prawns give you the sweetness and the springy bite but in small pieces. Choose based on which of those two qualities your recipe actually depends on.

Can I just leave the monkfish out?

In a mixed seafood stew, yes. Bouillabaisse and brodetto are built on several kinds of seafood, so more mussels, clams and prawns will carry the dish and you will only miss the meaty chunks. In a recipe where monkfish is the single centerpiece, such as roast monkfish tail or monkfish wrapped in prosciutto, there is nothing to leave out and you need to substitute or cook something else.

Why is monkfish called poor man's lobster?

Because the tail meat is dense, slightly springy and sweet in a way that reads as lobster, especially when poached or roasted in butter. The name is now historical, since monkfish is no longer cheap. Anglerfish is the same creature under its proper name, so recipes calling for anglerfish tail are asking for monkfish.

Can I use cod instead of monkfish?

Only with a change of method. Cod tastes clean and mildly sweet in roughly the right register, but it flakes apart where monkfish stays whole, so it cannot be cubed and simmered or threaded onto a skewer. Use a thick center-cut cod loin, add it late to any stew, handle it once, and accept that the finished dish will be flaky rather than meaty.

How much monkfish do I need per person?

Around six to eight ounces of trimmed tail meat per person as a main course, and this holds for the firm substitutes too. Monkfish does lose water as it cooks, so it shrinks a little more than a fillet of cod would, and buying at the higher end of that range is sensible. Bone-in monkfish tail needs roughly a third more weight to account for the central cartilage.

Related substitutes

More seafood substitutes

Monkfish substitute

Other monkfish substitutes

2Thick halibut steak or halibut cheeks

3Large sea scallops

4Grouper or other firm snapper-type fish

5Swordfish or other fish steak

6Large shrimp or prawns

7Skate wing