Walleye substitute

Best substitute

Yellow perch

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

Best for beer-battered fish fry

Close match

Yellow perch is the closest substitute by a wide margin and needs no adjustment at all, since it is the same family with the same fine sweet flake. Haddock is the best fish you can actually buy at a supermarket, and it fries almost identically. Sauger, crappie and other panfish are excellent if you or someone you know fishes; tilapia will do in a pinch but is noticeably denser and less sweet.

Other walleye substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Haddock
Close match
Use the same amount by weight
The most realistic answer for anyone shopping in a normal supermarket outside walleye country.
What changes
Haddock is a lean saltwater fish with a soft tender flake and mild sweetness, and battered and fried it lands very close to walleye. The differences are a slightly larger and looser flake and a faint marine, briny note in place of walleye's cleaner freshwater sweetness, which most people only notice if they eat them side by side.
Best for
fish fry, beer-battered fish, baked fish, broiled fish, fish sandwiches
Buy plain haddock rather than smoked. Fillets are thicker than walleye, so add a minute or two of frying time.
3Sauger or saugeye
Close match
Use the same amount by weight
Walleye's own close relative, and in the pan you would struggle to tell them apart.
What changes
Sauger flesh is very slightly softer and a fraction less sweet, which barely registers under batter or brown butter. Saugeye, the walleye-sauger hybrid stocked in many reservoirs, is even closer. Both are usually only available if you fish, which is the whole reason people search for walleye substitutes in the first place.
Best for
shore lunch, fish fry, pan-fried fillets, broiled fish
Trim the dark lateral line if the fish came from warm or stagnant water, as it carries the strongest flavor.
4Crappie, bluegill or other panfish
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
The traditional companions to walleye in a Midwestern fish fry, and they behave the same way: lean, mild, sweet, fine-flaked.
What changes
Because the fillets are small and thin, they eat as crisp little pieces rather than a substantial fillet, and they cook through in roughly two minutes. Flavor is a shade sweeter and more delicate than walleye, so they suit a light dusting of seasoned flour better than a heavy beer batter.
Best for
fish fry, shore lunch, pan-fried fillets, fish tacos
Fry them in small batches so the oil temperature stays up; thin fillets go greasy fast in cooling oil.
5Northern pike or pickerel
Different texture
Use the same amount by weight
Confusingly, pickerel means walleye in Canada and a small pike species in the United States, and true pike is a reasonable substitute either way.
What changes
Pike flesh is lean, white and mild, close to walleye in flavor, but firmer and stringier in texture with a coarser flake, so a fried fillet eats chewier and less tender. The real drawback is the Y-bones, which have to be cut out or the fillets are unpleasant to eat.
Best for
fish fry, fish cakes, quenelles, baked fish, chowder
Pike's low-fat, gelatin-rich flesh binds superbly, which makes it better than walleye for fish cakes and gefilte fish.
6Cod or Pacific rockfish
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight
Widely stocked and dependable, but a clear step away from walleye's character.
What changes
Both are firmer with a considerably larger, thicker flake, so a battered fillet eats meatier and more substantial and less delicate, and both carry a clean saltwater flavor rather than walleye's soft freshwater sweetness. Cod is the more forgiving of the two if you overcook it. This is the swap for when the recipe is really about the batter.
Best for
beer-battered fish, fish and chips, baked fish, chowder, fish tacos
Cut thick cod loin into walleye-sized strips so it fries in the same time.
7Tilapia
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by weight
The least-good option here, offered honestly because it is what many people have.
What changes
Tilapia is mild, cheap and boneless, and breaded and fried it is perfectly edible, but it is denser and slightly rubbery next to walleye's tender fine flake and carries a faint muddy background note in place of walleye's clean sweetness. Season it more aggressively and lean on lemon; do not expect it to taste like walleye.
Best for
breaded fish, fried fish, fish tacos, baked fish
Pat it very dry before dredging, as tilapia holds water that steams the coating off.

What is Walleye?

Walleye is Walleye, called pickerel across much of Canada and sold under the market name yellow pike, is a lean freshwater perch-family fish with fine-grained, faintly sweet white flesh and a delicate small flake, and it is the classic fish of Upper Midwest and Ontario shore lunches and Friday fish fries.

Cooking tips

Walleye's appeal is a delicate fine flake and a low-fat sweetness, both of which disappear if it is overcooked by even a minute. Fry it hot and fast at 350 to 375F until the coating is golden and the flesh at the thickest point just turns opaque, then get it onto a rack rather than paper towels so the crust stays crisp.
The traditional shore-lunch coating is seasoned flour or cracker crumbs rather than a thick beer batter, because a heavy batter overwhelms how mild the fish is. If you swap in a firmer, more assertive fish like cod, a beer batter suddenly makes more sense.
Trim the dark lateral strip of flesh from any freshwater fillet, walleye or substitute, before cooking. It holds the most oil and the strongest muddy flavor, and removing it is the single biggest improvement you can make to freshwater fish.
Do not use walleye or any of these freshwater substitutes in raw preparations such as ceviche or crudo. Freshwater fish carries parasite risk that commercial freezing for saltwater sushi fish is designed to address, so freshwater fillets should always be cooked through.
Fish caught from lakes and rivers is subject to local consumption advisories that vary by water body and by species, particularly for children and people who are pregnant. Check your state or provincial advisory for the specific lake rather than assuming all walleye is equivalent.

Frequently asked questions

What tastes closest to walleye?

Yellow perch, which is in the same family and shares the fine flake and clean sweetness almost exactly. If you cannot get perch, haddock is the closest thing on a supermarket counter, and sauger or saugeye are nearly indistinguishable if you have access to them. Cod and tilapia both work in a fish fry but taste and eat noticeably different.

Is walleye the same as pickerel or yellow pike?

In Canada, pickerel almost always means walleye, so a Canadian pickerel recipe is a walleye recipe. In the United States, pickerel refers to small pike species, which are a different and bonier fish. Yellow pike is a historical market name for walleye and is not a pike at all. All three names on a menu or a package usually point at the same fish.

Can I just leave the walleye out?

No, because in a fish fry, shore lunch or baked walleye recipe it is the entire dish. What you can do is keep everything else and change the fish, since the seasoned flour, the butter, the lemon and the tartar sauce are what people remember. Perch, haddock, crappie or cod all take the same treatment without any change to the method.

Why is walleye so hard to buy?

Commercial walleye fishing is limited to a small number of Great Lakes and Canadian lake fisheries, and most of the catch is recreational and cannot legally be sold. That is why it is everywhere on restaurant menus in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ontario and essentially absent from fish counters elsewhere. Frozen Canadian walleye fillets do turn up online and in specialty shops at a high price.

Can I use walleye and cod interchangeably?

In battered and fried applications, largely yes, as long as you cut the cod into strips of similar thickness so it cooks in the same time. Understand that cod's flake is much larger and firmer and its flavor cleanly briny, so the result eats meatier and less tender. Going the other way, walleye in place of cod in a chowder is a poor idea, since its delicate flesh disintegrates in simmering liquid.

Related substitutes

More seafood substitutes

Walleye substitute

Other walleye substitutes

2Haddock

3Sauger or saugeye

4Crappie, bluegill or other panfish

5Northern pike or pickerel

6Cod or Pacific rockfish

7Tilapia