Whole Red Snapper – Stuffed, Sauced and Smoked

Whole Red Snapper – Stuffed, Sauced and Smoked: We take a whole red snapper, stuff the cavity onion, citrus and herbs before adding herb/garlic/citrus sauce over the top. The snapper is smoked on the grill until flaky and juicy. 

Oh, and wait till I tell you what I smoked this fish with!

Being about as far away from an ocean as is geographically possible in the United States by living in St. Louis, I have to say, it’s a cruel twist of fate, or God has a wicked sense of humor, or whatever, for me to be a seafood junkie. I used to only like one kind of seafood. You know there are two kinds, right? Spiny and crawls is one kind and scaly and swims is the other. I used to be all about the former (lobster, crab, shrimp, scallops), but as I get older, I appreciate more and more the latter. Halibut, monk fish, tuna, salmon, I love them all.

Whole Red Snapper Ingredients:

For the Stuffed Portion of this

• 1 whole red snapper (4-6 lbs)
• Salt and fresh ground black pepper
• 2 limes sliced
• 2 slices red onion
• 3 orange slices
• 6 sprigs thyme
• 6 sprigs oregano
• 5 garlic cloves smashed

For the Sauced Portion

• 6 sprigs fresh thyme
• 6 sprigs fresh oregano
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 thin slices of red onion for sauce
• 1 orange (or tangerine) peeled/chunked for sauce
• 1.5 limes zest and juice
• Kosher salt
• Cracked black pepper
• Coarse ground white pepper
• 1 pinch of red pepper flakes
• 1/8 cup of olive oil
• 1/8 cup dry white wine
• A dash of your favorite hot sauce

For Smoking the Fish

• Carve the rest of the red onion into thick slices
• Separate the remaining garlic cloves from the ear of garlic where you got the 4 cloves for the sauce
• Light smoke wood such as apple, peach or pear

How to prepare whole red snapper for the grill

First things first, salt and pepper the whole red snapper inside and out

Next, we’re not going to just stuff the cavity, but we’re going to stuff the meat as well. Take a sharp knife (serrated is better) and make a slit behind the gills at a 45 degree angle down the side of the fish and do so every inch and a half or so parallel to the first cut:

Then slide a slice of lime in each slit:

Once slices of limes are put in each slit on both sides of the fish, put the rest of the ingredients from the stuffed portion inside the cavity of the snapper.

Now let’s knock out that sauce.

First up, take the leaves off the 6 oregano and 6 thyme stems:

How to make a sauce for red snapper

Now combine the herbs with the rest of the sauce ingredients in a food processor and pulse into a sauce:

Don’t pour that over the fish just yet. We have some maintenance to do first.

Save the onions and garlic for smoking

When done stuffing the snapper and making the sauce, you are going to have some leftover onion and garlic cloves. Save them.

Even the ends of the onion:

Smoke with onion and garlic

Why would I ask you to save the ends of onions? Because we’re going to smoke this fish with onion and garlic, along with a little smoke wood. That’s right. We’re smoking with onion and garlic. Trust me here. It’s going to be epic!

Before we pour that sauce and get the fish on the grill, we need to create a nest of aluminum foil around it to keep the sauce from making a mess of the cooker. Lay down a few layers of aluminum foil and set the whole red snapper in the middle.

Roll up the edges to form a foil nest:

Now we can pour that sauce over the fish:

Right now you could throw the fish in the fridge for 2-4 hours and then grill it and let the sauce really penetrate the meat if you wanted to, or you could grill it right away:

How to cook Whole Red Snapper on the Grill

When it’s time to grill, set up the cooker for two zone or indirect grilling, which means coals on one side and nothing on the other.

Add a couple slices of onions and 2-3 cloves of garlic to the coals and put the fish on the side with no coals:

Here is the red snapper on the cooker:

Close the lid and let the garlic and onion work their magic. The smoke will be faint, but the smell will be out of this world good. Whenever the smell ebbs, add another slice of onion and a couple cloves of garlic.

Once the fish gets to 130 degrees internal temperature, it’s time to bust out the foil again:

How to Grill Whole Red Snapper in Foil

Before now, we’ve not grilled this IN foil. More like ON foil. The goal here is to form a foil pouch around the fish so that it essentially steams in its own juices and that sauce.

As it does, the flavors of the fish and the sauce are intensified and there is no moisture loss:

How long to grill red snapper

Cook to temp, not time. I could pull this fish off the grill anywhere between 145F-165F depending on how you like your fish. We took this one to 160F. How long did it take to get there? I will tell you that this red snapper took just over an hour to get to 160. But a bigger or smaller fish will take a different amount of time. A few degree change in the temp could take more or less time. And the weather outside could make it a different amount of time. The moral of this story? Cook to temp, not to time. A probe thermometer will tell you when it’s done rather than having to guess when it’s done.

Knowing is so much better than guessing!

Get a platter ready to for the presentation this dish deserves:

Here’s the whole red snapper plated on a platter of citrus slices:

Whole Red Snapper Summary

But how did it taste? It was outrageously outstanding in every awesome way! OK, that might be a little over the top. Let me be more specific. The meat was tender and juicy with a pronounced hint of the garlic and onion smoke and a tinge of citrus from the fruit in the slits and the cavity. The sauce had a nice combo of sweet and savory with a little kick of heat. The herbs in the cavity and the sauce gave it a certain freshness that screams of summer. I would definitely make this one again.

If you need other fish dishes we have prepared, click here. 

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Recipe Card:

Print Recipe

Whole Red Snapper - Stuffed, Sauced and Smoked

Whole Red Snapper, stuffed with citrus, onion, garlic and herbs, slathered in a sauce then smoked with garlic and onion and a little smoke wood

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Course: Entree, Fish, Main Course

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Fish, Grilling, Seafood, Whole Fish

Keyword: Fish, Grilled Fish, grilled seafood, Red Snapper, seafood, Smoked Fish, Snapper, Whole Fish, Whole Red Snapper

Servings: 6 People

Ingredients

For the Stuffed Portion

• 1 whole red snapper 4 to 6 lbs
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 limes sliced
• 2 slices red onion
• 3 slices orange
• 6 sprigs fresh thyme
• 6 sprigs fresh oregano
• 5 cloves garlic smashed

For the Sauced Portion

• 6 sprigs fresh thyme
• 6 sprigs fresh oregano
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 slices red onion
• 1 orange or tangerine peeled/chunked for sauce
• 1 tbsp lime zest (from 1½ limes)
• 3 tbsp lime juice (from 1½ limes)
• Kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• coarse ground white pepper
• 1 pinches crushed red pepper flakes
• ⅛ cup olive oil
• ⅛ cup dry white wine
• 1 dash your favorite hot sauce

To Smoke the Fish

• The remainder of the red onion from the sauce section Carved into thick rings
• The remaining cloves of garlic from the ear in the above section Separated and pealed
• Light smoke wood like pear, apple or peach

Instructions

Stuff the fish:

• Salt and pepper the whole red snapper inside and out
• With a sharp knife make a slit behind the gills at a 45 degree angle down the side of the fish and do so every inch and a half parallel to the first cut on both sides of the fish
• Stuff each slit in the sides of the fish with a slice of lime
• Place the rest of the ingredients from the stuffed section into the cavity of the red snapper

To make the sauce:

• Remove the leaves from the oregano and thyme stems and put the leaves in a food processor with the rest of the sauce ingredients
• Pulse till it forms a sauce
• Reserve the remaining garlic cloves and onion slices to use to smoke the fish
• Place the fish on a few layers of aluminum foil and then roll the edges up to create a foil nest
• Pour the sauce over the fish
• Place the fish in the fridge to marinate for 2-4 hours (optional)
• Prepare the grill for two zone or indirect grilling with coals on one side and nothing on the other
• Target temp inside the grill is 250 degrees
• Add a couple onion slices and 2-3 cloves of garlic to the coals and put the snapper on the other side
• Smoke until the fish reaches 130 degrees then cover with foil to form a pouch around the fish
• When the fish gets to 160, remove from the grill and serve

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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BBQ Grilling

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This article was initially published on: September 16, 2017