Wels Catfish Fillet Under Mushrooms and Cheese, Oven-Baked

Name: Wels Catfish Fillet Under Mushrooms and Cheese, Oven-Baked
Prep time: 50 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 90 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: Wels catfish fillet – 2 pcs. Button mushrooms – 150 g. Garlic – 2 cloves. Onion – 2 pcs. Mayonnaise – to taste. Hard cheese – to taste. Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp. Salt – to taste. Ground black pepper – to taste.

Published: 05.09.2026

Updated: 05.09.2026

🤤 Здорові рецепти щодня

Cooking time 90 minutes Portions 4 servings

This is "à la française", only with catfish instead of meat, and catfish suits this construction better than any of our other fish. Its fillet is firm, without small bones, and it can hold three layers without turning to mush.

The fish is fried before assembly, and it's not worth skipping this step. Raw under the layers of onion, mushrooms, and cheese, it would release all its juice into the dish, and instead of a bake you'd get fish in its own broth.

Mayonnaise appears twice in the recipe — in the marinade and on top. That's a lot even for fatty catfish, and the top layer can easily be replaced with sour cream: the cheese on top will hold in the moisture either way.

A fillet under a cap isn't the only option for catfish: whole wels catfish baked with potatoes and garlic goes onto the tray undivided. Swap cheese for mayonnaise and the same cap works on pike-perch baked with mayonnaise and garlic.

Caloric content: 215kcal

Ingredients

Wels catfish fillet – 2 pcs.
Button mushrooms – 150 g.
Garlic – 2 cloves.
Onion – 2 pcs.
Mayonnaise – to taste.
Hard cheese – to taste.
Vegetable oil – 1 tbsp.
Salt – to taste.
Ground black pepper – to taste.

Cut and salt the fillet

Cut the thawed catfish fillet into pieces, salt, and pepper.

Marinate

Coat with mayonnaise, add minced garlic, mix, and leave for thirty minutes.

Fry

Heat oil in a pan and fry the marinated pieces on both sides.

Arrange in a baking dish

Transfer the fried fish into a baking dish in a single layer.

Sauté the onion

Cut the onion into half-rings, sauté in oil, and spread over the fish.

Add the mushrooms

Slice the button mushrooms and arrange them over the onion.

Sprinkle with cheese

Grate the hard cheese coarsely and cover the mushroom layer with it.

Coat and preheat the oven

Coat the top with mayonnaise or sour cream. Preheat the oven to 180 °C.

Place in the oven

Put the assembled dish into the preheated oven.

Bake

Bake for forty minutes, until the cheese takes on a golden crust.

Take it out

Remove the dish from the oven and let it rest for five minutes.

Serve

Divide into portions and serve with mashed potatoes.

Notes

Frying isn't an extra step. Raw fish under the layers releases all its juice into the dish, and the bake ends up swimming.
Half an hour of marinating is enough. Garlic with mayonnaise works fast, and there's no point holding it longer.
Slice the mushrooms, don't dice them. Slices lie in a layer and hold up the cheese on top; diced mushrooms fall through between the fish and the onion.
The top mayonnaise can be replaced with sour cream. The dish is already rich enough: catfish, cheese, and mayonnaise in the marinade. Sour cream on top works just the same.
Grate the cheese coarsely. Finely grated cheese spreads and burns to a crust before the fish inside is done.

Questions and Answers

How long to bake catfish under cheese?

Forty minutes at 180 °C. The fish is already fried, so this is finishing it off, not cooking from scratch.

Why fry the fish before the oven?

So it doesn't release its juice into the dish. Raw under the layers, it would simply cook in its own broth.

Can I skip the mayonnaise?

In the marinade it's replaced with sour cream and garlic, and on top with sour cream too. The taste becomes less sharp, and the construction doesn't suffer.

Which mushrooms work best?

Button mushrooms, as in the recipe. Wild mushrooms release more moisture and are better fried separately first.

Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.