Can You Eat Angelfish? How Do They Taste?

Angelfish is one of the most beautiful species people like to keep in aquariums as they are popular with their long and elegant dorsal fin, vibrant personalities, and ability to breed.

However, some people think about it as a delicious meal. If you are one of them, you are in the right place.

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about angelfish, from whether they’re poisonous to how they taste.

Can You Eat Saltwater Angelfish?

The direct answer is yes. Some angelfish species can be edible. Gray angelfish, for example, is a type of saltwater angelfish that is commonly consumed.

On the other hand, there are also inedible angelfish species, such as the queen angelfish. Hazardous chemicals like ciguatoxin found in their body make them poisonous to eat.

Why Is Queen Angelfish Poisonous?

The queen angelfish is a popular saltwater aquarium fish. The deeper these queen angelfish live, the more poisonous chemicals are accumulated in its body.

These fish are plagued by parasites that attach themselves to their scales and gills. As a consequence of that, the flesh of the queen angelfish may have poison hazard elements.

There are stories that some individuals have developed sores after eating queen angelfish.

These outbreaks may be due to ciguatera poisonous that is found in the flesh of the young queen angelfish and can be transferred into the meat during preparation through contact with the fish’s skin or guts.

Can You Remove Ciguatoxin from Queen Angelfish?

Ciguatoxin is not identifiable by smell, taste, or appearance. It is also thermally stable, so cooking or freezing it will not destroy it.

Additionally, ciguatoxin can’t be removed by salting, drying, smoking, or marinating.

As a result, the poisoned fish may still be hazardous even if you cook it well.

Here is a youtube guide talking about the Ciguatera Fish Poisoning.

How to Avoid Poisonous Fish?

It’s a crucial question because you certainly don’t want to be poisoned.

Ciguatera poisoning is one of the most dangerous components found in wild fish, with sport-caught fish being the most common cause of poisoning (79 percent), so avoiding it is crucial.

If consumers were informed to avoid eating the heads, viscera, and roe of reef fish and fish caught in regions where ciguatoxin intoxication is frequent, incidences of ciguatera would most certainly decrease.

Also, the larger the fish, the more likely it is to be poisonous, therefore, some experts suggest avoiding fish weighing more than 1.35 kg to 2.25 kg, but this is only a cautious prediction.

However, there’s no way of knowing how big the fish was from which the steak or filet was sliced, so this method can’t be guaranteed!

It’s also important to avoid organ meats, including the roe, since they have higher amounts of pollutants.

How to Clean Angelfish?

Now that we’ve established that not all wild fish are poisonous, it’s time to learn how to clean the ones that aren’t poisonous so we can enjoy a delicious meal!

1. To prepare a sand-free meal, rinse the fish with cool salted water and carefully clean all skin and bones.

2. Cut off any dark meat near the body cavity as this has stronger, salty flavors.

3. Cut the head and remove the scales by scraping them with a knife.

4. Cut off the pectoral fins and make a slit along the back of the fish from the gill cover to the anal fins.

5. Open the belly and remove the intestines, bloodline, and pyloric caeca.

6. Clean the fish by removing any bones left in it with tweezers or scraping them with a knife.

7. Wrap the cleaned marine angelfish in foil and put it in the freezer to get rid of any remaining bloodline.

Do Angelfish Taste Good?

The cool fact is that sauteed angelfish is a delicious and convenient lunch or dinner option. The refreshing caper sauce accents the delicate flavor of the angelfish.

Last Words

We hope you have enjoyed our article as much as we did. If you still have any questions, please share them with us in the comment section below.