Sayadieh (Syrian Fish with Rice, Caramelized Onions, and Garlic Aleppo Pepper Sauce)

Today I’m sharing Sayadieh or Syrian Fish with Rice, Caramelized Onions, and Garlic Aleppo Pepper Sauce.

There are endless variations for sayadieh. Some use a tahini sauce, and others use no sauce and add extra spices to the rice. My family’s recipe is the best of all. It’s tangy, bright and earthy. It basically has all the flavor components you’ll ever want in a meal.

Sayadieh comes from the coastal towns on the Mediterranean, where fish is abundant, fresh and sweet. You can use any white-fleshed fish, like cod or grouper. The fish is marinaded in lemon juice, Aleppo pepper paste, garlic, olive oil and coriander seeds. Caramelized onions are used for the topping and rice, which is also seasoned with cinnamon and safflower. The sauce served on the side is made with additional Aleppo pepper paste, lots of garlic, apple cider vinegar and more caramelized onions. The result is so incredibly tasty. The best part is that this recipe feeds a crows, or easily feeds your family for a couple of dinners.

Between the marinade, caramelized onions and the sauce, you might feel like it’s a lot of steps for a casual meal. Thankfully, multi-tasking is quite simple. If you’re cooking everything the same day, I suggest you prepare the marinade, brush it over the fish, soak the rice and then caramelize the onions as the fish marinades. You can also marinade and prepare the onions a day of ahead if you’re short on time. If you’re serving with toasted nuts, it’s good to prepare those while the onions caramelize. Before serving, make the sauce while you roast the fish and cook the rice.

Safflower is a spice commonly used in Syrian cooking, especially in stuffed veggie dishes (mahashi). Feel free to leave it out if you don’t have it on hand (although if you’re curious, you can read my #spicestory on safflower here). This dish is traditionally served with toasted pine nuts or skinless almonds, but I didn’t have any on hand, so I used coriander instead!

I hope you give this a try! If you do, I’d love to hear about it! Let people know how it worked out in the comments of this post. You can also tag me at @omayah.atassi or #omayahcooks on Instagram. I love to see your creations!