GASTRONOMY: Annually, a shoal of sardines beach across coastal area of South Africa bringing along the excitement of local residents who flock to collect their share of fishy goodness! Nothing drives more pleasure that experimenting with the silvery delight of stuffed sardines.
Now you should give this exciting spin on fresh fish stuffed with vegetables of your choice and then wrapped in meaty goodness. This wholesome fish dish is something we want to taste! You can head on over to B. Nagiah’s for your fresh batch of sardines now in stock!
Here’s the bacon-wrapped stuffed sardine recipe!
Ingredients
- 8 fresh sardines, cleaned and gutted
- 1/2 cup lime juice
- Stuffing of choice (chili paste, shallots, etc.)
- 8 strips of bacon
Prepping your sardines
Butterfly the sardines by cutting off their heads, and then removing their backbones with a boning knife:

Gently slide a boning knife between the bones and the flesh.


Pull the backbone away from the flesh and then snip with kitchen shears.
Pour the lime juice into a shallow dish large enough to hold all of the sardines. Place the sardines, flesh side down, into the lime juice and allow to marinate for 10 minutes. Remove sardines from lime juice and place on a work surface flesh side up.

Stuff the sardines with shallots, chilli paste, plain old black pepper, or whatever else you’d like. Close the butterflied sardines and wrap each sardine in a strip of bacon. Grill the sardines over medium-high heat, turning every few minutes, until bacon is cooked and crisp–about 5-8 minutes total.
Then you can also try out the paprika sardine recipe by Filipino food blogger, Marvin Gapultos by clicking here
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