Pescatarian recipes from whatever's in your fridge

The diet that is neither category

Pescatarian cooking falls between the recipe sites' boxes. The vegetarian section has no fish. The fish section is full of bacon-wrapped things and chorizo in the stew. You end up adapting, which means reading every recipe to the end.

Grublin writes the dish pescatarian from the start. Tell Grub what's in, or what you fancy, and the paella comes with prawns and no chorizo, the stew with white fish and no lardons, the salad with tuna and no chicken.

What "steered" means here, and how to get a hard rule instead

Grublin re-checks four diets in the finished recipe by code: vegetarian, vegan, halal and kosher. Pescatarian is not one of them. The request states the recipe must be pescatarian, the model follows it reliably, and if meat slips in you tap Tweak and it's gone. But there is no second check by our code.

If you want the no-meat part enforced rather than steered, there's a clean way: set vegetarian instead and ask for fish by name. The vegetarian rule is code-enforced for meat, and when you type "salmon" or "prawns" into what you've got, or say "I fancy a fish curry", Grub is working from your explicit ingredient. Note that the vegetarian check also flags fish, so a fish recipe under that setting will prompt a rewrite; the better pattern is to keep pescatarian set and use Tweak on the rare miss. Both options are explained plainly so you can choose the trade-off.

Fish, shellfish and the allergen settings

Pescatarian and the fish and shellfish allergens interact in a way worth knowing. Set shellfish as an allergen alongside pescatarian and you get fin fish only, with prawns, crab, mussels, squid and the rest enforced out by code. Set fish as an allergen and pescatarian becomes, in effect, vegetarian with shellfish. Combine as your household needs.

What to expect in the recipes

Grub writes from your fridge or your craving, so there is no fixed list, but pescatarian plus your kit tends to produce: baked and pan-fried fish with roasted vegetables, fish curries and stews, prawn stir-fries and pasta, tuna and salmon salads, fishcakes, chowders, paella and risotto, frittatas and shakshuka, halloumi and paneer dishes, bean and lentil dinners, and the full vegetarian range on the nights there's no fish in. Say "I fancy a Sunday roast" and it comes back as a whole roasted fish or a side of salmon with all the trimmings.

Pescatarian and something else

• Pescatarian and gluten-free. Set both. Batter becomes cornflour; the gluten rule is enforced.
• Pescatarian and dairy-free. Set both and the creamy chowder is built on coconut or oat.
• Pescatarian and low-carb. Natural allies: fish and vegetables, both steered.
• Pescatarian with a shellfish allergy. Set shellfish. Fin fish yes, prawns never, enforced by code.

In your kitchen

Tell Grub your kit and the dinner is written for it: an air fryer for crisp-skinned fish, no oven for pan-fried dinners, an Aga for a whole baked fish. Set who's eating and the portions follow.