Fischbrötchen, a traditional German fish sandwich! Make your own fish sandwich at home with this easy recipe, featuring fish, pickled onions, lettuce and a creamy sandwich sauce. The perfect simple summer-friendly lunch or dinner, ready to eat in just 20 minutes!

If you enjoy fish and pickles, this is the sandwich for you!

Fischbrötchen is a traditional fish sandwich from Northern Germany, with a coastal origin dating back to the 19th century. Not every fischbrötchen is the same, but most feature some kind of bun filled with fish, pickles, onions, lettuce, and sometimes a remoulade sauce. It’s basically a fish burger.

This sandwich is made with very simple ingredients, but its flavours are complex. Depending on which ingredients you use, the taste of the sandwich can vary dramatically. The bun itself varies, and can be a round bun or baguette-shaped bun.

So, this is my personal favourite version of fischbrötchen. I discuss each of the ingredients into more detail below, offering my personal favourites, plus some alternative suggestions.

Fischbrötchen Ingredients

There are a few essential components required to assemble my version of this special fish sandwich, so here they are, broken down by type.

What Type of Bun To Use?

The type of bun used for your fischbrötchen will greatly change the sandwich, so pick a bun that you really enjoy. Some recipes use hamburger buns, kaiser rolls, dinner rolls, or single-serving baguette-style buns.

If you use dinner rolls, your fish sandwiches will be quite a bit smaller than if using a mini baguette or burger bun. I’ve suggested a serving size of 2 dinner rolls or 1 hamburger bun per adult person, on average.

Here are two of my favourite bun suggestions below.

The Fish

Smoked sardines are hands down the best fish you can use for fischbrötchen, in my personal opinion. I personally like the Brunswick brand of golden smoked sardine fillets, but any type will do really. I like the taste of smoked sardines better than kippered ones, and I also find the smoked ones smell less fishy than any other type.

There are many other options available for fischbrötchen that you can use if you don’t like sardines; here are just a few suggestions. Just for reference, a suggested serving of fish per person is about 80-100 grams, or approximately 3 ounces.

• smoked mackerel
• pickled herring
• breaded fish fillets
• crab cakes
• smoked salmon

Pickles and Onions

I love using my “pickled pink” red onions for fischbrötchen. They are super easy to make and I use them in many of my recipes.

Don’t want to pickle onions? You could also simply use a sliced fresh onion (I recommend red, but white is fine too) and add some sliced pickles on top. I mean, you can also add more pickles on top of the pickled pink onions too, go nuts!

The Leafy Greens

I like to use a green leaf lettuce in my fischbrötchen, but spinach or kale would work just as well and add a different flavour.

If using kale, I recommend pre-seasoning it with some olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and letting it marinate for 15 minutes before using in this recipe. Also remove the kale spines.

The Sauce

The sauce is always the best part for me. Bring on the sauce!

I offer a special remoulade-inspired sauce just for this recipe, but you could also use my dill pickle salad dressing, creamy lemon herb dip, or any creamy sauce of your personal preference.

What To Serve With Fischbrötchen?

Here are a few suggestions of what to serve with fischbrötchen! Beyond this, I believe it is most common in Germany to serve fischbrötchen with a cold beer.

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Fischbrötchen (Fish Sandwich)

Instructions

1. Prepare the sauce. In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, pickle juice or lemon juice, minced onion and pickles, garlic, parsley, and paprika. Mix well until all ingredients are thoroughly combined. Add salt and pepper to taste, then mix the sauce again and set aside.
2. Prepare the fish. If using whole smoked sardines, gently break them into bite-sized pieces. If the fish comes tinned in an oil or brine, drain the liquid before using the fish in this recipe.
3. Slice the buns or dinner rolls horizontally to open them.
4. Spread a generous amount of sauce on the bottom half of each bun.
5. Cut the lettuce leaves into bite-sized pieces, then place some lettuce pieces on top of the bun halves with sauce.
6. Add a layer of smoked sardine pieces on top of the lettuce.
7. Top the fish with the sliced onions. If adding pickles, place the sliced pickles on top of the onions.
8. Spread a little more sauce on the top half of each bun and garnish with fresh parsley if desired.
9. Place the top halves of the buns on each assembled sandwich. Serve immediately and enjoy!

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Smoked Fish, A Nostalgic Taste

I really love smoked fish since it reminds me of my grandfather. He used to smoke salmon in a hut on my grandparents’ property, and getting to eat that smoked salmon was a pinnacle joy in my childhood.

Now, getting any smoked fish reminds me fondly of him. He ate his fair share of pickled fish on toast too. Smoked sardines are a fairly recent addition to my regular shopping list, but they are super tasty in my opinion. Plus, I guess they aren’t very popular, because price-wise they are still pretty affordable compared to many other types of fish available in my area.

Here are a few words of advice about purchasing and preparing smoked sardines or pickled herring:

• To open the tin, pull on the tab on the lid, then gently sway your hand from side to side while pulling the tab upwards. I find this side to side motion especially helpful for opening sardine tins, since they are a long rectangle shape.
• Be careful opening your tinned fish. You don’t want the razor-sharp lid to come springing up suddenly (and potentially cut yourself) when it separates from the tin.

So, did you make fischbrötchen? Let me know!