Herring in Wine Sauce
A flavorful appetizer made with marinated herring in a spiced wine-based sauce. Tasty with boiled or baked potatoes!
Updated : 29 July, 2025
Easy
More than 1 hour.
Ingredients
2
Herring
Marinade
250 milliliters
Red wine
30 milliliters
Red wine vinegar
30 grams
Ginger
7 grams
Cinnamon
8
Allspice
3
Cloves
1
Laurel leaf
1 tablespoon
Sugar
Table
Table of volume measurements:
- teaspoon - 5 ml
- dessert spoon - 10 ml
- tablespoon - 20 ml
- glass - 200 ml
Advices
Advice
How to properly fillet a whole fish? Remove the tail, head, and fins. Cut along the spine down to the backbone. Turn on its side. Slice the meat off the spine with a sharp knife. Flip the fish and slice the fillet from the other side. Clean inside, removing the black membrane, as it tastes bitter and will spoil the flavor. Rinse and dry well.
Preparation
Step 1
Choose lightly salted, firm, and fatty herring. You can buy it ready-made or salt it yourself. Use either red or white wine vinegar. If you don’t have wine vinegar, substitute with regular white vinegar. You can add spices like coriander or whole mustard seeds to taste.
Step 2
Peel the ginger and grate it finely. You can replace fresh ginger with an equal amount of dried ginger.
Step 3
In a saucepan, combine wine, grated ginger, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, bay leaf, and sugar. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil. Once it starts boiling, remove from heat. Let the marinade cool to room temperature, then stir in the wine vinegar.
Step 4
While the marinade is cooling, prepare the fish. Gut the herring, remove the head, tail, and fins, and scale it. To make skin removal easier, rinse the fish briefly with boiling water.
Step 5
Slice the herring in half lengthwise, remove the spine and bones. Cut the fillets into pieces about ¾ inch (2 cm) wide. To save time, you can use store-bought pre-filleted lightly salted herring.
Step 6
Place the cut fish into a container with a lid.
Step 7
Pour the wine marinade over the fish and refrigerate for at least 6-8 hours or overnight.
Step 8
Shake off excess marinade from the fish and place on a serving plate. Garnish with onion rings and fresh herbs. Serve with any side dish, but it pairs best with boiled or baked potatoes. Enjoy!