Easy Baked Mediterranean Octopus Recipe

Published: Mar 4, 2022 · Modified: May 25, 2023 by Makos

This oven baked octopus recipe is probably the easiest way to prepare octopus! Tender and delicious, it’s the perfect side dish for a Mediterranean seafood dinner.

There is a question I hear often from many people.

How do you cook a whole octopus?

The answer is actually pretty easy and a great example of the philosophy of the Mediterranean cuisine - easy, simple, healthy: You wrap it with foil and you slow cook it in the oven until tender and delicious.

That's how we do it in our Greek homes and it's as easy as it sounds.

This oven baked octopus recipe reminded me of an episode of CSI I watched some time ago, in which there was a scene where a little child was an eye witness to a crime. When the child was asked by the police to tell them what he saw, he told them that the victim had an alien with him! Later on, it was determined that the so called “alien” was actually an octopus!

So, I realize that an octopus may seem like an alien creature to someone who has never prepared it before, but there's nothing to worry about! Once you cook it and taste it, you will cook it again and again! If you serve it as a meze, you should definitely accompany it with some homemade fluffy taramasalata (especially if you adore everything seafood!).

This recipe is one of the two most popular octopus recipes in the Mediterranean! The other one is this Mediterranean octopus stew with elbow macaroni which I highly advise you to check out... It's delicious!

Being raised on an island of the Mediterranean where seafood is in abundance, I hadn’t realized that octopuses may seem strange and exotic to a lot of people!

But if you think about it, octopuses, squids and cuttlefish are extraordinary creatures with a physiology totally different from the animals which walk the earth, so it’s no wonder they may seem strange to some people. The most important thing for recipes like this with just a few ingredients is to find a good quality octopus!

Try to find one that comes from the Mediterranean or the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic is saltier than the Pacific something which (to my humble belief) produces tastier fish and seafood. And if you also happen to find some good cuttlefish, don't neglect to make this easy cuttlefish stew!

Today’s Baked Mediterranean octopus is a very easy and simple recipe, so simple even someone with zero expertise in the kitchen can pull through! Actually, it doesn’t even seem like a real recipe because all you have to do is wrap the octopus with baking paper and foil and just bake it for an hour and a half.

The only difficulty you may encounter is during the preparation, where you have to remove the tooth from its center and clean its hood from its internal organs, though in most store bought octopuses this has already been done.

What to serve Octopus with:

this yellow split pea puree with sautéed mushrooms and caramelized onions is a classic traditional
fluffy rice
Greek fried zucchini
Juicy Mediterranean skillet shrimp (saganaki)
These olive oil oven chips from foodnetwork also sound good 🙂

The secret for tender octopus:

Traditionally, Greek fishermen use to pound and then rub the octopus against the sea rocks in order to "break" the hard tissue and make its flesh tender.

This procedure however is very cruel - though there are studies that suggest that octopus perceive pain differently than mammals. The other way is to freeze fresh octopus for 10-15 days. The freezer will have the same effect as the traditional pounding.

Some notes/tips:

Octopus is low in fat and rich in protein, so this dish is considered to be very healthy!
Keep in mind that octopus has high water content, so it will water out and shrink during baking.
DON’T add any salt! It already has all the salt it needs.
Bake it low and slow for a tender and fragrant result!
If you’re up to it, keep its juice and use it in a seafood risotto or other seafood dishes.

Recipe