Mañana comeremos bacalao con puré, pero hoy prefiero la merluza a la plancha.

Comeremos is the simple future of comer: we will eat.

• comemos = we eat / we are eating
• comeremos = we will eat

Because the sentence includes mañana (tomorrow), Spanish often uses the future to make the time reference explicit: Mañana comeremos... = Tomorrow we’ll eat...

That said, in everyday Spanish, especially in conversation, people also often use the present for a future event when the context is clear:

• Mañana comemos bacalao.

That also sounds natural.

It comes from the infinitive comer plus the future ending for nosotros:

• comer
  • -emos = comeremos

Future tense endings are added to the whole infinitive:

• comeré = I will eat
• comerás = you will eat
• comerá = he/she/it will eat
• comeremos = we will eat
• comeréis = you all will eat (Spain)
• comerán = they will eat

This is different from English, where you use will + verb.

This is a very common question.

With food nouns in Spanish, the article is often optional or context-dependent, especially when talking about what someone is eating.

So:

• comeremos bacalao = we’ll eat cod
• prefiero la merluza = I prefer hake

Why the difference?

A likely reason is that bacalao is being presented as the dish/menu item in a more general way, while la merluza sounds more like the hake option or hake as a dish/type of fish.

Spanish often uses the definite article with foods more than English does:

• Me gusta el pan.
• Prefiero la sopa.
• Hoy comemos pasta.

So both patterns are normal, depending on nuance and style.

Prefiero means I prefer.

It comes from the verb preferir.

Spanish usually does not need the subject pronoun because the verb ending already shows who is doing the action:

• prefiero = I prefer
• prefieres = you prefer
• prefiere = he/she/you formal prefers

So prefiero by itself already means I prefer.
You can say yo prefiero, but that adds emphasis, for example:

• Yo prefiero la merluza, pero él prefiere el bacalao.

Also note that preferir is a stem-changing verb:

• prefiero
• prefieres
• prefiere
• preferimos
• preferís
• prefieren

The e → ie change happens in most forms, but not in nosotros and vosotros.

A la plancha is a fixed cooking expression meaning grilled on a flat metal plate / griddle-cooked.

So:

• merluza a la plancha = grilled hake
• pollo a la plancha = grilled chicken

You should learn a la plancha as a set phrase. In cooking language, Spanish uses a + method in several common expressions:

• a la plancha = grilled / griddle-cooked
• al horno = baked
• a la parrilla = grilled over a grill
• al vapor = steamed

Here a does not literally translate neatly as to. It is just part of the idiomatic way Spanish expresses cooking style.

Yes. Puré usually means purée / mashed purée, and in food contexts it is often understood from context.

So bacalao con puré means cod with purée. In many cases, that might mean mashed potatoes, but it could also be another kind of purée depending on the context.

In a fuller form, you might hear:

• con puré de patatas = with mashed potatoes
• con puré de verduras = with vegetable purée

If the type of purée is obvious, Spanish often leaves it simply as puré.

Because pero means but, and it links two contrasting clauses:

• Mañana comeremos bacalao con puré
• pero hoy prefiero la merluza a la plancha

In Spanish, it is very common to put a comma before pero when it joins two full clauses, just as in English you often write a comma before but.

So the punctuation is standard and natural.

Yes, Spanish word order is flexible.

The sentence starts with Mañana and later hoy to highlight the time contrast:

• Tomorrow we’ll eat cod...
• but today I prefer hake...

This makes the contrast very clear.

Other possible orders include:

• Comeremos bacalao con puré mañana...
• Hoy prefiero la merluza a la plancha, pero mañana comeremos bacalao con puré.

These are grammatically possible, but the original version is especially natural because it foregrounds the contrast between mañana and hoy.

They are two different kinds of fish:

• bacalao = cod
• merluza = hake

A useful Spain-specific note: bacalao can sometimes refer not only to cod in general but also, in many food contexts, to salt cod, which is very traditional in Spain. The exact meaning depends on the dish and context.

Merluza is a very common fish in Spain and often appears in expressions like:

• merluza a la plancha
• merluza al horno
• merluza en salsa

Because here mañana means tomorrow, which is an adverb/time expression, not a proper noun.

In Spanish, days of the week and months are also normally not capitalized, unlike in English:

• lunes
• abril

So mañana stays lowercase unless it begins the sentence, as it does here. It is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence, not because of its meaning.

A few useful pronunciation notes for Spain Spanish:

• mañana: the ñ sounds like ny in canyon
• bacalao: in much of Spain, the c before a is a normal k sound
• prefiero: the ie is a diphthong, roughly preh-FYE-ro
• merluza: in most of Spain, z is pronounced like th in think
• plancha: ch is like English ch in chair

So in central/northern Spain, merluza sounds roughly like mer-LOO-tha.

Also, ll in bacalao is not relevant here, but learners often confuse it with y. In most of Spain today, ll and y are pronounced the same.

For comeremos, yes: Spanish often uses ir a + infinitive for the near future.

So you could say:

• Mañana vamos a comer bacalao con puré.

That sounds natural and common.

But for prefiero, using voy a preferir would usually change the meaning.
Prefiero expresses a present preference: I prefer.
Voy a preferir would mean something like I’m going to prefer, which is unusual unless you are talking about a future change in preference.

So in this sentence:

• hoy prefiero la merluza is the natural choice.

Yes, very much so.

Several parts sound especially natural in food-related contexts:

• bacalao
• merluza
• con puré
• a la plancha
• prefiero...

This is exactly the kind of Spanish you might hear when:

• talking about menus
• choosing between dishes
• discussing what to eat today versus tomorrow
• ordering in a restaurant in Spain

In particular, a la plancha is one of the most useful food phrases to learn for Spain.