This simple baked fish recipe is a winner! With a cornmeal crust, you can transform tilapia into Crispy Baked Fish Tacos in under an hour. Especially good topped with the crema, these baked fish tacos make Taco Tuesday special.
Fish tacos are a weeknight staple for several reasons, not the least of which is how simple they are to make. Beyond simplicity, they’re also pretty inexpensive and of course delicious. These Crispy Baked Fish Tacos also happen to be pretty healthful as well — bonus.
You can buy boxes of cornmeal dredge at the grocery store, but I prefer to mix it up myself with ingredients from the pantry. It gives me more control over the flavors and takes all of 2 minutes to assemble.
You can use any type of fish for these tacos but I think tilapia is a good choice because its firm and doesn’t flake apart and it’s also very inexpensive compared to some other varieties. A pound of fresh tilapia at my grocer was $7.99 – many other fish varieties are upwards of $16/pound, so this is a very economical choice.
Cut out the bloodline (that’s the dark red area) and discard it then trim the fillets into fingers that will fit into your tortillas. I usually use 2 fingers per taco. Coat the fish fingers with the cornmeal dredge.
Arrange the fish on a wire rack set over a baking sheet and spritz them with a little olive oil or vegetable spray.
You can serve the fish tacos with sour cream and plain salsa, but one of my favorite accompaniments is this cilantro garlic lime crema. Its so tangy and bright it’ll make your taste buds do a happy dance!
Some other favorite toppings include salsa verde either this authentic version or this charred one, chopped cabbage, queso fresco, fresh cilantro, avocado or pico de gallo. My avocados weren’t quite ready, so I skipped them on this night.
We like ours on lightly charred corn tortillas, but flour tortillas are delicious too.
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Crispy Baked Fish Tacos
ingredients
For The Fish
- 1/3 cup cornmeal
- 1/4 cup Wondra flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1 pound tilapia fillets or other firm whitefish
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- spritz vegetable spray
For the Tangy Garlic Herb Crema
- 8 ounces sour cream I used fat free
- 1/2 cup cilantro
- 1 large clove garlic
- 1 lime zested
For Tacos:
- 8-10 small tortillas (flour or corn), heated through in the oven or in a dry pan.
- 1/2 cup cilantro
- 1 cup green cabbage shredded
- 1 cup red cabbage shredded
- 3/4 cup salsa verde or other salsa
- 1 cup queso fresco crumbled (optional)
- lime cut into wedges
instructions
For The Fish
- Preheat the oven to 375°. Place a metal rack over a baking sheet and spray the rack with vegetable spray. Set aside.
- In a shallow bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, Wondra flour, cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper. Set aside.
- Cut the fish fillets into fingers and brush with the olive oil. Toss the fish fingers a few at a time into the flour mixture until well coated. Transfer fish to the baking rack. Spray the top of the fish lightly with vegetable spray. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and done.
For The Tangy Garlic Herb Crema
- In a blender, combine the cilantro, garlic and lime zest. Pulse until finely chopped. Add the sour cream and blend until garlic and herbs are well incorporated and crema is slightly green in tint. Transfer to a serving bowl and keep refrigerated until ready to eat.
For The Tacos:
- To build the tacos, fill the tortilla with 1-2 pieces of crispy fish and top with shredded cabbage, sprigs of cilantro, queso fresco, salsa verde and Tangy Garlic Herb Crema
Nutrition
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More Mexican Inspired Delights:
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- Mexican Chopped Salad
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- Authentic Mexican Chalupas
Hi! What is a good substitute for the Wondra flour?
If you don’t have it on hand, you can substitute all purpose flour for the Wondra.
This is such a guiltless pleasure. Fish tacos are always welcome, and fried ones even more so ! Beautiful pictures !!
I absolutely love the sound of these, fish tacos are my fave. Your photos are gorgeous!
Glad you like the pix, Emily — The tacos are really good too!
This brings back nice memories with my mom when we use to go to Dana Point for fish tacos. You did a great job creating this recipe and love the spiciness you’ve added to the breading.
Thank you Ginny!
Gorgeous photos! I love that these are baked instead of fried- that means I can eat more chips and salsa. 🙂 Ha!
I like the way you think!
I am so crazy about fish tacos! I love that you have baked the fish! Makes it so much healthier than frying the fish! Yum! Now I have make them for dinner!
Fried fish is one of my guilty pleasures, so I love that you made this healthier for me!
I think fried fish is everyone’s guilty pleasure!