These oven baked fish tacos are bursting with flavour! The fish has a nice crispy coating, there’s lots of fresh garnish and it’s all topped with a spicy and smoky chipotle sauce. Plus, these baked fish tacos are on the table in under 25 minutes!
Hey everyone! Happy taco Tuesday!
Today I’m bringing you an easy fish taco recipe. These are unreal. The sauce is the bomb dot com. I think I could honestly tip the entire batch of sauce on my head & pour it into my pie hole and call it a day. Seriously. But that would be way inappropriate and then there would be none left for the tacos and that would be a shame (I kid, I kid)!
How To Make Them
- Cut fillets into pieces.
- Dredge in spice mixture.
- Dip into egg mixture.
- Dredge in cornflake mixture and press to adhere.
- Bake fish and assemble tacos.
That’s pretty much the basics of this tilapia taco recipe (full details are in the recipe card below).
Chipotle Sauce
Now for these tilapia fish tacos, you’re gonna want a delicious sauce, right? Well this chipotle sauce recipe is really really good!
Initially, I intended to make a chipotle mango sauce for this recipe, but when I started to peel the perfectly firm and ripe mango it was brown on the inside. Bummer. I guess that’s all you can do when you live on an island and much of the province’s food has to be shipped in from elsewhere.
Now, it’s not what you may be thinking; it’s not an island like in the Caribbean or something where there are loads of white sandy beaches and turquoise blue oceans all romantical and stuff (yes, I made this word up and yes I do use it).
Despite not living in the Caribbean, I really love where I live. We have lots of trees and obviously surrounded by water, but it can get cold. And I think we have like 2 weeks of warm summer weather, that’s if we’re lucky. What we don’t have in weather we make up for in beautiful scenery, a rich culture and unique food.
All this and, not to mention, if you aren’t from here and you visit you can get ‘screeched in’ where there’s a whole process involving you kissing a cod. Yeap, pucker up, baby! Don’t worry, it’s followed by a nice shot of rum. Ha!
Anyhow, onto this easy chipotle sauce for those delicious fish tacos.
So to make this fish taco sauce you simply place all the ingredients (mayonnaise, yogurt, chipotle peppers, lime and salt) in a food processor and process until smooth. Nothing to it!
If you don’t want to mess with making a sauce, you can certainly use salsa or your favourite hot sauce instead.
Tips and Variations
For these tacos, tilapia was used because I like the texture and firmness of it. Cod is another great option.
Make the sauce for tacos as spicy as you like. If you want more spice, add a little more chipotle or adobo sauce. If you like it less spicy, add less.
Don’t have cornflake crumbs? Use panko bread crumbs! These oven baked fish tacos will still be crispy, golden and delicious!
Garnish Ideas for Fish Tacos
- Chipotle Sauce (as above)
- Chopped cilantro
- Sliced red onion or pickled onion
- Diced or sliced avocado or guacamole
- A good squeeze of fresh lime
More Yummy Recipes
If you try these baked fish tacos, be sure to leave a comment below!
Oven Baked Fish Tacos
Ingredients
Chipotle Sauce
- ¼ cup light mayonnaise
- ¼ cup plain Greek yogurt
- 3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
- 1 tablespoon lime juice, from about ½ of a lime
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Tacos
- 2 (6 ounce) tilapia fillets (boneless and skinless)
- 1.5 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1.5 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup cornflake crumbs
- 6 flour tortillas, warmed according to package instructions
- Cooking spray, to grease sheet pan and fish
Garnish and Serving Ideas (optional)
- Red onion, thinly sliced
- Red cabbage, thinly sliced
- Avocado, halved, pitted, peeled and sliced
- Jalapeno pepper, thinly sliced
- Cilantro, roughly chopped
- Lime wedges
Instructions
Chipotle Sauce
- Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process to combine. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
Tacos
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahreneheit.
- Carefully cut each fish fillet into about 6 strips. Should have about 12 strips (pieces) in total, roughly.
- Get you dredging station ready: In a shallow dish, mix together cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper and chili power. Then, whisk egg in a bowl. Finally, place cornflake crumbs on a shallow plate.
- Start dredging your fish. Dredge each fish strip in spice mixture, shaking off excess. Then, dip into egg mixture, again shaking off excess. Finally, dredge in cornflakes, pressing to adhere.
- Spray a sheet pan with cooking spray. Spread fish strips out onto pan and spray them with cooking spray (optional).
- Bake for 10 minutes; turn fish and bake for 2 minutes more or until fish is cooked through, is opaque and flakes easily with a fork (insert the tines of a fork into the thickest part of the fish at an angle and twist gently; it should flake easily). Once done, remove from the oven.
- Meanwhile, while fish is cooking in the oven, you can warm the tortillas in a dry cast-iron pan over medium heat (optional) or per package instructions.
- To assemble tacos, place two strips of fish in each taco, garnish (as desired) and drizzle with chipotle sauce. Serve immediately with lime wedges (if using). Enjoy!
A note on times provided: appliances vary, any prep and/or cook times provided are estimates only.
Tried this recipe?
If you do make this recipe, thank you!! It would mean so much if you could leave a comment below. Love to know how you enjoyed it, and it helps other readers too!
Meg | Meg is Well
I want to have these with a margarita or ice cold beer! That batter looks so crispy! I love chilies in adobo sauce-I started putting the extras I don’t use in a jar and freeze them whenever I want a little spice in my life.
Girl Heart Food
I hear ya, Meg! I actually had them for dinner tonight and they hit the spot! I love chipotle peppers and use them regularly. I’ve never thought about freezing them….great idea! Thanks so much for stopping by 🙂
smitha
I cant wait to comment. drooling over and this is my favorite. Just feeling like grabbing my part and enjoying
Girl Heart Food
Thanks Smitha! I love fish tacos too! They’re awesome, aren’t they?
Kevin | Keviniscooking
So happy to have found your site. Living here in San Diego I eat many a fish taco and this one sounds right up my alley for sure. Methinks I’ll be make reading this blog a routine, love your writing, and from looking at the other commenters, I feel I am in good company. Thanks Dawn!
Girl Heart Food
Thanks so much, Kevin!! That’s very nice of you to say, appreciate it a lot 🙂 Hope you get a chance to try the recipe; I’d love to hear how you like them. Have a great weekend!!
Kathryn @ Family Food on the Table
Taco night is of course a favorite around here and I’m partial to fish tacos myself! I love how you stepped it up a couple of notches with this smoky sauce – yum! (And good riddance mango – that happens to me, too, even not on an island… sometimes it makes way for better things!) Can’t wait to give these a try for a new twist on taco Tuesday!
Girl Heart Food
I’m partial to fish tacos too, Kathryn! So light so I don’t mind eating an extra one 😉 Hope you enjoy them as much as I do! Have a great week!
Rachelle @ Beer Girl Cooks
What a perfect Taco Tuesday recipe! That sauce looks fabulous with or without mangoes! I want to hear more about this very interesting island!
Girl Heart Food
Thanks Rachelle! It is pretty interesting around here 🙂 Have a Happy Easter weekend!!
Serena @ Serena's Kitchen
These look amazing! Fish tacos totally remind me of summer, and I could really use that thinking today because it is really blah out there! Maybe I’ll whip up some of these fish tacos, set up my lawnchair in the living room, crank up the heat, and pretend it’s summer out! Oh yeah, and crack a nice cold beer to go with these as well of course 😉 .. Yikes only 2 weeks of summer weather, where are you? Sounds pretty though!
Girl Heart Food
Thanks for stopping by Serena! Appreciate the comments 🙂 That sounds like a great plan to me 😉 I know, we have a fair bit of rain in the Summer or fog or it’s not supper warm. Last Summer the weather was not great at all. That’s Newfoundland’s weather for ya!! Have a great weekend, girl!
demeter | beaming baker
Dawn!! Did I tell you that I always start smiling when I read your posts? 🙂 <— see? 😉 This sauce looks absolutely spectacular. I may just need to dip chips in this, crackers in it, cookies… erm… Ahem. Oh, forget it! I'm just gonna pour the whole lot of it in my mouth. Loved hearing about your island life. Erik and I dream of moving to Hawaii one day. Sigh… In any case, I just LOVED your step by step photos. Thanks for an amazing post, Dawn! Have a wonderful weekend. xoxo
Girl Heart Food
Thanks Demeter! Appreciate that and so nice of you to say!! I’m right there with ya on the sauce! Maybe I should have just named the post, Smoky Chipotle Sauce with Oven Baked Fish Tacos, lol!! Hawaii sounds delightful, especially since it’s soooo cold and windy here today. Still have my winter jacket and boots on. I could do with some warm weather right about now. So happy you enjoyed the post, girl! Have a wonderful weekend too! xo